Zombie Leadership
I recently learned that goldfish do not have a 3 second memory. Research has in fact shown that they are actually quite capable of remembering things for several months and can even learn some complex tasks. There are a surprising number of different research articles on this topic, but the earliest one I have been able to find is a study at Plymouth University in 2003, where they trained goldfish to press a lever to receive food and the goldfish was capable of remembering the task for 3 months. Despite this study and numerous studies after it, this myth of the 3 second memory still persists over 20 years later. Now fortunately, the persistence of this myth is fairly inconsequential, at least for those of us who don’t own goldfish. However, it raises the question: What myths and misconceptions exist in our world today that have no supporting evidence of basis in reality?
A recent study published in Leadership Quarterly, “Zombie Leadership: dead ideas that still walk among us” (Haslam et al., 2023), seeks to expose these myths that persist in the field of leadership. Now unlike my goldfish example, misconceptions in leadership can have fairly significant and potentially dangerous consequences for pretty much everybody. We all have leaders in our lives or are leaders in some capacity, meaning that leadership impacts all of us regardless of our situation. Therefore, it is imperative that we are conscientious and discerning in our study of leadership. My intent here is to summarize that article, in order to give you, the reader, a sense for the dangers of such myths and other tools to combat the rising horde. As a side note, I just want to say that the title of this research article is on my all-time favorite list, and I wish more researchers would follow the authors lead in creatively naming their research.
In this paper the authors review 8 ideas about leadership that still exist despite a lack of any solid research to support them. The authors suggest that these ideas persist because they support the prevailing social hierarchy and provide justification to those currently in power. A pretty bold claim that definitely gives me pause for thought. So, what are these mindless zombie ideas about leadership? Well, to summarize:
Leadership is all about leaders
There are specific qualities that all great leaders have
There are specific thing that all great leaders do
We all know a great leader when we see one
All leadership is the same
Leadership is a special skill limited to special people
Leadership is always good and it is always good for everyone
People can’t cope without leaders
I’ll include a handy little graphic from the paper that summarizes these “axioms of leadership” below for those who would like to see the authors’ comments on each. I would love to cover each of these ideas one-by-one as they do in the article, but I do not have time to write all of that and my guess is that you do not want to read all of that, so instead I would like to review 3 of the main themes from these ideas as I see them.
Photo Credit: Haslam et al., 2023
1. Success should be attributed to formal leaders
This is perhaps the most persistent and oldest myth of leadership, with its roots going all the way back to classical literature. As humans, we have a tendency to romanticize people in formal leadership roles, heaping praise and credit in success and assigning blame in failure. We can all think of numerous “great people” throughout history who many attribute to having an outsized influence on shaping our world as we know it today. In my opinion, this has led to a fixation on formal leaders in society, with a lot of time and resources going toward these leaders. However, the reality on the ground is much more complex. While formal leaders can undoubtedly play a significant role in the success of a group, the other members of the group, the “followers” as it were, play a crucial role in making the group successful as well. In other words, we often devote so much attention to formal leaders that we often neglect a key element to all effective leaders’ success: the people that they lead. I believe this oversight is important to highlight, as research has shown that heaping the rewards for group success on specific leaders can simultaneously feed the egos of these leaders and dishearten the followers, undermining their success (Haslam et al., 2011; Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2007).
My astute reader will no doubt have noticed I have been careful to say “formal leaders” up to this point. That is because, as Haslam et al. (2023) suggests, research has indicated that “informal leaders” play a key leadership role for people on the ground (Einola & Alvesson, 2021a; Kellerman, 2016; Fransen et al., 2023). These informal leaders provide advice and guidance to more junior people within an organization which enables groups to solve problems without the need for more formal leadership. Taking all of this information together, I believe it is critical to focus our efforts not only on formal leaders, but also on the followers of that leader and the interaction between them. This needs to start by reminding leaders of the importance of their followers for their success
2. Leaders have special characteristics that equip them for their roles
This misconception is a little harder to dispel. I think it gives us all comfort to believe those who lead us are in some ways special or have some capability that we ourselves lack. This is most visibly reflective in the difference in pay between our highest-level leaders and the average worker, which can be seen as a representation of the value society places on our leaders. From 1950 to today, the difference between CEO pay and average worker pay has grown from CEOs making 20 times more to CEOs making 400 times more than the average worker (Amis et al., 2020; Berger, 2022). This disparity has been justified by claims that these leaders have an outsized impact on the business and investing in them will have a corresponding impact on productivity. However, this misconception that leadership is only the realm of special people has perpetuated a sense of psychological distance between leaders and the people they are trying to lead (Hollander, 1995), limiting followers' willingness to correct their leaders and show their own initiative (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015; Wilkinson, 2023). While a leader undoubtedly needs to be capable, the idea that a leader needs to be “special” has no evidence to support it. I believe that for leaders to be effective and successful in their roles, it is important to bridge this distance and to engage in what might be perceived as the “mundane” tasks of leadership, such as building trust, listening to people’s problems, and contributing to a positive atmosphere (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003b).
