Leaders Who Lust: Power, Money, Sex, Success, Legitimacy, Legacy

Description

Among our greatest leaders are those driven by impulses they cannot completely control - by lust. Lust is not, however, an abstraction, it has definition. Definition that, given the impact of leaders who lust, is essential to extract. This book identifies six types of lust with which leaders are linked: 1. Power: the ceaseless craving to control. 2. Money: the limitless desire to accrue great wealth. 3. Sex: the constant hunt for sexual gratification. 4. Success: the unstoppable need to achieve. 5. Legitimacy: the tireless claim to identity and equity. 6. Legacy: the endless quest to leave a permanent imprint. Each of the core chapters focuses on different lusts and features a cast of characters who bring lust to life. In the real world leaders who lust can and often do have an enduring impact. This book therefore is counterintuitive - it focuses not on moderation, but on immoderation.

Barbara Kellerman is James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, USA, and Founding Executive Director of the school's Center for Public Leadership. She is the winner of the International Leadership Association Lifetime Achievement Award and has authored or edited many books and articles on leadership and followership. Todd L. Pittinsky is Professor at Stony Brook University (SUNY), USA, and Faculty Director of its College of Leadership and Service. He is also Associate Faculty Fellow of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, USA. Previously, he served on the faculties of the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education.

'In this path-breaking book, one of the most perceptive and prolific scholars in leadership, Barbara Kellerman, teams up with one of the most talented and promising social scientists, Todd Pittinsky, to pierce an important veil. Instead of telling us what leaders should be like, we learn how they truly are. This is an eye-opening must read.' David Gergen, White House Adviser to four US Presidents and founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School 'This book paints an unforgettable picture of leaders with outsized appetites for power, money, sex, success, legitimacy, or legacy. Instead of treating leaders as one-dimensional paragons of either virtue or vice, the authors show them as human beings with strengths and weaknesses. The result is fascinating, beautifully written, and highly entertaining.' Dennis Tourish, Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies, University of Sussex, UK, and editor of Leadership 'Leaders Who Lust is a great read. It offers a compelling contribution to our critical conversations about those who shape the course of human affairs. The authors achieve something entirely new and different.' Margaret Shih, Professor of Management and Organizations, UCLA Anderson School of Management 'Is a never-ending desire for gratification a neglected leadership trait? Is lust a critical factor in explaining exceptional leadership? Making this provocative argument through a series of gripping biographical sketches, this book offers a host of refreshingly iconoclastic and original insights for scholars and practitioners alike.' Christopher Pietroni, Professor of Leadership Practice, University of Birmingham