Tom Karp

By Tom Karp

This chapter presents the argument that leadership is not always effective, even though we know a great deal about what makes leadership effective. Consequently, we are asking the wrong question when we inquire into what makes leadership effective. A more interesting question is that when we know so much about effective leadership, why are leaders sometimes unable to exercise effective leadership? Why do not they do as they should? The answer discussed here is that leadership is often ineffective because people are imperfect, including leaders. Therefore, there are individual and organisational barriers to effective leadership, as well as constraints in the environment. Better education and training programmes for leaders, as well as more robust and transparent methods of recruitment and selection of leaders, may remedy this to some extent. But it is perhaps more important to accept the fact that leadership is often ineffective and that we should settle for ‘good enough’. This perspective offers us the opportunity to investigate the barriers to effective leadership and what may be done to reduce them. This is a better way forward for researchers and practitioners than the present dominating focus within leadership literature on unobtainable ideals involving flawless acts carried out by perfect human beings operating in rational organisational environments.

Part of the book: Dark Sides of Organizational Behavior and Leadership

By Tom Karp

Practice-oriented perspectives of leadership suggest that we should relate more to organisational realities as they are ‘in practice’. This entails studying patterns of actions with a certain form, direction, purpose or objective. Leadership researchers have not often focused on conducting empirical studies of everyday life and challenges within organisations, which may have contributed to a possible gap between theory and leadership practice. Thus, there is a need for other perspectives, both for researchers and leaders. Rather than presenting idealised notions of what leaders should do, the premise of practice perspectives is that leadership is shaped through leaders’ actions in their everyday environments. The sum of such actions over time constitutes a practice that takes place within a community of collective practice. This entails leadership is understood as a function, a process and an action. Accordingly, research into practice is not so much concerned with identifying normative models and characteristics of the individual but rather shifts the focus from the individual to processes and actions. For leaders, this means that they must develop their own leadership practice regarding how to deal with organisational realities, their messiness and complexity.

Part of the book: Leadership

By Tom Karp

Leaders too often cause problems that challenge the effectivity of society and organisations; they exhibit bad leadership. This is an under-communicated and under-researched challenge, which is therefore investigated in the antithesis: What if leaders do not execute the effective leadership we expect of them, but quite the opposite, create problems and in-effectivity in the organisations they should serve? This is a more common challenge than many assume. Leadership is an inflated phenomenon that has somewhat distanced itself from organisational realities. There is, therefore, every reason to downscale the expectations of what can be achieved by leaders. This contribution is a nuanced analysis of leaders and their exercise of leadership. A powerful leadership industry has its own interests in promoting only the positive effects of leadership, with little interest in addressing human fallibility within the field. Other perspectives and research methods are therefore needed to avoid losing credibility and legitimacy as a research field and a resource base for professional practice. Given the human and financial toll that fallible leaders take, the advice for organisations and institutions is to develop better policies, systems, and processes that weed out negative and destructive behaviour.

Part of the book: Organizational Behavior