INTHEBLACK February 2025 - Magazine - Page 55
WHAT IF EVERYTHING WE THINK WE KNOW
about leadership is wrong? History has a long
tradition of celebrating the achievements of great
leaders like Winston Churchill and Bill Gates.
However, University of Queensland psychology
professor Alex Haslam believes the outdated
conception of leadership that focuses on an
individual’s abilities does more harm than good.
In a paper published in The Leadership
Quarterly, Haslam argues that what makes
leaders effective is followership — the ability
to inspire and motivate teams to strive towards
a common purpose.
WHAT IS “ZOMBIE LEADERSHIP”?
Haslam and his colleagues coined the term
“zombie leadership” to describe
a set of beliefs that dominate leadership
discourse despite having little evidence
to support them. The term is a riff on the
title of Australian economist and professor
John Quiggin’s influential 2010 book,
Zombie Economics.
“The most fundamental myth is that
leadership is all about leaders — great
individuals who transform the world more
or less on their own,” he says.
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