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Nations across the world are commonly said to be facing leadership crises in sectors such as government, business, religion, and education. One phenomenon in the context of leadership decline is the rise of followers. Partly, this rise stems from long-term historical shifts away from dominance and hierarchy and towards democracy and increased rights. But recent technological changes also account for it, with social media and the Internet placing more power in the hands of common people. Paradoxically, during the last thirty years while leadership has been in decline, the leadership industry has flourished, and there is a proliferation of leadership centres, programs, workshops, books, and consultants claiming to teach people how to lead. After describing the current leadership crisis, this article uses the examples of political opposition to Vladimir Putin and more cooperative, restrained CEOs to illustrate the decline in traditional norms of leadership.

Countless studies, workshops, and books have focused on leaders--the charismatic ones, the retiring ones, even the crooked ones. Virtually no literature exists about followers, however, and the little that can be found tends to depict subordinates as an amorphous group or explain their behavior in the context of leaders' development. Some works even fail to sufficiently distinguish among varying types of followers--barely registering the fact that those who tag along mindlessly are a breed apart from those who are deeply devoted and consciously, actively involved. These distinctions have critical implications for the way leaders should lead and managers should manage, according to Kellerman, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Additionally, today's followers are influenced by a range of cultural and technological changes that have affected what they want and how they view and communicate with their ostensible leaders. In this article, Kellerman explores the evolving dynamic between leaders and subordinates and offers a typology that managers can use to determine and appreciate how their followers are different from one another. Using the level of engagement with a leader or group as a defining factor, the author segments followers into five types: Isolates are completely detached, they passively support the status quo with their inaction. Bystanders are free riders who are somewhat detached, depending on their self-interests. Participants are engaged enough to invest some of their own time and money to make an impact. Activists are very much engaged, heavily invested in people and process, and eager to demonstrate their support or opposition. And diehards are so engaged they're willing to go down with the ship--or throw the captain overboard.

When corporate leaders or the organizations they represent mess up, they face the difficult decision of whether to apologize publicly. A public apology is a risky move. It's highly political, and every word matters. Refusal to apologize can be smart, or it can be suicidal. Readiness to apologize can be seen as a sign of character or one of weakness. A successful apology can turn enmity into personal and organizational triumph--whereas an apology that's too little, too late, or too transparently tactical can open the floodgates to individual and institutional ruin. Because the stakes are so high, Barbara Kellerman says, leaders should not extend public apologies often or lightly. One or more of the following conditions should apply: The apology is likely to serve an important purpose; the offense is of serious consequence; it's appropriate that the leader assume responsibility for the offense; the leader is the only one who can get the job done; and the cost of saying something is likely lower than the cost of staying silent. The author draws her conclusions from hard data and abundant anecdotal evidence, examining notoriously bad apologizers as well as exceptionally good ones. While selectivity is key, good apologies usually do work. What constitutes a good apology? Acknowledgment of the mistake or wrongdoing, acceptance of responsibility, expression of regret, and assurance that the offense will not be repeated.

Does using Tyco's funds to purchase a $6,000 shower curtain and a $15,000 dog-shaped umbrella stand make Dennis Kozlowski a bad leader? Is Martha Stewart's career any less instructive because she may have sold some shares on the basis of a tip-off? Is leadership synonymous with moral leadership? Before 1970, the answer from most leadership theorists would certainly have been no. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung--great leaders all, but hardly good men. In fact, capricious, murderous, high-handed, corrupt, and evil leaders are effective and commonplace. Everywhere, power goes hand in hand with corruption--everywhere, that is, except in the literature of business leadership. To read Tom Peters, Jay Conger, John Kotter, and most of their colleagues, leaders are, as Warren Bennis puts it, individuals who create shared meaning, have a distinctive voice, have the capacity to adapt, and have integrity. According to today's business literature, to be a leader is, by definition, to be benevolent. But leadership is not a moral concept, and it is high time we acknowledge that fact. Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be willfully blind to the reality of the human condition.

Virtually everyone in the field of leadership studies can agree on the greatness of two or maybe three titles. But because it's axiomatic that leadership is contextual, there is no top ten list of books whose supremacy and currency are self-evident. Here, leadership scholar Barbara Kellerman presents a list of works that form an exception to the general rule that leadership is inseparable from context. In a field of study that is almost obsessively particular, these books are universal. Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt; The Functions of the Executive by Chester Barnard; On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Civilization and Its Discontents, and Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud; The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay; Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.; and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.