The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective

Author:   Dennis Tourish (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN:  

9780415564281


Pages:   264
Publication Date:   04 March 2013
Replaced By:   9781138213654
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

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The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective


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Overview

Most research into leadership has presented leaders as heroic, charismatic and transformational ‘visionaries’. The leader, whether in business, politics or any other field, is the most important factor in determining whether organizations succeed or fail. Indeed, despite the fundamental mistakes which have, arguably, directly led to global economic recession, it is often still taken for granted that transformational leadership is a good thing, and that leaders should have much more power than followers to decide what needs to be done. The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership confronts this orthodoxy by illustrating how such approaches can encourage narcissism, megalomania and poor decision-making on the part of leaders, at great expense to those organizations they are there to serve. Written in a lively and engaging style, the book uses a number of case studies to illustrate the perils of transformational leadership, from the Jonestown tragedy in 1978 when over 900 people were either murdered or committed suicide at the urging of their leader, to an analysis of how banking executives tried to explain away their role in the 2008 financial crisis This provocative and hugely important book offers a rare critical perspective in the field of leadership studies. Concluding with a new approach that offers an alternative to the dominant transformational model, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership will be an invaluable text for academics interested in leadership, students on leadership courses requiring a more critical perspective, and anyone concerned with how people lead people, and the lessons we can learn.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dennis Tourish (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.404kg
ISBN:  

9780415564281


ISBN 10:   041556428
Pages:   264
Publication Date:   04 March 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Replaced By:   9781138213654
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: LEADERSHIP AGENCY UNRAVELLED 1. Introduction: Why the dark side? Why now? 2. Transformational leadership: The dynamics of excessive leader agency 3. Coercive persuasion, power and corporate culturism. 4. Spirituality and leadership: Using ideology to enhance leaders’ power. 5. The dark side of leadership and silence in the workplace. 6. The folly and the dangers of leadership education in business schools PART TWO: CASE STUDIES 7. The dark side of leadership in corporate America: Enron revisited. 8.The Militant Tendency’s long march to oblivion: Conformity and authoritarian leadership on the left. 9. Leadership, group suicide and mass murder: Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate through the looking glass 10. Accounting for failure: Bankers in the spotlight PART THREE: CONCLUSION 11. Reimagining leadership and followership: A processual, communication perspective

Reviews

Never before have I provided an endorsement with such genuine enthusiasm. The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership is a singularly strong contribution to leadership theory and practice: iconoclastic on the one hand, and deeply researched and carefully constructed on the other. Tourish challenges our conventional wisdoms; he takes on our usual icons; and he lays bare our collective deficiencies. But he does not end there.To the contrary. Tourish provides whole new way of looking at leadership and followership, leading us wisely and well to where we belong, to the second decade of the 21st century. - Barbara Kellerman, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, USA I fully anticipate that this important book will mark a critical and overdue turning point for the field of leadership studies. The author writes with a compelling mix of absolute conviction, refreshing clarity and expert authority. I will be strongly recommending it to both scholars and senior executives. - Brad Jackson, Fletcher Building Education Trust Chair in Leadership, University of Auckland Business School, Australia At last, an erudite and critical analysis of Transformational Leadership that explores the dark side and pulls back the self-imposed curtains that are so frequently an element of this approach. This is an uncomfortable but very important 'must-read' for all students of leadership. - Keith Grint, Warwick Business School, Warwick University, UK Much of the book is a near tour-de-force that highlights Tourish's broad and deep command of the TL literature, which he leverages to creatively and imaginatively apply his ideas and those of others to critically illuminate a variety of leadership issues and situations in a manner that mainstream works have no heretofore been able to do. - Stephen Jaros, Management Learning (Vol. 44 No. 5)


Never before have I provided an endorsement with such genuine enthusiasm. The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership is a singularly strong contribution to leadership theory and practice: iconoclastic on the one hand, and deeply researched and carefully constructed on the other. Tourish challenges our conventional wisdoms; he takes on our usual icons; and he lays bare our collective deficiencies. But he does not end there.To the contrary. Tourish provides whole new way of looking at leadership and followership, leading us wisely and well to where we belong, to the second decade of the 21st century. - Barbara Kellerman, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, USA I fully anticipate that this important book will mark a critical and overdue turning point for the field of leadership studies. The author writes with a compelling mix of absolute conviction, refreshing clarity and expert authority. I will be strongly recommending it to both scholars and senior executives. - Brad Jackson, Fletcher Building Education Trust Chair in Leadership, University of Auckland Business School, Australia At last, an erudite and critical analysis of Transformational Leadership that explores the dark side and pulls back the self-imposed curtains that are so frequently an element of this approach. This is an uncomfortable but very important 'must-read' for all students of leadership. - Keith Grint, Warwick Business School, Warwick University, UK


Author Information

Dennis Tourish is a Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published seven previous books on leadership and organizational communication and serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Human Relations and Management Communication Quarterly, where he was previously a co-editor. He is a Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation and a co-editor of the journal Leadership.

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