Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.
Scott Allen 0:00
Okay, everybody, welcome to the Phronesis podcast practical wisdom for leaders. We have a return guest I always love these conversations I really cherish this time. We have Dr. Barbara Kellerman, who is with us again today. She is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership. She was the founding executive director of the center and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over 20 years. She has held professorships at Fordham, Tufts Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Uppsala, Dartmouth, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. During the spring of 2022, she was a visiting professor of leadership at Christopher Newport University, and she also served as director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at the University of Maryland. Barbara, this is your fourth visit to the podcast. What do listeners...what's something else we can tell listeners about you that maybe people don't know?
Barbara Kellerman 0:57
Well, they can't, they probably don't know, because this, this has just become clear in the last month or two that I am having yet...another this is getting so boring. And I apologize for being tedious. Yet another book is coming out either late this year or early next year by Oxford University Press. And this one is called Leadership: From Bad to Worse. So me again, on the bright and sunny side of the street, there you go. But as it turns out, my interest in bad persists. So what can I do other than apologize?
Scott Allen 1:31
From bad to worse. Well, I will have that conversation as well. And in speaking of potentially that topic, I imagined the name that we're going to discuss today could show up possibly in that volume. But you know, we were going back and forth talking about potential topics for our conversation today. And I kind of recoiled at one. And then I thought to myself, "wow, we should explore this a little bit." You had written a blog post about the Leader of the Year in 2022. And your Leader of the Year was Vladimir Putin. And so I'm excited to kind of dig into this. And you frame it up beautifully. You say, look, there's one way I measured this, and it was 'impact.' That was the way I measured it. So talk a little bit about him being your Leader of the Year and 2022. And then let's go through some of the different elements of why you came to that conclusion. I think this is - I imagine even some of the listeners would have recoiled at the title of this podcast episode. So you're gonna lay out a strong case in the time that we're together today.
Barbara Kellerman 2:37
Again, Scott, thank you so much for having me back. These conversations are always lively, and I hope they're interesting for listeners as well. They certainly are for me. You know, the phrase used to be for many for decades, 'Man of the Year.' So that phrase came from Time Magazine, as some of your listeners will remember, came from what for many years was a time coming out, usually at the end of the year in late December, with the person, the man it was 'man of the year' that they thought was the most important and significant. In general, these were positive figures much more often than not, the Winston Churchill's and Franklin Roosevelt's and corporate leaders have great eminence and prominence. But not always. They had some men of the year who were negative figures. When I started doing a leader of the year, I sort of wavered myself, how should I use that? There are two problems with it. One is the notion of the Person of the Year, how are you defining it? Yeah, but the second and perhaps for your listeners, Scott, possibly the more problematic, one is how do we, in what I call the 'leadership field' of the 'leadership industry,' use the word leader when we use that word leader this, this issue goes back decades to how are we using it? As I have argued many times overwhelmingly, we use it in a positive way, as if the word good was the adjective good was automatically placed before the word 'leader.' So when we say we're teaching a leadership course, or how to be a good leader, we're obviously invariably suggesting we're teaching people how to be 'good leaders,' however good is defined. I have for decades had trouble with that definition because, to me, this goes back to James McGregor Burns his classic tome Leadership, where he uses the word leader only in a good sense, and when he talks about the likes of Adolf Hitler, he uses the word 'power wielder.' I have always had trouble with that because in ordinary parlance, the ordinary daily use of language, we say Putin is an abandoned leader, Hitler's a bad leader Elon Musk, take your pick, good leader, bad leader. But we use the word leader in ordinary parlance freely, whether to describe a good leader or a bad one. And that's how I've always done it. This brings me to Leader of the Year. As you point out, Scott, I defined it very carefully in this post, simply saying which leader, wherever in the world, and or of whatever kind of country or organization, had the greatest 'impact.' So I defined the leader of the year as the leader who had the greatest impact; this impact can be positive or negative. But that was the single criterion that I used.
Scott Allen 5:44
And you begin by saying, who has this leader had an impact on? And of course, you begin with Ukraine and talk a little bit about that.
