Poor Leadership And Bad Governance

'Leaders are not always heroes. Bad public leadership is a big problem. If we are serious about holding our public leaders to account, then we need to know why they were bad, and why we supported them. Ludger Helms and his distinguished team tackle these difficult questions with sympathy, not cynicism. Their careful and insightful analysis alerts us to the dangers of venal and poorly performing leaders.' – R.A.W. Rhodes, University of Southampton, UK 'Leadership and the lack of it is a central but underexplored issue in the study of contemporary politics. Ludger Helms is to be congratulated for bringing together a group of leading scholars to examine the relationship between leadership and governance.' – William E. Paterson OBE, Aston Centre for Europe, UK In leadership research there is a long tradition of focusing attention on the great and successful leaders and, more recently, on issues of good governance. This study breaks new ground by looking systematically into the manifestations and causes of poor leadership and bad governance in some of the world's most powerful democracies. Focusing on the presidents and prime ministers of the G8 – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan – it explores the complex relationship between weak and ineffective leadership, undemocratic leadership techniques, and bad policies from a broad comparative perspective. What makes leaders weak or bad in different contexts? What are the consequences of their actions and behaviour? And has there been any learning from negative experience? These questions are at the centre of this fascinating joint inquiry that involves a team of truly distinguished leadership scholars. This book will prove invaluable for scholars and students of leadership, political science, contemporary history, and related academic disciplines. Readers with a general interest in public affairs and political history will also find plenty to interest them.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A, James Cook University, language: English, abstract: Poor leadership is undoubtedly one of the main potential factor that can lead an organization to fail. In this paper, the causes of poor leadership are discussed. The resulting impact on employees and the organization itself is also evaluated. Three case studies of great startup companies, namely Atari, Commodore and Motorola are used as examples to describe how poor leadership has been the leading factor to their organizational failures.

At the heart of the litany of Nigeria's public sector problems is a fundamental crisis of governance. The current crisis of development in Nigeria can be attributed in part to a history of poor governance characterized by corruption, social injustice and political instability. Effective leadership and governance are critical to a country's economic and sociopolitical development. During the 1950s and 1960s Nigerian public sector was regarded as one of the best in Africa, today it is ranked among the worst in the world. The factors isolated include ineffective control of corruption, lack of rule of law, poorly articulated government policies, and poor policy implementations. The implications for Nigeria have been a regressive leadership, poor governance and the lack of social and societal development.

How is Saddam Hussein like Tony Blair? Or Kenneth Lay like Lou Gerstner? Answer: They are, or were, leaders. Many would argue that tyrants, corrupt CEOs, and other abusers of power and authority are not leaders at all--at least not as the word is currently used. But, according to Barbara Kellerman, this assumption is dangerously naive. A provocative departure from conventional thinking, Bad Leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety. Kellerman argues that the dark side of leadership--from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty--is not an aberration. Rather, bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious--and so must be more carefully examined and better understood. Drawing on high-profile, contemporary examples--from Mary Meeker to David Koresh, Bill Clinton to Radovan Karadzic, Al Dunlap to Leona Helmsley--Kellerman explores seven primary types of bad leadership and dissects why and how leaders cross the line from good to bad. The book also illuminates the critical role of followers, revealing how they collaborate with, and sometimes even cause, bad leadership. Daring and counterintuitive, Bad Leadership makes clear that we need to face the dark side to become better leaders and followers ourselves. Barbara Kellerman is research director of the Center for Public Leadership and a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Sierra Leone is in her final phase of a Post-civil War rebuilding after twelve years of what has been dubbed one of the most devastating civil conflicts in Modern African History. Since the advent and end of the conflict a lot has been written in the forms of documentaries, reportages, commentaries, satires and academic textbooks by journalists, academics, politicians, former heads of state and political analysts. However, this book- `A New Perspective On Governance, Leadership, Conflict and Nation Building in Sierra Leone.', is different. It presents a new outlook in the sense that it is incisive, analytical, honest, educative and thought-provoking at the same time. The key message that runs through the veins of the theme is state renewal informed by new thinking spectacles that efficiently configure the manner in which the management of state leadership and governance is articulated for the benefits of the common good. The author, Solomon E. Berewa was one of the key actors- Chief Government Negotiator and stakeholder of the peace deals in his capacity as Minister of Justice and Attorney General and Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. He has written this masterpiece authoritatively by throwing fresh lights on the serious political issues and questions which have blurred the significance of the past and the present. Like any sincere agent of nation building, after a traumatic experience such as the one Sierra Leone went through, the rationale of the author is to build bridges across the board, political spectrums. In his estimation, it is only by looking into the past with open mind and sincerity, learn tangible lessons and act on them meticulously, that nations can be in position to surmount current challenges for the good and durability of a better tomorrow. Post-war Sierra Leone needs to have faith in this philosophy and crown it as the cornerstone in this crucial period of political and socio-economic renewal.

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In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development supported the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to deliver basic healthcare to 90 percent of the population, at a cost of $4.50 a head. The program played a vital role in improving the country's health; the number of children dying before the age of five dropped by 100,000 a year. But accounting standards at the Ministry of Public Health concerned the United States Special Investigator General for Afghanistan. There was no evidence of malfeasance, nor argument about the success of the program. For all that the results were fantastic, receipts were not in order. The investigator called for the health program to be suspended because of "financial management deficiencies" at the ministry. This case illustrates a growing problem: an important and justified focus on corruption as a barrier to development has led to policy change in aid agencies that is damaging the potential for aid to deliver results. Donors have treated corruption as an issue they can measure and improve, and from which they can insulate their projects at acceptable costs by controlling processes and monitoring receipts. Results Not Receipts highlights the weak link between donors’ preferred measures of corruption and development outcomes related to our limited ability to measure the problem. It discusses the costs of the standard anti-corruption tools of fiduciary controls and centralized delivery, and it suggests a different approach to tackling the problem of corruption in development: focus on outcomes.

Good Democratic Leadership: On Prudence and Judgment in Modern Democracies explores whether, in the current atmosphere of international economic and political tension, and more generally, democracies foster and support effective political judgment and good leadership. In one sense, with their ideals of transparent government and extensive deliberation, democracies might appear to promote such good leadership and sound decision-making. Yet, in another sense, democratic leaders continue to face a number of challenges, including the sometimes cumbersome institutional limits placed on their discretion, the need for balance between national interest, popular sentiment and universal values as well as the problem of disproportionate influence of commercial interests in the management of the economy. In analysing various aspects of democratic leadership, judgement and decision-making from a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives, all the contributors to this book address this question of the extent to which democracies support good judgment and thereby the possibility of good leadership in democracies.