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The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective
Abstract
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.
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“We argue that this Jesus-centred approach to leadership has the potential to help executives develop integrity while countering those forces that contribute to the emergence of the dark side of leadership (Tourish 2013) namely hubris, greed and egotism.”
From Having Burned the Straw Man of Christian Spiritual Leadership, what can We Learn from Jesus About Leading Ethically? (2017) · cites this paper as Tourish 2013
In the citing paper
“So while Tourish, among others (Carette and King 2005; Case and Gosling 2010) is persuasive in his suspicion of SAW and associated SLT, we suggest that what is being addressed is actually a 'straw man' of spiritual leadership as it pertains to Christian beliefs.”
From Having Burned the Straw Man of Christian Spiritual Leadership, what can We Learn from Jesus About Leading Ethically? (2017) · cites this paper as Tourish 2013
In the citing paper
“By focusing on spirituality as inner transformation rather than external exhortation, we also avoid the traps identified by Tourish and other critics of SAW.”
From Having Burned the Straw Man of Christian Spiritual Leadership, what can We Learn from Jesus About Leading Ethically? (2017) · cites this paper as Tourish 2013
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tourish, D.
- Affiliations
- Royal Holloway University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Tourish, Dennis
- ORCID
- Tourish, Dennis
- Venue
- Routledge eBooks
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2013-03-12
- OpenAlex
- W2914316417
- Cited by
- 333
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 29.29
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Leadership and Management in Organizations
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Employee Performance and Leadership
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Keywords
- transformational leadership, dark side of leadership, narcissism, megalomania, leadership decision-making, Jonestown, 2008 financial crisis, bank executives, charismatic leadership, critical leadership studies
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