Well, good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us once again for our Leadership Center session. I wanted to remind you that it is our desire at the Leadership Center to inspire the creation and sharing of knowledge and innovative leadership practices.
And we do this by advancing teaching and transformative learning experiences in this dynamic, rapidly changing community. Below you also see our six learning objectives. And we're excited today to continue our discussion with Dr. Cecilia Martin.
And today we're dealing with demystifying the dark transformative or transformational leaders, women leaders. And I don't know about you, but I'm very excited for Dr. Martin to continue on this series. Dr. Martin, we're in your hands and welcome again to Franklin University's Leadership Center. Thank you, Dr. Bowen, again for having me. I'm so excited to be here again today.
We will do a brief recap for those of us who are joining the second session for the first time. We are talking about transformers more than meets the eye, and it sounds extremely corny, but it started a robust conversation during my doctoral studies of whether or not transformational leaders could indeed be dark or toxic. Last time we looked at several leaders, excuse me, there we go.
Last time we took sort of a brief journey through leadership history. We started with the great man theory of whether or not leaders are indeed born or made. It's still an age-old debate.
You know, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli were the leaders of those or the great philosophers of those times who believed that leaders were indeed born, that there was something very intrinsic about them that others did not have or could not acquire to be. So we also discussed briefly the trait and behavioral theories where they began to look at these sort of great and most often male leaders that had some type of qualities that caused them to excel to great heights where people were drawn to them by their behaviors, their demonstrations of ethics. their influence and their success. But then we revisited the question once again, if indeed leaders are born and not made, then how could an institution like the military, for example, take a group of what could be conceivably misfits, I'm a veteran myself, so I can say that, a group of misfits or the peanut gallery, if you will, and cause them to operate as one cohesive unit and then build leaders out of that same unit.
So then we thought about maybe leaders are both born and made and maybe it's contingent upon the situation. And we also looked at sort of a modern day notable example of Rudy Giuliani and 9-11, where Rudy Giuliani was sort of thrust into the forefront of the world as a result of 9-11. Situational leaders, they are impeccable in the moment. They are called for the time.
There may be a limited amount of time or. They are influencing those who are around them, situational leaders. They tell the vision. They sell the vision. They participate in the vision.
And they delegate responsibilities for sustainability. And Rudy Giuliani during that time, during 9-11, was a prime example of what we call a contingency or situational leader. As we progressed throughout this journey, we started looking at transactional leadership theories.
Which is sort of the proverbial box checker, and I don't want to minimize that because this is the 2.0 project manager, the one that gets the job done. There is a mutual exchange between the follower and the leader, a reward, if you will, for getting the job done, for pushing the company into progress, for raising sales, etc. But the problem with the transactional leader really was that it's just that. It's mutually beneficial.
When it's no longer mutually beneficial for either party, the relationship sort of falls apart. So then scholars of modern day said, well, maybe what we're looking at actually or looking for is the ultimate transformational leader. And we will get to some of those throughout this conversation. The transformational leader is.
I don't want to make it hierarchical in the sense that a transactional leader or a great man, if you will, even a servant leader is less than a transformer. And that's what we affectionately call them, transformers. But a transformational leader has this sort of inward synergetic effect on both the organization and their personal lives.
And. you know, with people around them, no matter where they go, they, they're the ones we say have the Midas touch and they really are. the ones that sort of catapult us to the next level, no matter where we are.
And then we also looked at briefly the servant leadership model or the theory where the leader really is the, you know, should be the highest order of service to others. We looked at companies that also, you know, built their foundation on this model, which is Nordstrom's Chick-fil-A and Southwest Airlines. And it all speaks for itself.
We also discussed, so what is a transformer literally? And again, hopefully I'll be doing this presentation to some engineers and scientists. So I thought I'd better get a little bit of an understanding of what an actual transformer does. It's an electromagnet and it actually has the, it's the conduit for energy.
It reduces energy waste and it can pulse the volume up or down, right? The energy up or down. That's what transformers do.
in organizations and on national scale and on international scale, they draw people in and they really have the, they're the conduit for greatness in many ways. Now, throughout this presentation, you may see yourself just like in the last one, maybe I, maybe you are a transformer, maybe I am a transformer. And there's some things you have to kind of be careful about though. See, a lot of times we talk about transformational leaders, we're talking about people on a national scale or globally, but there are a lot of us who may be affecting people in any type of leadership model that you work through, you still have a sphere of influence and you need to be mindful that the transformer can be one of the most dangerous of them all.
