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Are zombies taking charge of governance?
During the pandemic, we heard a lot about “zombie companies”, ones that still existed but whose businesses were dead. Now this: zombie leadership.
How well does the narrative of leadership you learned in business school stand the test in practice? How does it fit the people who are running for office in the countries in which you have a vote, or would vote if you had the chance? Consider:
“First, this narrative implies that the masses are incapable of looking after themselves and require a hierarchical society with strong leaders at the top in order for social order to emerge and endure….
“Second, it implies that leaders deserve their exalted position because they are special individuals who have distinctive qualities that set them apart from the masses and with which only certain men are endowed (and even if the equation between men and leadership is not made explicitly, men are generally the prototype…).
“Third, it attributes any success that a group might have to the actions of its leader, thus marginalizing other group members in terms of both the responsibility and the acclaim for achieving such success while justifying the flow of attention, esteem, and resources towards that leader and away from their group.”
That’s the basis for what three scholars think sets the stage for “Zombie leadership” (Haslam, Alvesson, & Reicher, 2024). Their article – free for anyone to read at the journal Leadership – tries to debunk much of the theorising about leadership that has become embedded in the practice of consultants and the psyche of their clients over the past half century. It leads those occupying the roles to think that are and ought to be something other than what anyone – let alone themselves – can even hope to achieve. Leaders come to believe in an impossible narrative and then believe that they indeed already star in the movie.
What struck me while reading this article is how it resonates with political debates underway in the countries I worry about, and how the absence of these three conditions is so often thought to be behind the malaise under which some countries seem to suffer.
Leadership theories abound in part because so many people aspire to be leaders and don’t achieve it. Let’s consider a few that populate discussions of leadership, in the private sector and in public life as well.
Think of the charisma that the great Max Weber (1922, 1922/1947) identified as the source of power, or the leader-as-hero (Walls, Salaiz, & Chiu, 2021; for the antidote, see Badaracco, 2001). The latter often derives from military settings – whether of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Elon Musk with his SpaceX hat on, or Mark Zuckerberg! (Well, maybe not Zuckerberg, or maybe not a “General” Zuckerberg.) Do we think we have those traits? (Yes, enough at least to believe our own press releases!)
Think of authentic leadership (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004), under which we are encouraged to forget the ambiguity and fluidity that the concept of authenticity itself entails.
Even servant leadership (!) – think of Mahatma Gandhi or Jesus – can have a narcissistic underpinning in its embodiment in lesser leaders. Oh, how I have suffered!
Haslam and colleagues identify eight “axioms” of leadership that are ideas of the walking dead – and urge that we be wary of falling victim to them. Like Axiom #6: “Leadership is a special skill limited to special people,” and #8: “People can’t cope without leaders.”
Remember this? “I alone can fix it.”
Haslam et al. write: “The fundamental problem with the notion of leaders-as-saviors centers on the problems that this conceit creates for the social relationship between leaders and followers.” We followers think that leaders are more different from us than they are.
Which point to what’s worse than zombie leadership: Zombie followership. Governance of the zombies, by the zombies, for the zombies.
Happy election season, in so many places this year! (And a hat-tip to my friend Parisa Gilani for spotting this article.)
Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., & May, D. R. (2004). Unlocking the mask: a look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), 801-823. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2004.09.003
Badaracco, J. L., Jr. (2001). We Don't Need ANOTHER HERO. Harvard Business Review, 79(8), 120-126.
Haslam, S. A., Alvesson, M., & Reicher, S. D. (2024). Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us. The Leadership Quarterly, Online first. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2023.101770
Walls, J. L., Salaiz, A., & Chiu, S.-C. S. (2021). Wanted: Heroic leaders to drive the transition to 'business beyond usual'. Strategic Organization, 19(3), 494-512. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127020973379
Weber, M. (1922). Grundriss der Sozialökonomie III. Abteilung: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr.
Weber, M. (1922/1947). The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press.