3. All leadership is the same
I am most annoyed by this one. This idea that there is a secret formula to leadership that is consistent across all contexts and situations is incredibly reductionistic and has no basis in reality. Effective leadership looks different depending not only on the situation, but across time as well. And attempts to identify the common traits or actions taken across different effective leaders ultimately leads to a myriad of contradictions (Haslam et al., 2023). In fact, the most promising predictor of effective leadership, intelligence, only accounts for 4% of the variance explained (Judge et al., 2004a). The reality is that effective leadership is incredibly contextual, and what makes a leader extremely effective in one context could ultimately be their downfall in another. With this in mind, it is important for leaders to understand what the particular situation they are placed in calls for and adjust their approach accordingly. Or another approach might be identifying the right leader for the particular context.
Stopping the Zombie Apocalypse
I’m not going to sugar coat it. Stemming the tide of zombie leadership is no easy task. There are reasons these ideas have persisted, despite a lack of empirical evidence. But there is real value in dispelling these myths, particularly in enabling a more wholistic picture of what leadership is and how it impacts our work. By naming these zombie ideas, Haslam et al., 2023 hope to direct action against the negative consequences these ideas serve to produce. Specifically, zombie leadership alienates followers, encourages complacency and narcissism in leadership, and ultimately reduces the productivity of the group as a whole. To me, this paper (Haslam et al., 2023) highlights the importance of not just focusing on leaders themselves, but also the people and environment they lead in. Leadership is ultimately about navigating these relationships and steering the group where it needs to go. By challenging these enduring myths, we can embrace a more nuanced, inclusive, and effective approach to leadership—one that recognizes the value of every individual in the group and adapts strategies to the unique context of each situation.
But don’t just take my word. Hopefully you are inspired to read Haslam et al.’s (2023) article yourself! I found it to be a fairly accessible read that tackles meaningful topics for practitioners. An all too rare combination in academic literature. I believe this wider view of leadership championed by the authors can ultimately lead us to a zombie free world.
References
Haslam, S. A., Alvesson, M., & Reicher, S. D. (2024). Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us. The Leadership Quarterly, 101770.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S., & Platow, M. (2011). The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence, and power. Psychology Press.
Chatterjee, A., & Hambrick, D. C. (2007). It's all about me: Narcissistic chief executive officers and their effects on company strategy and performance. Administrative science quarterly, 52(3), 351-386.
Einola, K., & Alvesson, M. (2021a). Behind the numbers. Questioning questionnaires. Journal of Management Inquiry, 30(1), 102–114. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1056492620938139 .
Kellerman, B. (2016). Leadership — it’s a system not a person! Daedalus, 145, 83–94.
Fransen, K., Boen, F., Haslam, S. A., McLaren, C. D., Mertens, N., Steffens, N. K., & Bruner, M. W. (2023). Unlocking the power of ‘us’: Longitudinal evidence that identity leadership predicts team functioning and athlete well-being. Journal of Sports Sciences. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2023.2193005.
Amis, J. M., Mair, J., & Munir, K. A. (2020). The organizational reproduction of inequality. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 195–230. https://doi.org/ 10.5465/annals.2017.0033.
Berger, C. (2022). The executive-worker pay gap keeps getting bigger as CEOs rake in an average $27.8 million a year. Fortune (October 8). Retrieved from: https://fortune.com/2022/10/07/ceo-worker-pay-gap-wealth-inequality-pandemic/.
Hollander, E. P. (1995). Organizational leadership and followership. In P. Collett, & A. Furnam (Eds.), Social psychology at work (pp. 69–87).
Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2015). Managing the unexpected: Sustained performance in a complex world. John Wiley & Sons.
Wilkinson, A. (2023). Human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003b). The great disappearing act: Difficulties in doing “leadership”. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 359–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1048-9843(03)00031-6.
Judge, T. A., Colbert, A. E., & Ilies, R. (2004a). Intelligence and leadership: A quantitative review and test of theoretical propositions. Journal of applied psychology, 89(3), 542.