Characteristics of a transformational leader is idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration, and we unpack those. So under idealized influence, we're talking about the great communicator. They can communicate the vision well.
They are articulate in their approach. They are able to mesmerize those who are around them, whether they're doing it intentionally or not. They have sort of the it factor.
And also remember transformational leadership in the context of how it's been studied and defined throughout history has been those who have a high. moral standard. These are the mentors or the ones that people want to follow and emulate, okay?
So imagine my professors clutching their pearls when I say, well, what if they're not good people, but they're still transformational, okay? Inspirational motivation. These are the folks, again, who can get the job done.
Not only that, they inspire other people to be their best selves. They are not trying to create minions, if you will. They don't want to clone themselves.
They want people around them who are innovative, who are creative, who are optimistic. They want people to perform beyond their own personal aspirations. The thrill of a transformer is to actually see someone else transform to higher heights. Intellectually stimulating.
These folks are smart. Not only are they smart in their own craft, but they're also smart enough to have people around them who are smart in certain areas. I think I may have told the story of having worked at Johns Hopkins University where they run an international organization of seven people for over two decades.
Because they believe if you have the right seven people who are clear about their tasks and their purpose and their job and their responsibility, then you can get the work done. So you don't need to have, you know, they're not looking for, you know, necessarily thousands in their inner circle, but they're looking for people who are smarter, who can see on the peripheral of what they cannot see. They want people who are innovative and they actually want others to work autonomously within themselves.
A transformer wants to be able to say, Cecilia, I need X, Y, Z done. and be able to walk away from the project knowing that it's going to get taken care of. They want you to function in your autonomy.
Individual consideration. Now, these people, they actually, transformers, they do want you to have somewhat of a work-life balance, okay? They want your personal needs to be met.
They not only want your professional needs met, but they want to be able to mentor, coach, and guide you through the process of excelling to make sure they're the ones who make you feel like you're the only person in the room. And at the same time, they want to continue to push you to your next level of success. This is the model that we looked at how, you know, between transactional, what used to be the standard pretty much of leadership theory and scholarship, into transformational leadership. You see, you know, this idea of idealized influence, where this person really could be a role model for all, where people aspire.
And we see this in different types of sectors, whether it's, you know, in sports, whether it's in business or politics, where we have people sort of at this high level that even in faith-based institutions where we have people at this high level that we really would aspire to be. And all the way down to the really the most laziest, aloof type of a leader, which is laissez-faire. And these people are primarily reactive.
They're in a leadership position or role, but they really are just a detriment to the company just as much as any other type of aloof follower. So here we land again with demystifying transformational leaders. It's very important that we know who they are because when they are operating from the dark side of charisma, these leaders can really become the detriment to your entire organization, your entire mission and vision. They can be the catalyst for the downfall of any organization.
It can be catastrophic. But if we can learn to identify these traits and these sort of personalities, then we really can mitigate them at the beginning and be proactive. I have had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Kellerman as well as Dr. Littman-Bluman, who are the forerunners right now in this particular work on sort of toxic, bad, pseudo, inauthentic leaders. Again, we started, though, with Bass, who is, if you go to the bottom of this chart, who talked about transformers or transformational leaders are inauthentic or pseudo leaders. So, again, having looked at doing further study, and of course, there are many studies on these types of leaders and their male counterparts, if you will.
versus female. But we looked at and discussed last time Adolf Hitler. If you had, if you've seen some of the footage of Hitler, he was a transformational leader. He was toxic, he was evil, he was bad, but he was intelligent.
He had an individualized influence. He was motivational. If you did not speak the language, if you watched him on mute, if you just Look, if he wasn't in a military uniform, you would think he was a Baptist preacher, right?
Because he's, you know, he's waving his arms. He's passionate. He's wiping his brow.
He's, you know, vehemently really just pushing his belief and really full of passion about what he wanted to accomplish. And when I first started talking about dark transformers, One of my teachers or one of my professors during my doctoral program was the one who actually took this and ran with it. My other professors were like, Cecilia, it's not possible. You can't be a transformational leader and be toxic at the same time. When my professor, her name is Dr. Karen Klinka, now my colleague, took me. to talk about this to the International Leadership Association for the first time in Prague in the old Czechoslovakia, which is now Czech Republic, in the heart of the Jewish quarters.
