Goldman Sachs was in the news recently as an employee resigned via the New York Times op-ed page. The resigning employee indicated the trajectory of the corporate culture at Goldman Sachs had resulted in a toxic and destructive environment. According to this employee, the firm is certainly at the forefront of establishing how work will be performed in the organization, what will be valued by the organization and the market values corporate culture as demonstrated [...]

During a recent class I posed the question, ‘Describe a great leader. What makes him or her stand out in the crowd?’ In response, the usual suspects surfaced: charisma, strong understanding of the organization, integrity… A long list was the result. But it was not until the question shifted from great leaders to describing terrible leaders did the conversation get lively. Every student gave detailed examples of people in leadership positions demonstrating outrageous behavior. Lying, [...]

Shared leadership, flow, alignment, synergy, balance, collaboration… we are trying to think of a word that expresses what we think is necessary. But, the word just won’t come. And so, the thought is stifled, stunted. The question at issue is what is wrong with our views of leadership? Even though the formal study of leadership is only about a century old, there have been thousands of theories and models of what makes for effective leadership. [...]