{"id":21332,"date":"2019-02-09T17:17:42","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T01:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21332"},"modified":"2019-02-10T09:46:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T17:46:10","slug":"but-i-love-indiana-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/but-i-love-indiana-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"But I love Indiana Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have thought for a while that leadership literature was kind of cultish. But I love it. Tourish highlights that the leaders themselves are encouraged by this literature to a develop a king od cult like following around their irresistible vision. Tourish had my attention from page 1 but really had me on the edge of my seat when he started taking shots at Jim Collins early on. On page 13 Tourish puts all of Jim Collins work in his scope, claiming that he is the poster child of spreading the over-attribution myth that it all has to do with the leader. Tourish wrote, \u201cCollins explicitly invokes the notion of cults, arguing that leaders of organization should seek to infuse them with a \u2018cult like\u2019 enthusiasm for greatness.\u201d[1]<\/a> (I mean this sounds pretty good if I\u2019m the leader. I would love to have people utterly devoted to my vision and instinctively following my ideas\u2026. Ok that\u2019s my dark side showing\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

As I read this introduction and Tourish\u2019s bashing on the over-attribution of agency and the top leader, I wrote in the margin of my book, \u201cso much for the old adage, \u2018everything rises and falls on leadership.\u2019\u201d Tourish of course is not arguing the opposite, that everything is happenstance and environmental factors outside of our control. That would certainly be under-attribution. But from sports teams to banking, government and even to church leadership there is a huge cultural tendency to give over attribution to the leader.<\/p>\n

Tourish brought an example in this introductory chapter to the Harrison Ford movie Air Force 1, in which the president is also the one who gets it done himself, even resorting to good old-fashioned fisticuffs when needed. I think another illustration may be another Harrison Ford movie, Indiana Jones:<\/em> Raiders of the Lost Ark. <\/em>The funny thing about this movie, is that the protagonist actually does not have any effect what so ever on the outcome of the movie. As this geek fan theory points out, and has recently been made more popular by its incorporation in a Big Bang Theory <\/em>episode,[2]<\/a> Indiana Jones is not the one who stops the Nazi\u2019s and his involvement of the story makes no impact on the outcome.<\/strong> And YET, Indiana Jones is still the leader and the celebrated hero. A prime example of over-attribution to the leader! Even Forbes is guilty of this over-attribution as they recently published a leadership lesson based off of Indiana Jones. (https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/geoffloftus\/2017\/03\/16\/indiana-joness-five-leadership-lessons\/#2b28ea1f42c6)<\/p>\n

Another interesting point that\u00a0author points out is that the dark side is something that has always been there, but just now has an opportunity to show itself. To use another pop culture reference, for the last 10 years one of the most popular tv shows has been the walking dead. One of the aspects that set the show apart early on was their take on Zombies. Instead of the innocent human lives needing to be bit and infected to turn, all the humans were actually already infected. And anybody who dies turns into a “walker”, whether they were bit or not. The human condition was already contaminated.Likewise, this darkside of leadership is already there. If you\u2019re in leadership your darkside is already there, its just laying their dormant. Slattery summarizes \u201cFor example, a \u2018good\u2019 leader who is diligent and dutiful may become overbearing, demanding and perfectionist during times of stress.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing I was confused by in the book was, \u201cHowever, Maccoby (2004) and Ket de Vries (1997) argue that not all narcissist leaders are destructive. Instead, narcissistic leaders who have a degree of emotional intelligence and empathy, can be constructive to organizational outcomes as they use their extraordinary gifts of vision.\u201d[4]<\/a> I am confused as to why narcissism can be tied with empathy. If a leader has empathy than that would make them not narcissistic. However, I suppose a narcissistic leader may use empathy simply as a performance and as a means to end. The action is warmth and care for others, but the desire and results are fulfilling their own desires. This makes it impossible to tell if the leader is actually empathetic or a sociopath. We could wait and see and look at the fruit the tree bears, and how a person finished the race, but even then how would we know? It is only God who looks at the heart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Slattery, Collin. \u201cTroubling Times at The Top.\u201d http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz. www.SemmansLattery.com, November 2009. http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz\/files\/docs\/darksideofleadership2.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ThePayneism. \u201cThe Big Bang Theory – Amy Ruins the Indiana Jones Franchise.\u201d YouTube. YouTube, November 2, 2013. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kWE6M-rhh2U.<\/p>\n

Tourish, Dennis.\u00a0The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: a Critical Perspective<\/em>. Hove: Routledge, 2013.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Dennis Tourish, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: a Critical Perspective<\/em> (Hove: Routledge, 2013). Page 13<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> ThePayneism, \u201cThe Big Bang Theory – Amy Ruins the Indiana Jones Franchise,\u201d YouTube (YouTube, November 2, 2013), https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kWE6M-rhh2U.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Collin Slattery, \u201cTroubling Times at The Top,\u201d http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz (www.SemmansLattery.com, November 2009), http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz\/files\/docs\/darksideofleadership2.pdf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Collin Slattery, \u201cTroubling Times at The Top,\u201d http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz (www.SemmansLattery.com, November 2009), http:\/\/www.conference.co.nz\/files\/docs\/darksideofleadership2.pdf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have thought for a while that leadership literature was kind of cultish. But I love it. Tourish highlights that the leaders themselves are encouraged by this literature to a develop a king od cult like following around their irresistible vision. Tourish had my attention from page 1 but really had me on the edge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1442,1320,1445,1439],"class_list":["post-21332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dennis-tourish","tag-lpg8","tag-the-dark-side-of-transformational-leadership","tag-tourish","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21332"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21341,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332\/revisions\/21341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}