And I had the privilege of meeting a Holocaust survivor who, she was 85 years old, I believe, but who at the time told me that it is indeed important to talk about this topic because when it came to Adolf Hitler... Initially, the public did not perceive him as an evil ruler. And when they started seeing soldiers marching in the streets, they saw it as patriotism. He promised to bring the country out of poverty.
He promised to make them world leaders. So quite naturally, when the soldiers started coming to the door to take them to the concentration camps, they did not initially perceive that their lives were in any danger. Because everyone loved Hitler at the time because of what he was doing for the country, because of his personality.
And we'll find that many of these are chameleons. I also spoke about Marion Barry, having shared the stage with him in Washington, D.C. And his. His personality was hypnotic. I can't even explain it to this day, just being in his presence for a few minutes. I almost forgot what I was there to do.
I did my part of the presentation. Afterwards, he invited me for a conversation with him, and I was just mesmerized. So in that instance, maybe he did have the it factor, but he was a toxic leader.
Bill Clinton, we discussed. briefly also, not because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but because of the fact that Bill Clinton knew he was an inept leader when it came to international policy. On his watch, more than a half a million of Rwandans died on his watch within a matter of months. Later on in his presidency, he apologized for that and tried to make amends, but his ineptness as an international leader. His policies of the prison pipeline with this war on drugs, which should have been treated as a rehabilitative policy like they do opioids today, really has affected generations of people around the U.S.
And then, of course, the bright side of these transformers we see are pretty evident. Now we're looking at women leaders today, okay? Margaret Thatcher, Martha Stewart, Indira Gandhi, Jill Barad, Winnie Mandela, and Mary Meeker. Now, as we go along in this presentation, feel free to put questions in the chat.
We will try to answer a few of those along the way or at the end. But before we get started, based on what you know, oh, let's see here. Based on what you know, we're going to do a poll.
Not yet. In a second. So be ready for the poll. Winnie Mandela. Let's look at her.
So she was definitely a transformational woman. She was a social worker. She protested what was called the past books.
She was notably the husband or the wife of Nelson Mandela. And during her time of fighting apartheid, She also fought something called the passbooks. This was, if you will, for the lack of a better term, a sort of passport that Black Africans had to carry around in order to sort of monitor their comings and goings into white communities.
She was four and a half months pregnant. She hit the streets with thousands of other women. They were incarcerated.
She refused to pay the bond and stayed in prison for weeks while she was pregnant. just to show solidarity in the cause. Even later on, when she once again was exiled for continuing the fight against apartheid, she started a soup kitchen, a daycare, a mobile health unit. So this woman, for all intents and purposes, was extremely transformational. And she was the right hand of the man who got it all turned around.
However, the same person who began to operate from this dark side that we talked about of charisma started what was called the Mandela Unified Football Club. Nothing to do with football. These were her bodyguards.
And she commissioned killings of collaborators who were, in her mind, collaborating with the government. She endorsed neck lacing, which is when you put a tire around someone's neck, fill it with gasoline and light it a fire. So she was endorsing burning people alive. However, in this case, we have to ask ourselves, not a however, I'm not condoning what she did.
Was she better than the alternative? Because that is the question around Wendy Mandela and her dark transformationalism. We talked about that last time, how sometimes we take advantage of these dark transformers.
We endorse their work because sometimes they are the lesser of two evils. This is more clear in many of our third world countries or countries where dictatorship is still very much prevalent. However, at some point, is it good to do something evil to accomplish something good?
Is it ever good to kill someone? Is it ever good to endorse that level of violence or violence in general? But Willie Mandela, you know, a lot of the scholars say, you know, they usually start with something went horribly wrong.
because it did. Okay. Now let's say, look at Jill Barad.
She was a phenomenal woman as well. She transformed this idea of the Barbie and this sort of image of, you know, what girls could do. She started We Girls Can Do Anything. She started as a project manager.
And when she came out with the slogan, We Girls Can Do Anything, she was in charge of Mattel's Barbie line. She began, she's the one who actually began changing the Barbies to the businesswoman, the doctor, the lawyer. If you think in your mind throughout time, how the Barbies changed over time.
And many would say that she was the foundation for the multi-ethnic Barbies that we have today. As it was pushed through, as the civil rights happened, as the Chicana movement happened, and the dolls began to change, the faces, the skin tones, etc., she really began that work where we girls can do anything. As a project manager, she rose to the top. She eventually became CEO, chairperson. She grossed them $1.8 billion in sales.
