Dr. Barbara Kellerman - Leader, Followers, & Contexts

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Dr. Barbara Kellerman
Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and three degrees from Yale University: an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and both an M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright Fellowships. Kellerman is a co-founder of the International Leadership Association (ILA).

Quotes from This Episode

• “How do you talk about leaders or leadership without talking about followers or followership? How do you talk about leaders and followers together, without situating them in the contexts?”
• “People have been at this for at least 50 years since the so-called leadership industry was founded. Yes, I do call it that, because I think of it as largely a money-making proposition.”
• “People have been struggling with the issue of definitions, particularly of the word leader or leadership...what is a leader? The way I define it is completely different from the way virtually every one of my colleagues at Harvard defines it.”
• “In some cases, they say we’re training leaders, and other cases they say we’re educating leaders, and other cases, they’re saying we’re developing leaders. Nobody ever bothers to distinguish among those three verbs. What do you mean when you say you’re educating? What do you mean when you say you’re training?”
• “So the business schools are not very different now from the schools of government, and they are light years away from the military.”

Dr. Kellerman's Website/Selected Books

• Website: Barbara Kellerman 
• New Book: Leaders Who Lust: Power Money Sex Success Legitimacy Legacy
• Book: Professionalizing Leadership 
• Book: Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence - 
• Book: Followership 
• Book: Bad Leadership 
• Book: Leadership: M

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