Barbara Kellerman 5:54
I really paid attention to this subject and tried to figure out how did it begin and when and how is it going to end? As we sit here today and February 2023, we're pretty clear about how all this began, we're not at all clear how it will end. Suffice it to say, that in the last week or two, maybe even three, there has been widespread discussion of a new Russian offensive, there is some debate about what that offense is going to consist of, with the British press, for example, the Financial Times, being more dire in its prediction than the American press. But suffice it to say Ukraine, and the Ukrainians have already been, in most ways, incredibly negatively impacted. This is so obvious, I will simply mention one the numbers of refugees, which are in the many millions, but numbers of internally displaced persons, people within you, crane, who had to move for fear of their lives, the lives of their loved ones, and the destruction to the infrastructure, which of course, is ongoing. I also want to add. However, it has had this war, I don't know if you want to use the word 'positive impact,' but impacts that could be regarded as positive. So what might they be? They are uniting the Ukrainian people, as they have arguably never been united before. Certainly not since the end of the Soviet Union, certainly not. In other words, in modern times. Ukraine is now a nation - experts listening to this program know about the 'rally around the flag' effect, we get attacked by an outsider, and suddenly we're 'one' as we have never been before. Yes, this nationalism, this newfound nationalism, this zeal for freedom, that the Ukrainians are now chanting louder than perhaps any other people in the world has had many side effects, including, for example, their leader Zelinsky, getting approval ratings that are sky high - by the way before the war, they were 27% of Ukrainians approved of Zelinsky - since the war started about 80%, to use a round figure approve of him. They are incredibly united around their leader; they're incredibly united to get around the identity of their own country, the Ukrainian flag. And this is coming out in various ways, including in schools dumping the Russian language, which had been very prevalent in Ukraine, in favor of Ukrainian. So there have been, and one final comment on this, Ukraine has, since certainly in again, recent times, Ukraine has wanted very badly to ally itself with the West to become a member of the EU and even to join NATO. The West has been very reluctant to do this - sluggish at best. And, of course, since the war started, I have no doubt even after the war ends, Ukraine will be more fully integrated into the West than it could have imagined a year ago.
Well, let's talk about Okay, so Putin's war the impact on Ukraine? And then how about the impact on Russia itself?
It's fascinating in so many ways, the impact on leaders and followers, ordinary people. So there's a short-term answer and a long-term answer. The short-term answer is the daily lives of ordinary Russians have been startlingly little affected. The sanctions widely imposed by the West on Russia have impacted ordinary Russian lives a little, but not a lot. Not as much I think, as the West would have imagined a year ago. That could change, but so far, the impact has been low. The impact, in other ways, has been much broader, meaning the amount of political repression in the Soviet Union - sorry, that's an interesting slip - in Russia. That is interesting and telling slip because the amount of political repression in Russia has escalated exponentially since the war started. Putin's level of tolerance for dissent is exactly zero, and anyone who tries to dare to object in any way to the war in Ukraine risks being severely punished and often is. Mobilization of the military has escalated again exponentially in recent weeks and months. Even now, just a few days ago posted another blog, part of which is called 'Follower Fodder,' because many soldiers are being recruited into the military meat grinder because the Russian military has so far been not very successful. Putin has recently tried, and this may come to an end soon to win the war through sheer numbers. And, of course, Russia has a much larger population than Ukraine. To pivot to the long-term effect on Russia and Russians. It is widely predicted, and I would agree with this, Scott, that the long-term impact on Russia and the Russians will be profound in ways that are mostly negative. Russia is, in many ways, a small country; it's, of course, still a very large and powerful country, particularly its military. It has atomic weapons; I would never underestimate it. But compared to many other countries, its economic machine, and what it produces is relatively small; it will be a pariah country, for any freedom-loving peoples in the world, for many years to come. Many millions of Russians have left and are leaving; generally, the better educated, the wealthier ones, will therefore Russia will therefore be depleted of a young, educated class, and some might argue even its best and brightest. So the longer term - whatever the outcome of the war, the impact on Russia and Russians will largely be negative, and in ways that will last for, possibly, generations to come.
Scott Allen 12:30
Well, you also turn to the likes of NATO, and how this has emboldened and provided purpose to certain entities. So would you talk about that a little bit? It's not just NATO. But this has given new life to certain sectors.