She brokered many. the major deals that we see that are still in place today in terms of contracting with other toy stores that, you know, created smart toys and the cars that Ken drives and all of that great stuff. And she created, she was a catalyst for the American Girl Store, which I've been to in New York. And if you haven't been there, you just have to because it's a phenomenon what they do with the dolls. You have high tea with the dolls.
You have lunch with the dolls. The dolls have a spa and there are real people working on these dolls. If your doll's arm is broken, the doll has a cast and a wheelchair.
It's really quite fun. However, she was known to be a non-team player and a taskmaster. She cost the company in one quarter alone $184 million.
Towards the end of her tenure, which was about two or three years as a CEO and president, she cost them $82 million. She cut 3,000 jobs. Now, along the way, this is, again, an example of how the company appreciated her work as long as they were making money.
Even though they knew she was a tyrant, a lot of their top executives resigned under her watch. Even when they first started losing money, each time she got a promotion, she demanded a double salary. She was making millions by the time she exited and received a twenty four million dollar severance package.
Now that we have to go back to that because in policy, again, where can any bad worker be cut from their job for their or be forced to resign and still receive a severance package of that nature? Now, this is the poll I want you to take that's coming up on the screen. We have Martha Stewart, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher.
We all know Martha Stewart. Indira Gandhi was the first female prime minister of India. And Margaret Thatcher, also known as the Iron Lady. Which one of these female leaders do you believe is not toxic or dark or is the least of them, should not be on this list? And we'll give you a few minutes.
This should be fun. Indira Gandhi is leading so far, which is not dark or toxic and should not be on this list. Should not be on this list.
We'll give you about 30 more seconds. Okay, so I believe we're saying that Martha Stewart should not be on this list. Put in the chat if you agree for a thumbs up.
Martha Stewart absolutely should not be on this list. Give me a thumbs up if you agree. Okay, let's look at Martha Stewart.
We know that she built the company from scratch, Omnimedia. Says a lot in the name, right? Omni Media.
She was indeed a business mogul. Her business acumen is what propelled her to the top. She transformed domesticity.
It was glamorous to be a housewife. It was glamorous to be a woman who cooked, made her own meals. It was glamorous to make your own clothes. Over time, she just really transformed this.
this ideal of what domesticity looked like, right? And she was largely philanthropic. Many people don't know that she gave to cancer societies and to the humane society.
And again, she was a self-made millionaire, billionaire. But Martha Stewart had some issues. She was indeed known to be very callous, a tyrant.
We're going to talk more about her in a little bit in the next session, session three. She was convicted for obstruction of justice. So, you know, many people don't know that Martha Stewart began as a model and she was also one of the top performers as a stockbroker on Wall Street.
So when we get into this idea of maybe she didn't know. what she was doing in terms of the insider trading or the tip that she received and passed along. We do know that she knew to destroy evidence and records for a reason.
And so, and she has a chameleon type personality where, you know, many people felt sorry for her. They said, you know, she didn't mean any harm. She was just trying to, you know, stay out of trouble. But at the end of the day, she, again, in her past life was an extraordinary stockbroker. Then we look at Indira Gandhi, right?
She was the first female prime minister of India. Many will say she rose to power through corrupt means that she learned from her father. But she also was the forerunner for the Green Revolution, where she taught India to be self-sufficient on grains so they could supply their own food.
And because of her um welcoming of 10 million refugees from Pakistan, she actually created what is known as modern day Bangladesh, right? So she has done extraordinary things in history as well. But again, she was accused of electoral corruption. She was allegedly a notorious murderer for the opposition party.
In one instance, which is captured in history, where Sikhs were held up who were in opposition to her as president, as prime minister. When the next election came up, she put the country in a state of emergency so that people would have restricted time. They couldn't vote. They couldn't do etc. And there was some Sikhs who were in opposition to her.
authority, and she commissioned her folks to actually go and take them by any means necessary. Many of them were killed. This put the community up in an uproar because she actually murdered people like you would see on some type of Godfather movie inside of a sanctuary. At the end of the day, too, she was assassinated by her own bodyguards. So that's pretty, that's pretty serious.
