The Mythology of Leadership

In their article, The Problem with Leadership Development, Curphy, Hogan and Kaiser offer a great summary of what is wrong with leadership development.  But, as I read it, I couldn’t help but think that the core of the problem is that we confuse charisma with leadership.

Too often, we measure leadership potential by perceptions only - people think someone is a good leader and that person gets promoted. In fact, research shows that many of our perceptions and beliefs about what it takes to be a good leader are based on things that have nothing to do with the correct measure of leader success - team performance. For example, height is correlated with being promoted through the ranks of leadership. No one seriously thinks that height is truly related; it is an unconscious evaluation based in evolutionary psychology. We know that narcissism and anti-social personality are related to promotion into management, but that they do not lead to group effectiveness – perhaps that is why 70% of the workforce is not highly engaged. So much of how we select, promote and train leaders is based in assumptions about what makes a great leader, not the facts.  The mythology of the "great man" theory of leadership haunts us still.