Barbara Kellerman 12:49
Exactly, exactly. I mean, the European Union and NATO, we could have a whole show about Europe, about Brexit, the impact on Great Britain of having left the European Union, and the impact on the war, on the United States to go back to the theme. And you mentioned the phrase I use in the piece 'Putin's War,' there's a reason it's called Putin's war. There's a reason Putin is the is in my view, the Leader of The Year in 2022. By and large, this is considered the war of one man, one man having decided to invade Ukraine on a series of false assumptions which have been much discussed, I don't know that we need to discuss them here. Again, to circle back to the theme of this conversation, I write all the time about the importance of followers. But Putin's War is all about the importance of leaders have, in this case, the impact of a single man, a single leader, on all the entities that we've already discussed Ukrainians, Russians, and yes, now NATO, the West more generally. While it is unclear, this will last indefinitely, and it's one of the reasons that there's considerable concern about how long this war will last is how long can the unity of NATO and the European Union in alliance with the United States last. Biden has, in my view, and the view of many others, done a very good job - probably a better job than anyone since George Herbert Walker Bush of uniting the West, and this is still as we speak here in February 2023...this alliance is still holding whether it will hold for another year, is or at least as firmly as it has is an open question, including Republicans and Democrats in this country. But the impact of pointless war on the Western Alliance, not just militarily and politically, but more importantly, perhaps ideologically. This reminder, Putin has won reminded us, that Ukrainians daily remind us, of how important is freedom, the capacity to say out loud, what you want to say out loud to live your life, as you see fit, a freedom that Americans often take for granted. We've heard so often in recent years the phrase 'democracy in crisis.' If democracy is in crisis, the crisis is less now than it was because of Putin's War, the alliance that the West has forged because of Vladimir Putin.
Scott Allen 15:36
talk a little bit about Germany because this is an interesting case study as well. I mean, of course, we have NATO, we have the US, we have the impact that it's had on democracies, and you highlight beautifully in the piece. You know, in recent years, democracies have been shrinking worldwide. And this has served as a stark reminder to the globe, that democracy is important, that it's critical, and that it means not perfect, but it's one of the better forms of government.
Barbara Kellerman 16:08
Churchill, (and I'm paraphrasing here), but Winston Churchill said exactly what you just said, Scott, democracy, something like 'democracy is a mess, and it's inefficient and ineffective, but it's better than any other that humankind has been able to come up with,' which still rings true today. Very quickly on Germany since the end of the Second World War, for reasons that people viscerally and intellectually understand, Germany has insisted on, I wouldn't say, remaining neutral exactly, but it has insisted on its pacifism. Since Putin's War, this pacifism has, for the first time, come into serious question. The chancellor of Germany, a man named Olaf Schultz, has had the political fortitude to reverse course in important ways. Now, if I sound slightly halting, it's because if you want to call it 'progress,' I probably would call it to progress. That is Germany's recognition; it can keep relying on others, especially the United States, to defend it - and by the way, Berlin is not very far from Kyiv, to say the obvious - Germany here is on the front line. So there are some questions about the alacrity and, does Schultz really mean it. Do Germans mean it? But there is no question that Germans have been impacted. Schultz'z predecessor, a woman about whom I wrote extensively and who was chancellor for almost 15 years, Angela Merkel, made nice with Vladimir Putin. She based her chancellorship on the assumption that he would, including energy alliances, which were very important to Germany, on the assumption that Putin could be trusted. And that assumption was obviously wrong—just one more line about Germany. I think one reason Germany has shifted, maybe not as fast as much as people would have hoped, is because the fear about Putin is that if he gets anything he wants in Ukraine, he will not stop; he will continue to the Baltic countries to smaller places like Moldavia. So it is, this relates, by the way, to my new book Leadership: From Bad to Worse, that bad leaders, unless they are soft, they invariably get worse. And this is the same fear concern you have in Europe, especially in Germany - a lot of Germany's in Eastern Europe, not so much in Western Europe. So they have, I think, in general, they feel they have had no choice but to leave, shed some of their pacifism. Although, as I said earlier, it hasn't been everything that Zelensky would want. Absolutely not. By the way, he's an interesting leader, Scott, I don't know if you've ever done a podcast on Zelinsky alone...He will, in any case, go down in history as one of the great leaders of our age, whatever we may think of him and however this comes out is Lee, and it's not immaculate his leadership, but it has been by and large, absolutely remarkable. And he is worthy. Perhaps one day of a show of yours, because he's that unusual that outstanding in so many ways.
Scott Allen 19:34
We have not. We have not had...Barbara, there are too many conversations to have with you!
Barbara Kellerman 19:41
Because I've remained a 'leadership junkie.' Apologies for my addiction! It's turning into a lifelong addiction. What can I tell? You know, Scott, I'm like you in this respect - It just never gets boring—every single day. I could post a blog every single day you and I could have a conversation about what happened that day that is relevant to the work we both do.
Scott Allen 20:09
Yes, yes. And your curiosity is second to none second to none. Well, and so you mentioned, this made me think of something you mentioned in the blog post, which is that President Xi Jinping is probably very closely watching this because of some of their interests. You've written about him extensively, and Leaders Who Lust. How do you see that right now?