Margaret Thatcher, also known as the Iron Lady, was also the first female prime minister of Britain, one of the longest standing ones. In fact, she was a great military strategist known for her how she handled the Falklands and her alignment with Reagan during the Cold War. She was a phenomenal leader. She had a large constituent that backed her on all of her policies. But, you know, even before she was the Iron Lady, she was known as Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, because she was, and it sounds hilarious, but the outcome was real.
She, as the Minister of Secretary at the time, before, long before she became Prime Minister, she was always rigid. She believed that you know, she had done a tour of several schools and saw and believed that they were wasting milk. Now, I'm a former high school teacher, but I've also been in school myself as a little one, and she's probably right.
I mean, a lot of times we just throw the milk cartons away. But in Britain at the time, the milk was free not just for the students, but also for mothers, because they wanted to make sure that mothers were nourished. They were afraid of, you know, remnants of the war or what have you.
malnutrition. So the milk was free. She decided it was a waste. We could cut money this way. And so she was known as Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, and she cut free milk from school.
She was also known for the poll tax, which left much of Great Britain in abject poverty, where she commissioned the regions to sort of set their own tax base. Her intentions were good in the sense that You know, she was hoping or the theory was that the lower income and the poor would pay fewer taxes. But that did not turn out well for her and really was the sort of the last straw in her demise where she was kind of forced to resign. She was always known as the iron lady who was rigid and would not back down from her her policies on the surface of dark leadership.
And we'll come back to. to which one doesn't belong on the list. On the surface, any combination, you know, one thing is a character flaw, but when you put these in combination, you have what's called a perfect behavioral storm. A lot of times we see people who are perfectionists as the ones who are attention to detail. They want things done right.
But if that perfectionist is then intemperate, they almost often, and it goes unchecked, it goes into them being inhumane. Okay? Because they want things their way down to the T. Then you have those who may deal with impression management. This is the chameleon that we'll talk more about next time.
If that chameleon is also callous, they are more than likely toxic because they're manipulating everyone along the way to. set their outcomes and most notably for themselves. This is what it looks like when dark behaviors are unchecked in leadership.
It metastasizes like a cancer. It doesn't get any better. These folks are intelligent. They're intelligent enough to have even smarter people around them to get the job done.
They are very influential. They are charismatic magnets. They also make sure that the persons that are working for them are reaching their full potentials, that their goals are intertwined.
That's where it goes beyond the transactional leader, because the transformer wants to make sure that you feel your purpose, whether you're the custodian or whether you're the head of the company, that your very existence. matters for being there, that your very existence causes the company to function well. And that's a great thing. That's what we all should be doing as leaders. But when you start to let your behaviors, your ill behaviors, your personal greed go unchecked, then you're working from the dark side of charisma and you're more than likely to cause a whole lot of friction.
The other reason we say that it's important to know these transformers is because they are a magnet to others, they could have the tendency to take your core group with them, right? Whether it's to the negative side in the case like we see with Stalin and Adolf Hitler, or whether it's to the positive side where we see a Nelson Mandela, where we see a Wangari Maathai, okay? Whether it's the The dark side where we see a Winnie where, you know, at first she was working hard for the people, standing for a cause. But then she has this very complicated now history of operating in a corrupt way. Now, what we talked about before remains true.
If we are able to identify these behaviors that naturally come with the temptations of, you know, greed and power. we can mitigate them and use them for our advantage. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So these narcissistic transformers will bring attention to your vision. They will make sure that they are marketing the cause. They're the ones that feel with Machiavellianism.
You know, they're willing to fall on the sword to make sure that that the outcomes are great. They are extremely competitive. They are, you know, insomniacs. They get very little sleep.
So that means while you're sleeping, someone is working on your vision. They are pushing it forward. They're strategizing.
They're master chess players. What we don't want to see, however, is personalized power. That's why that's crossed out. And we don't want to see ideology of hate.
And we're going to talk about how to take these personalities that any of us can find ourselves in and leadership and mitigate them and sort of keep that balance. First of all, in order for these followers to be effective, they have to have colluders in leadership. They are not effective without having some, the leadership, either one turning a blind eye because they rather have the talent, they rather have the financial gain, they rather have the problem solved, right?
They have to have susceptible followers. And what I like about Dr. Littman-Blooman's work. is at some point we do have to talk about why we're following these corrupt leaders. There's an allure to them to some extent.
And then you have to have a conducive environment for it to work. Many of them are embedded in corrupt systems. The culture is toxic at work. The culture is toxic at church. The culture is toxic in financial systems, in political systems.
So they have to, many times they are thriving in these sort of conducive environments that are already relatively corrupt, but it doesn't have to be that way. How can we help these transformers stay on track? We don't want to lose them. These are the change agents that make it happen, no matter if they are a international figure or, you know, someone working at a local level. These are the change agents.
These women and men have to have tenured roles. Oh, it does nothing but, you know, make them even more competitive in their mind because they're going to think about all the amazing things they can get done in two or three years. And even when you tenure, it doesn't mean you can't extend their time, really literally based on good behavior. Because again, there's a temptation that comes with power, money and influence.
You can move them around. So you can have them operate in one department, move them to another department. You must have strict policy in place.
Again, what is this business about corrupt leaders who cause other people to lose their way, cause organizations to fall, to have a $24 million severance package? So before you get to the forced resign, have policies in place along the way that checks the behavior or the ethics. if you will, or the character of their performance as well.
It does nothing but sort of force them into a reality check, you and yourself and the organization. Cultivate your climate. Listen, whether, it doesn't matter what type of leader it is, they can only go so far if the system itself isn't corrupt. And what I mean by that, there are some systems will never change. We're not going to even talk about politics and things of that nature.
But in your area of influence, making sure you're cultivating a climate of ethics and excellence, honesty and integrity. And they need accountability partners, even the ones who seem to be positive leaders, effective, positive leaders. They need to have accountability partners to keep them on track. There's too much temptation that comes with power and influence.
Sometimes people are going astray. Because there's just no one to check them along the way and to say, wait a minute, do we need to do this? Real transformers, they want people who are smarter than them. And they also want to make sure that you're not afraid to speak truth to them. OK, much like we do now with COVID-19.
Remember, a lot of places we were going and people are doing that temperature check. That's how you need to check the moral compass of leadership in your organization. And within yourself. Other recommendations, don't believe your own hype.
Many of us are a legend in our own mind, right? We get full of pride, which comes before fall. Don't take yourself so seriously. Stay emotionally and physically healthy. And again, kind of know your own appetite of where you might fall astray.
It's just a healthy thing to have these leadership networks. It's healthy, especially as women in leadership. A lot of times we're so mischaracterized. We don't even have time to go into that. That some of the characteristics that we display, you know, if it was a male counterpart, you know, no one would think twice about it.
And but there are times, too, that, you know, that has nothing to do with the fact that as a female leader, we can to lean into the dark side. Right. Know your own appetite. We're pausing now. We only have 15 minutes left to to take questions.
But next time, what we're going to look into is Thatcher and Stewart a little bit more. I can tell you based on the polling, some of you had it right. And many of you had it wrong. Actually, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, does not belong on the list. She's not a toxic leader.
And she's not a dark leader. And we're going to talk about what it is, though, that she has that many of us have. And this is why we find ourselves in a predicament, because we haven't recognized the difference between what is a effectively toxic, right? That's that sort of progression of dark leadership, dark transformational leadership. You become effectively toxic versus pleiotropic leadership.
There's a huge difference. And that pleiotropic leadership really is the same characteristic that causes you to rise. The exact same one that causes you to propel you to the top can also take you all the way down to the bottom.
the exact same characteristics. So we're going to look at that next time. We do have a few minutes for questions like we did last time, which was really pretty cool.
So let's see what we have here. Dr. Bowling? Yes, I'm right here.
I did put in the chat that if you have any questions, please put your questions in the chat at this time. Oh, thank you. Our last group, we had several questions that we couldn't even get to.
So we don't have any this time. That's perfectly fine. We want to give you a few more minutes, though, before I wrap it up. Are there questions? Dr. Sanders said, would you classify?
Where would you classify Hillary Clinton? Ah, I knew Hillary was gonna come up. She always does.
Um, she would definitely be on the dark transformational side. Hate to say that. Would that be because of Benghazi or what would make her on the dark side? Well, I wouldn't say necessarily because of Benghazi, but I would say because of the many policies that she supported along with her husband.
Hillary has always had this sort of personal agenda to, as we saw one day, become the first female president. Her disposition, the rhetoric that she carried during many of her campaigns, and also there were a lot of backdoor deals, if you will. I've read her biography. And and writings on her.
And I want to say, too, for many of these women, I've read thousands of information on them. And there has been consensus through many of the scholars, which ones are toxic and which ones are not. And yes, Hillary Clinton would.