Barbara Kellerman 20:36
Well, has Putin'a War had an impact on Xi and China? You bet. And I'm not sure we've seen the end of that yet. The vague parallel here, of course, is the fear that Xi will decide to have China invade/take over Taiwan. As Putin decided to invade and try to take over Ukraine. Xi will decide to invade and try to take over Taiwan. There are many powerful parallels, and there are many ways in which the situations, of course, are entirely different. But Putin and Putin's War has had an impact on Xi. Xi is another leader who, if to the degree your podcast focuses on individuals, God knows he's worthy of a podcast, most interesting to me, and I'm going to depart from Putin just for a second. Because Xi, I have described Xi, you're right, I talked about him and Lust for Power and talk about him again and Leadership: From Bad to Worse. To me, he began as an autocrat, as an authoritarian leader, and ended he is now a totalitarian leader. What has been incredibly interesting to me is that he did something that totalitarian leaders never do. So you could say maybe he's not a totalitarian leader (although I think he still is), but what he did was pivot in a heartbeat on his COVID policy; China turned (in a day) from this militant lock-up mentality - we're going to keep everybody (which they did for almost three years to keep Chinese people locked in their houses) forbidden even to go into the streets, because of fear of COVID. When there were protests in China, which were very small but not insignificant, at the end of last year, in a heartbeat, he pivoted 180 degrees. Totalitarian leaders never do that, but he probably pivoted not just because of the street protests but because China at the end of 2022, was doing quite badly - in many different ways, economically, and in particular. Suffice it to say here that Xi and Putin are, on paper, and I don't say this lightly, allies. Just a few days before the war, almost exactly a year ago, they re-upped alliances and treaties of friendship. And China has, in modest ways, helped Putin, the fact that Putin has been able to count throughout this war on China's at least remaining neutral, if not downright supportive, has been very important to giving Putin the feeling that he effectively has free rein. Indeed, India's neutrality, and Iranian support, all of this has reconfigured the global power arrangements in ways that could not have been predicted a year ago, which, again, is another piece of that Putin has to be seen as the leader of the year. It's not just his impact on Russia, his impact on Ukraine, his impact on the West, but indeed on the configuration of global power, which looks very different now from what it did a year ago.
Scott Allen 24:11
Well, in for listeners, Barbara goes on to explore how he has had an impact on the Middle East and Africa. And then, just as you alluded to, that international system, and so we have a link in the show notes, so you can go to the blog post. And if you are not a consistent follower of Barbara's blog, you need to be because, again, she is prolific in her writing about so many different topics, and what she's seeing swirling all around us having that analysis is just wonderful. I'd love to get your opinion. Because you said this, you said look, President Biden his, and this is a very US-centric question, but I think it's an important one. You feel like he's done a good job in this space. Would you talk a little bit about that and provide some analysis on why you've come to that conclusion? I'm just excited to hear that.
Barbara Kellerman 25:04
Well, again, quickly, I realize I'm speaking to an audience, some of whom are Democrats and Republicans; some will think Biden walks on water other worlds. others, there'll be many in the middle who say, "he's been good at some things, bad at others, but he's too old to run. He shouldn't do what he's doing." So let's confine the Biden question to this issue. Putin has helped Biden; if you will, he's had an impact on Biden. He's played to Biden's strong suit, but it's fine; the strong suit? Biden spent a career before he was vice president. His work was of course, the US Senate. What did he do in the US Senate? He was a specialist in foreign relations. This war, grim as it sounds, is in Biden's wheelhouse. Biden grew up, Biden came of age, during the Cold War, by who came of age when it was the Soviet Union and not Russia. So Biden's history with the Soviet Union and then Russia goes back. And this was for him, 'terra incognita,' he got the lay of the land here. And he kind of not just intuitively, but intellectually, knew what had to be done, which is step one, as we said earlier, which is to strengthen the Western alliance. One of the lessons that has been learned here is that for all the talk of sharing the burden, the United States role the American role on the world stage if you care about what happens, not just politically and militarily. Still, economically, on the world stage, the US has no choice but to play, pardon the phrase, a leadership role. Biden got that Biden understood it. And whatever the outcome of this war, he will be, in my view ever credited with this past year; we cannot speak to the future. We can speak to the past, with this past year of having done his level best and succeeded at uniting the West, particularly obviously, most obviously, NATO, Europe, and the United States, Canada, in ways that four years it had not been united. This includes, not insignificantly, the likelihood of expanding NATO, including now, probably shortly, Sweden and Finland. So these are, whatever happens in the future. Whatever your political views, it seems that this is worthy of crediting the incumbent president - although one has to be cautious about the future. And just one more line about the future. I have written recently quite extensively about the prime minister of Turkey, a man named Erdogan. As we all know, there was a ghastly earthquake in Turkey and Syria. It's one of the reasons I was talking about the leadership system because of Erdogan's context, he's been the leader of Turkey for two decades, and has gone from being a Democrat to an autocrat, in an instant; his life changed because of the earthquake. There will be new elections in Turkey in June; maybe these will be postponed. The point is, though, that Erdogan has been an unreliable NATO ally, an unreliable friend to Joe Biden, and played footsie with both Putin and Biden. But it's now needy of the West in a way he has never been because of the earthquake. So again, not only do individuals play a role, but God knows, mother nature plays a role, sometimes long term as a climate change, sometimes from one second to the next, as a massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria has just recently demonstrated.