She has a flaw in personality that would classify her as such. Are you on mute? OK, we have a couple more questions.
One of them is what about. Oprah? You know, I haven't studied Oprah yet, but I really honestly was wondering just the other day, would she fit as a toxic leader? Because to me, much of what she does mirrors Martha Stewart's pathway, right?
Martha Stewart is a toxic leader. We're going to talk more about why that is true next time. because we want to juxtapose her to the pleiotropic leader, which is Thatcher. I don't know, but I do find it curious that how she has risen to power. People would say you can't get your hands dirty coming that far.
I'm more optimistic than that. I don't believe that. I'm hoping that she isn't. But I'm going to study her because I'm curious too. She has a strong, loyal inner circle, a strong, loyal organization.
I think it's more bizarre than no one has said. anything bad about her, which makes me wonder what type of gag orders do they have? That's true. I've really never heard anything negative about Oprah.
Just about some things about religion, but overall, no. It's even more strange, I think. That is.
Yeah. A question from Dr. Brenda Jones. Are dark transformational leaders more likely to spur group thinking followers? To spur what?
group think group thinking followers so yeah and you know the question is do they spur group think with the followers with the followers group uh think the same uh for dark transformation yes yes and exactly and exactly one of those great examples is jim jones um we talked about him last time in the sense of how this man had such a hold on people that even you know when he decided it was time for them to die They got the word from other places and committed suicide in another state, you know, outside of the grounds of where he had them. I think it breeds cult like thinking. Remember, trans transformers who are not operating from the dark side want independent thinking, want autonomy, because that's where the synergy and the magic happens.
Right. When they start to operate from the dark side of charisma. charisma, they are indulging in narcissism, they want cult-like thinking, they want, they, they don't want you to operate outside of, you know, what their rules are, expectations, it, it really, you know, it's really not a healthy way of doing business at all.
Very, very interesting. I have a question, do you believe upbringing impacts the toxicity? of dark transformational leaders? That's a great question too.
I am still on the fence about that because Adolf Hitler, for example, you know, people would love to think that his father or mother were just torturing him, you know, kind of like, you know, the children under the stairs, you know, but there really was no prevalent examples of abuse. And in fact, you know, some of which you know, which was strict upbringing. I grew up with a Southern mother and I can tell you that I think from what I know so far, my life was much worse. So, you know, I can't say in all cases, yes, in some cases.
Remember Adolf Hitler was also an artist. He went to art school when he left boarding school. So, you know, it's really hard to say. There are cases, however, where some who operate in psychopathy definitely have had tremendous amount of traumatic experiences at the hands of their family or close loved ones as a child. But what we can see, too, is that there was a lack of mitigation along the way.
There was a lack of accountability for those who may have seen these folks struggling as young individuals. So I think still some can be mitigated along the way. But yes, yes, yes and no.
You know, this this whole workshop is making every leader think that along those lines, if someone identifies themselves as having traits of the dark side, is it possible for them to maintain pure intentions with their knowledge? Oh, that is a great question, because I'm hoping we're all being reflective of our propensity, right, in myopic behaviors. What, if you see some of these tendencies, any leader has the tendency to have a level of Machiavellianism, willing to say, you know, it's better to be feared than to be loved. You have the tendency of narcissistic behavior because... You are influencing others.
Every leader needs to check your moral compass. And if there's any goodness left in you, because sometimes there isn't. you know, leaders, they're too far gone. But if there's any goodness in you and you want to avoid some of your own missteps, you have to have an accountability group.
You have to have the person who maybe you don't do business with, but you can be real with and you can run by these. They won't judge you. I have friends that I can talk to who, one, don't know what I do, don't care what I do.
But I can say, you know, I'm feeling this way about a situation and they can check me ethically and say, yeah, but is it worth it? Does it make sense? How would that affect the next person?
So sometimes you need some people who are who are outside of your operational circle that you can talk to, not sometimes all the time that you can talk to and be real with and can check those behaviors. You have to want to be checked. That's a good that's good.
Yes, because as leaders, we all, I think if as a leader, we can all see where we may have a behavior or a characteristic. And so that doesn't make you automatically a dark leader. No, not at all. Not at all.
Thank you for clarifying that and sharing. Another question is, do you have any observations regarding Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot? She's a Manchester, Ohio native. So interest from an Ohio lady.
Yeah, I see that. No, I have not yet, but I can certainly put her on the list. I think as we progress, you know, there are certain some, you know, some high flyers that we need to take a look at. I mean, I think Mark Zuckerberg also needs to be looked at.
There's a lot, there are a lot of leaders, both male and female, young and old. that we need to take a deeper look at, especially the ones that are influenced modern day. Right.
Like in real time. The problem is we need more time, right, to see their outcomes, to see their patterns. That's what makes this research a lot of fun. Most of the male counterparts have already been studied. Oh my gosh, since the early 1800s, right?
the female counterparts have not been and so that's what makes this um a lot of fun but we need a little bit more time just like hillary we've got some time on our belt with her so we've able been able to see um some patterns there the same with oprah and we're gonna have to dig deep on her and we're not trying to find anything bad but we're just curious she's indeed transformational um so that should be interesting that should be And check out Elon Musk as you're checking because, you know, last week he wreaked a lot of havoc by impacting the cryptocurrency. So, yes, very, very interesting. So another question is, what can organizations do to prevent work environments or work culture that are conducive to dark trades?
That's a great question. That is a great question. First of all, first and foremost, the reason I keep pushing policy, because policy becomes the blueprint.
So when an organization or the leaders thereof lose their way, you can always go back to the blueprint and say, what should we do in this situation? But in terms of culture, you have to make sure that you are giving recognition, giving honor, as they say, where honor is due. or giving recognition for those who are working hard at every level, right?
Because, okay, what the project manager is doing may not be what the deputy vice president is doing, but it's all very much working towards the same goal. It's all very much important. You have to make sure that people don't feel penalized when they have opposing opinions.
You have to make sure there's a healthy life-work balance. If you're owning people at home, it's just not, you're setting yourself up for a toxic environment. I'm not talking about the individual who's the go-getter, who's going to work when you're sleeping, as I said.
Most transformers are insomniacs anyway, because they're thinking about the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But- If you are owning people at home, I remember having the Blackberry. And when I would go home to see that light flashing gave me anxiety every day through the night at two in the morning, I'm going to the bathroom, the light started flashing on the weekend. So you really need to make sure that you are setting up a culture where you have hired skilled, equipped, bright people to get the job done. Nine to five.
They're going to. They're going to work extended hours anyway. There'll be seasons when that happens, but you can't own them outside of their own time.
You have to appreciate and let them talk about their family, their pets, their loved ones, and have a space, maybe a go-to person that they can talk to if they're having a bad day. You have to practice dialogue, effective communication. What I like to talk about is praise, question, polish in your meetings where people can, you know... talk about achievement, recognize someone who's doing well, but also put some tough questions on the table, and how can we make this better, and you have to celebrate along the way. I mean, what's...
okay can you hear me uh did she just get she is in the middle of storms oh okay great i thought maybe i ended i thought it was me who had the point you know you work hard you play hard work would be there and let everyone know about it okay we lost her she knows that they were having storms and she'll call right back in you I think the questions that have been presented are great. And even as we talk with organizations, we also have to remember that there are subcultures. And those subcultures may be as such that you may have an environment that is a little bit more cohesive and that you can do a lot more sharing, that you get those reaffirmations. But the larger culture may not be there yet. And so sometimes it's working within your subculture to bring about the change that you want to see in a larger community.
So that is a great question regarding the environment in your work environment. And I would also share, she was talking about being kind of tethered to your Blackberry at a certain time. There's a colleague of mine that's on the line as well.
We used to email back and forth at three o'clock in the morning. That was just because both of us were on the awake at that time. doesn't mean that you should have to respond at three o'clock in the morning. So let's see if she gets back in here.
She was having storms and lots of rain. So that's why she was having some problems. Let me see here. Thank you, Michelle, for reminding me that Oprah did have a problem with the beef industry. And when it doesn't look like she's going to make it back in time.
So do me a favor, Jenny, if you would pop that last slide up, I would like to Thank you all for coming tonight today. And then remind you that on June the 1st will be the last session for this three-part series on Demystifying Dark Transformational Leaders. We'll be talking about effective toxic leaders. And I can't say that word, but I think it's pleiotropic leadership. Then also Thursday of this week, please join us.
The Leadership Center will be collaborating with the Provost Office. on a session on brain food at 12 noon dealing with augmented and virtual reality with alice rowe and then on the 16th we're having a uh a speaker series our sales series and we'll go from there this is cecilia calling yes ma'am hello