Scott Allen 29:09
Well back to the leadership system, right leader followers context, and we could do a whole other episode about the quote-unquote followers with Putin right now, but to your point, it's pretty much Putin's War, right? Can you give us a little bit of a teaser from bad to worse as we wind down for today, a little bit of a teaser?
Barbara Kellerman 29:36
Well, the title says it all. I don't have to do any teasing here. I would say this long-term interest of mine and bad leadership and how it happens. And my previous book, The Enablers, was about how followers allow bad leadership to happen Leadership: From Bad to Worse. I talk about phases of bad leadership. Bad leaders do not, at least in my experience, whether they're ineffective or unethical, they do not wake up one fine morning and say, "oh, golly, gee, I have been a bad leader, I have been evil, or I've been corrupt, or I've been ineffective - let me change my ways!"
Scott Allen 30:18
I'm incompetent!
Barbara Kellerman 30:20
Yeah, "I'm just an incompetent fool. And I've got to turn today. I'm going to turn a new leaf; I'll become a competent leader." So, unfortunately, that's not what happens. So healing kind is forever faced with the question of what to do in the face of bad leadership. And essentially, I divide this evolution of bad leadership into four different phases. Unless it gets stopped, it does go from bad to worse. And it is, as I keep talking about it, a social disease that humankind has been incredibly reluctant and now adroit at even beginning to address.
Scott Allen 31:03
Well, if you have not had a chance to watch it on Netflix, it's an interesting documentary; it's probably eight or nine episodes, but Hitler's Circle of Evil. I don't know if you've seen this on Netflix. It is a fascinating exploration because, as you know, in the leadership literature, you know, the demon, and rightfully so, as always Hitler, the terrible, horrible example of the ultimate bad. And this documentary does a very, very interesting job of going a layer deeper into these people that surrounded him, who in many cases, as you've said before, was eviler than than the individual, more corrupt. But it's a fascinating exploration. So I would encourage listeners because I think, to your point, Barbara, it's a interesting analysis. And that question of how do we disrupt that. So I love that you are moving into this - look, here are some of the phases, and if it's not stopped, it becomes that much more difficult to stop. Right?
Barbara Kellerman 32:19
Exactly. And I love your verb. Do you mind if I plagiarize it, please? Disrupt. It's a word that's used in business quite a bit. We don't use it, particularly in our fields. But that's exactly what I'm talking about disrupting or breaking the chain. Yeah, yeah. It's a perfect word. Scott. Really. Yeah.
Scott Allen 32:39
Okay, Barbara, well, we have another conversation that we will have maybe even before the book, but you had another recent post that I would love to follow up with you on about women who are leaving their positions of leadership. And I think that could be a fascinating conversation as well. There's been a series of individuals who have chosen to leave their posts. And I think just that analysis, and Barbara has blogged for listeners. But I think a conversation is worthwhile.
Barbara Kellerman 33:12
You know, Scott, I often get asked about women and leadership. And I keep going; there are good reasons why there's, you know, we've tried for two or three decades to get more women at the top. And the numbers remain stubbornly low. And women who are at the top don't stay there as long in general. So the question is, "why?" And that's a question I've tried to wrestle with and address a little bit in these blogs and elsewhere. So yeah, it's really interesting. We're still not far along, and there are reasons for it.
Scott Allen 33:45
Well, Barbara, thank you for your incredible work. Again, as I said initially, it's always a pleasure. I'm so thankful for these conversations. And I know listeners are as well. And you've given us plenty to think about for today. And until next time, be well!
Barbara Kellerman 34:00
Thank you very much, and I hope your listeners will forgive me for having a leader of the year who, by almost every count, is evil. But there you go. It's an instruction, and a lesson that we need to learn evil leaders can have an enormous impact, and in this case, Vladamir Putin did.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai