Why is there so much bad leadership within organizations?

Former Ohio State President Ted Carter became the eighth president or chancellor in the 18-member Big Ten conference to exit in a little over a year.

Whether it’s business, politics or education, we’ve been seeing a crisis of leadership.

On this hour of All Sides, we’re discussing why there is so much bad leadership within organizations and why unqualified people rise to the top.

Guests:

• A.R. “Elango” Elangovan, associate vice-president, executive lead of OGE and UVic's Global Engagement Strategy, University of Victoria, British Columbia
• Galen Emanuele, team, culture and leadership expert/founder, Shift Yes

Transcript

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Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. The 18-member Big Ten Conference has seen eight of its presidents or chancellors exit in a little over a year, and a ninth plan stood apart later this year.

Count former Ohio State University President Ted Carter among those ranks. Whether it's business, politics, or higher education, this turnover calls attention to the crisis of leadership at the top spot of organizations.

We're looking at why people feel there's so much bad leadership in organizations and why seemingly unqualified people often seem to rise to the top. Joining us this hour is Management Scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. A.R. “Elango” Elangovan. Welcome to All Sides Alongo.

A.R. “Elango” Elangovan: Thank you, Amy. Happy to be here.

Juravich: So while we're still learning details behind what happened with former Ohio State University President Ted Carter, he's admitted to an inappropriate relationship. So I'm using that term in air quotes. What do you think of the use of this term, that inappropriate relationship, whenever it comes to leadership? Why do we use this term inappropriate relationship?

Elangovan: I think it often refers to an issue of character, a failure of character more than competency when we talk about these kinds of situations. And I think, it goes to one of the fundamental issues in how we understand good leadership.

It's very interesting if you look at the last hundred years of leadership thinking, how we have moved from a certain perspective on leadership to what is currently the dominant view of leadership. For example, in the early 1900s, the focus on leadership was all about the great person. Here is somebody, a leader is born, and they can do amazing things.

Over the next few decades, we found no empirical support for that perspective. And what happened was a shift to looking at leadership competencies. It wasn't who you are, but what you do. That seemed important.

So in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, there was a recognition that different situations require different kinds of competencies, And all the emphasis was on how do I acquire these competencies to be a good leader, building a team, having a good vision, you know, delegating work, making change in the organization.

That dominates even to this day. But what we find is in all of this, what's been lost is the question of the person, the values, the models and ethics the person has, and of course the whole issue of character.

So, when we hear about these kinds of situations and within courts, as you put it. Inappropriate relationships or other problematic issues, it's usually a question of character, it's a question usually of some slippage in values and moral and ethics in terms of leadership.

Juravich: When a leader is being chosen, I mean, how can you truly judge their character? Because anyone can say anything in an interview. I mean you can alter your character throughout your life, right? So does character shift during your leadership time?

Elangovan: Well, it's interesting because it's not a, we started focusing so much on what you accomplish, even in terms of when we do a selection process and ask you to fill up and show your resume and talk about what you have done, rarely do we talk about how have you done it, right?

So the question becomes the methods and the approaches and that was behind these accomplishments. And when you combine that with the emphasis on short-term results that seems to be the norm these days.

You find leaders pushing ahead, sometimes in methods and ways of doing things that are not really appropriate, but leave behind kind of a scorched-earth approach, leave behind, you know, broken organizations or leave behind broken employees.

But on their own resume, yes, you can check a box and say, yes I did A, B, and C. And I think the onus is on selection committees. That hire them to actually look beyond just the razzle-dazzle of a resume to see exactly what's happened behind the scenes.

A good question would be to ask the organizations they have left, are they better off after this person left them as a leader compared to when they started? And even more important, would they have them back as a leaders? That starts to tell you a little bit more about exactly how they have conducted themselves, the question of character and how they connect with other people. Rather than just listing off a bunch of accomplishments on the resume.

Juravich: How do you get the previous organization to answer that question honestly? I mean, I guess who you put down as your references is gonna say positive things, but if it's a big enough organization, I guess should they be doing their due diligence and calling around the company and asking questions like that to someone not on the reference list?

Elangovan: Yeah, well, you know, it's one of those tricky things because in a formal sense, you're only supposed to reach out to the people who have been put down as references, but you find in any industry, especially at the very senior levels, it is a fatally small group of folks and there is an ecosystem or a community where the word spreads, you know, and I think even if without formally reaching out to references, you actually will pick up through the grape vine, all kinds of chatter.

And I think a good selection committee and a good search firm will actually look into that, check into that and do their own due diligence in making sure that that comes through. One of the key questions I found that's very effective this way in a reference check is yes, people will give references of people who really like them.

And when you ask them things like, what are the negative aspects of this person or what areas they should need to improve? Usually you get a pretty vague answer. People generally are very positive about it. But I remember one search firm asking me the question. They didn't ask me what I thought was the negative or challenges this person had.

They said, if we were to talk to other people in the organization, what would they say are the shortcomings of this individual? It was very interesting. It was a very shuttle shift. But I was the person giving the reference check and I felt a little bit more open to talk about what I thought the rest of the organization may think about this individual, not just me.

And I thought that was a very skilled approach by the search firm that was doing the reference check with me. So I think there are ways to actually get around that and get an accurate profile of this person behind the scenes, besides the formal references that they give.

Juravich: How do you define bad leadership? Is there like a definition that's used whenever there's someone's a bad leader?

Elangovan: Well, I think there are a few metrics you can look at. One is, have they added value to the organization, not just themselves, in terms of their own self-promotion? Have the employee engagement and the level of commitment to the organizations, is that high?

And the other angle to look at is, how long have they stayed? Are they being welcomed to stay in that role?

Because when you see metrics on employee satisfaction, engagement dropping, when you see metrics of employee's trust towards leadership is very low, and you see metric on leadership turnover being high, you start to realize those are signs of poor leadership. They truly are not adding value to the organization or lifting the people up in the organization.

Juravich: So whether it's a business, politics, or education, or some other endeavor, a nonprofit, what impact can bad leadership have on an organization? What happens to everyone under them or to the entire organization when they have someone who's determined to be a bad leader at the top?

Elangovan: Well, I think it shows up in multiple ways, starting with the fact that the organization does not get to meet its goals that it set out for itself. So the primary performance metric of are we meeting the goals we set for ourselves, that starts to fall short.

You start to see employees disengaging, employees starting to look for jobs elsewhere. Right now, for example, 51% of employees are looking for jobs elsewhere. This is 2025 data. And you also start to see a little bit of drift in terms of what the organization is doing.

There is no strategic purpose and you're a little of wandering around as you start this kind of spiral downwards. So in terms meeting goals, in terms people dynamics, and in terms your own brand image and reputation, everything takes a hit. When you have poor leadership.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.

We're talking about why so many organizations have bad leadership with A.R. Alongo, Elangovan, management scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. So as a management scholar, since that's what you are, what are the key qualities a leader should possess whenever you're talking about measuring someone's character? Tell me more about those key qualities of a good leader.

Elangovan: Yeah, I'm going to actually emphasize on a certain aspect that's kind of being not talked about enough in the leadership literature. We talk quite a bit about having leaders who are very intelligent, who have a sense of vision, and of course it helps if you have people with good EQ and people skills.

But what's not talked about often is the notion of wisdom in leadership. And it's one of those old fashioned words, but I think it is so relevant. And so absent in leadership these days. And if you think about wisdom, it actually brings together three dimensions.

That is, a wise decision has to have good logic and reasoning behind it. It has to empathy and a human angle and a humane connection behind it, and it has to certain principles, ethical, moral principles behind it but differently you're talking about how a good decision has head, heart, and a backbone.

Now, what you find is, if you think about the leaders, doesn't matter if you're thinking about leaders in politics, in business, and you ask people, tell me somebody who's a wise leader. And I've done this in executive program workshops. You will be amazed how people struggle to come up with names, especially when I ask them, can you think of a wise lead in your organization, given this definition I just gave you.

And there's often silence in their own. People struggle to come up with examples of wise leaders. So when you talk about what kind of leadership do we need in addition to the common qualities that we talk about in terms of the abilities to have a vision, have set goals and to inspire people and connect with people, often the third piece that's missing is are they then tying it into a sense of moral anchor and compass?

But combined together you have this wise leadership that can move us all forward across different domains. You will find there is a deficit of wisdom in leadership.

Juravich: Wow, okay. See, I haven't thought of the word wisdom very much, right? Especially when it comes to leadership, but you're correct. It is an old word, but just having me sit here and think, I'm trying to think of someone who's wise and my brain just wants to go back to like ancient philosophers or something like that, right.

Elangovan: Exactly. But I think if we search hard enough, I think we do find people with that kind of convergence of the three qualities, the head, heart, and the backbone. And I think those are the ones we ought to look forward to and the ones that we need to have leading us no matter what field we are in.

Juravich: So you're saying that good leadership doesn't necessarily mean being a good person and a good listener. Because if you were to ask me what a good leader is, I would say a good person and and a good listener, you know, but that seems so such a like such a lame thing to say compared to your what you just said about wisdom.

Elangovan: Well, what you said is part of it. That's the EQ or the heart on the human side part of it, right? Yes, you want to listen. You want to be a good listener. You want to connect.

But that is not the full picture. So yes, you can have a very nice leader in terms of a very friendly, people-oriented person. But if they are lacking in terms either an ability to make logical, tough reasoning in difficult situations.

But also be anchored in some values and certain principles, then all you have is a very good, soft-hearted person who's lovely to be with, but may not necessarily be the kind of leader you need, especially in difficult situations.

Juravich: Right right and much earlier you were mentioning how there we used to think 100 years ago that leaders were born and now we more so think that leaders are trained. So tell me the difference there are are good leaders are not born there are they always trained?

Elangovan: Well, I think the latest thinking in the field would be both elements are relevant, meaning yes, a lot of good leadership is about acquiring the competencies, setting goals, achieving targets in a change management, building culture, etc., etc. But the difference between good to great leadership is that extra layer of the authenticity and the character of the leader that is inspiring.

Just it kind of exudes, the person exudes that and that's inspiring and draws people together. We talk about what you do speak so loudly that I can't hear what you say. So yes, you can say all kinds of things, but there is something about your presence and people watch you.

You're on stage and people see you. And if they see a certain authenticity, a certain grounding of character and a certain principled person, that adds that magical layer around the collection of competencies you would have.

So I would say you need both. But the point is we have forgotten that character part and competencies seem to be holding. Getting all the weightage and not the character.

Juravich: And you said the letters EQ a couple of times when you say that you're meaning emotional intelligence, is that what you're talking about?

Elangovan: Exactly, and your ability to, as you said, listen and connect with people and empathize with them and to have your finger on the pulse of the emotions in the workplace.

Juravich: Before we take a break, I wanted to know, how do you advise an organization if they need to select a new leader? I mean, do you tell them to form a search committee, do a bunch of interviews? Like, is that is that the right way to select the leader?

Elangovan: Well, I think yes in the sense that you do need multiple perspectives to look at a potential candidate because we all have our biases and our leanings and preferences. And I'm always startled when I sit on cross-campus committee meetings for selecting leaders, and I've done that several times in my last 35 years.

I look at certain resume or a candidate or an interview and I walk away being completely first and blown away. Only to be startled that my colleagues sitting next to me had a completely different reaction to it.

So I've learned, boy, there are people who have very different reactions to the profile of any candidate, and the onus is on us to actually do a deeper dive and have these discussions and to really think about who this person is and whether they fit what the needs of the organizations are moving forward.

Juravich: Is there also a, there's also a tendency where if they're doing a leader search, do they feel like they need to hurry up and get the leader as fast as possible just because of stability purposes? Is that a bad way to approach it?

Elangovan: I, that certainly is a problem. The pressure to actually fill that vacancy certainly looms large because there's a bit of a holding pattern in organizations when you don't have a leader, right?

Everybody's saying, well, I really don't want to kind of go down this path because the new leader may have different views and thoughts. So I think there's sense of urgency there.

And I should also point out the search firms that often help at the senior leadership hiring process, they have a vested interest in filling that vacency as well. So, I mean, of course, there are amazing search forms out there. They do the due diligence, but sometimes you get the sense that, you know, there is so much of a push towards filling that from all sides that sometimes you hurry up and make a decision that's not optimal for the organization.

Juravich: Our guest is A.R. Alongo, Elangovan, management scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and he's staying with us this hour. Coming up, we are gonna talk about leadership from an employee perspective.

You're listening to All Sides that is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.

You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. CBS was once a giant of the news industry. However, under the leadership of editor Barry Weiss, ratings have declined. In addition, departures by longtime producers and other staffers have blamed Weiss as their reasons for leaving.

We're talking about what makes good leadership. And still with us is AR Alongo Elangovan, management scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. A long go, thanks for being here today.

Elangovan: Happy to be here.

Juravich: And also joining us now, we have team culture and leadership expert Galen Emanuele. Welcome to All Sides Galen.

Galen Emanuele: Thank you, Amy, excited to join you.

Juravich: And Galen, you spend a great deal of time on the road giving presentations to companies. So what leadership concerns do you hear from employees, the on-the-ground people? What concerns do they have about leadership?

Emanuele: Yeah, great question. And I think something that's common for us is what employees, in my perspective, care about is kind of touches with what you said. Is my leader a good person? Are they a good listener?

I think the connection that any individual person has inside an organization and their experience of an organization's culture is really directly tied to their leader and how their leader shows up, how they communicate.

Um, so, you know, to your question, the concerns that employees have is, you know, if my leader opened the feedback, are they, you know, do they care about me as a person? Um, you don't do they, are the invested in my success? Are they here to support me?

Um, those things that make you feel that, you know, things that, that create engagement, uh, and whether or not people love their jobs or like to go to work and stuff, you know, a lot of that has to do with just how they feel about their direct leaders and sort of what is the and culture of their team or their experience at work.

Juravich: Alongo, what do you think? Can employees like their job and not like their leader?

Elangovan: Oh, 100 percent, actually, in some of the research that I do on helping people find their calling. We talk about meaning in work and meaning at work. Meaning in work is the meaning you see in your work itself.

The meaning at the work includes a relationship you have with your supervisor and the work context, your colleagues and the compensation, etc., etc. So they are two different dimensions. So I could have high meaning in work, love the work I do. But not have a good connection with my supervisor and the workplace.

I'll be miserable, but I may get some comfort from the fact that I'm doing what I'm engaged in. And the opposite can be true as well. I could have a wonderful workplace, a wonderful relationship with my boss, but not be truly connected to the work I do.

At the end of the day, I think employees are looking for, am I being recognized, am I understood and valued for what I bring to the table? Am I being given work and projects that are actually meaningful and it kind of taps into my potential? Am I be evaluated and rewarded for that? If those three pieces are generally there, you will find employees generally being happy in the organization.

Juravich: Galen, tell me about team culture, because there's been book after book written about how important the culture is at an organization and the culture comes from the top. How does the view of the team of their leader impact the culture?

Emanuele: Well, um, yeah, see, and I, you know, when I think about culture and approaching culture to me, even just like defining culture as a foundation is sort of the way that people show up, treat other people on the team and approach their work together.

And so. You know, the, the feel of a culture, like what it feels like to be there, whether it feels toxic or really positive and supportive is really just a side effect of how people treat each other.

So if, you know, for example, if your leader is really open and receptive to feedback and like then that has an impact on your experience. And so, you the leaders really kind of do set the tone and set the culture of.

You know, how do we respond to one another? How do we show up? How do they treat each other? You know what does it feel like to be here in terms of just people's experience, right?

And with what Dr. Longa said, feeling seen, feeling valued, feeling recognized, but feeling safe, right, safe to share an idea, safe, to give feedback upwards in an organization. Those are things that impact people's sort of connection to each other as humans.

So, yeah, and the way that a lot of organizations approach culture... Is I think problematic in the same way that a lot of organizations approach sort of leadership or focusing on higher level values.

Different. I have to say, okay, trust and respect and integrity, you know, are themes and they're values, but they're really kind of undefined, right? They're sort of loose concepts. And so approaching it from an angle of what are the behaviors, right, what are the actual sort of ground rules of engagement that we are clear about or committed to and that we're consistent with.

Those factors that create culture that feels intentional, It feels tangible that people, you know, feel good inside.

Juravich: Yeah, Alongo, you said earlier that the way that we define leadership has changed over the 100 years of studying leadership. What about culture? I'm sure that the ways we talk about culture has changed, maybe even more recently.

Elangovan: Yeah, and I think if you take a step back and try to articulate to ourselves what we mean by culture, I'm going to build on what Galen was talking about, it refers to not just the behaviors in the organization, but also the beliefs and the assumptions and the ways of being and doing that are kind of tacit and permeates every fiber of the organization.

And we can change the behaviors because that's a more tangible one and all the other underlying values and assumptions and beliefs kind of show up in the behaviors of how we treat each other or how we engage with different things, how we make decisions.

So changing the culture becomes a challenge because it has to permeate through those multiple layers. The tone is set at the top. And yes, we can identify what's important to us, but unless it cascades through every aspect of what you do in the organization, it's a very surface level effort to manage culture.

So I think there is quite the awareness now about how complex culture is. And I tell organizations I work with, we can change your strategy or your structure in a couple of years, but changing culture, that's the difficult one. You're talking five, seven years.

Before you can change culture. It's only when people stop saying, oh, we used to do it that way, then you know you've moved on. Otherwise, there's a stickiness to the culture. So I think the culture question is important. It culture eats strategy for breakfast, as they say, but it is multilayered and very complex and quite the challenge, but the tone is set at the top.

Juravich: So besides saying we used to do it that way, how about like, we've always done it this way. That's another part of the culture, right, Alanko?

Elangovan: One hundred percent. It's very, very sticky.

Juravich: So, Galen, earlier, Alongo was talking about how he's trying to get the word wisdom into these conversations about leadership and what it means to be a wise leader, and he talked about having a good head, a good heart, and a good backbone.

Do you think that that can translate to the average employee, Galin? Because I was having a hard time wrapping my head around wisdom and thinking about like, my current workplace in wisdom.

Emanuele: Yeah, well, I, um, you know, I do think it can translate. I think that, you know, as we, again, my, you know, my approach with these things is always to sort of like, what does that really mean in practice?

Right. And so wisdom, yes, is important. Um, so, you know, having head, having heart, having it back on courage, I think just, you know, this is something we have to do to make it so that it's, you know, accessible to everybody, right?

When we say, this is what this thing is that we value, we value wisdom. You know, my question is, if we're looking at that as an organization, cool, we want higher leaders that are alive. I'm like, let's break that down and dig deep and say, okay, so head is one aspect of that.

What does that mean? Right? So we're looking for a certain type of savvy or strategies or intelligence. Like what does that look like? And getting really, really clear about the traits and the characteristics of what these things mean.

You know, heart is one of those and I think that's a huge focus of my work and And I think that, you know, leaders. Need to have a high emotional intelligence. They need to understand relationship building.

They need be able to communicate with different types of personality types and communication styles and working styles. And you know, those emotional intelligence skills are really important.

So when we talk about heart, you know does someone have empathy? Do they know how to build trust and build relationships and be authentic, be vulnerable, those types of things.

So yes, I do think those things can translate and people can understand them, but we have to slow down and break them into like really clearly simple sort of ideas of what is the behavior? What does this look like in practice?

Which also allows us to make better hiring decisions, right? The purpose of this conversation is. How does so many bad leaders end up in high level positions? How do they continue to get promoted?

Um, and I think that intention of let's define exactly what we want leaders to be like, what are the traits and characteristics, what the skills that they have or the competencies that they have, the clearer that we are about that, the better decisions we'll make when we're promoting somebody or hiring somebody into a position. Um, if we are crystal clear about what that looks like.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.

We're talking about what makes for good leadership with A.R. Alongo Elangovan, Management Scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and also team culture and leadership expert, Galen Emanuele. Alongo, let's bring up that topic that Galen just said, leadership, why do seemingly unqualified people end up rising to the top? Is that true, or is it just a perception?

Elangovan: I think there is some truth to it, and I think a couple of reasons. One is something that we already have touched on, which is the selection process itself needs to be refined in terms of how we look at resumes, how we do our reference check, and how we get the information about how people have accomplished what they have accomplished.

But there's one more reason as to why we have not so qualified people rising to the top. You actually find a lot of good, qualified leaders or people with potential for leadership actually not putting their names forward.

And a couple of reasons for it. One is that it's an awareness that it is an all-consuming activity that especially in this day and age with the disappearance of what I call geography and time boundaries, the work is there all the time.

You are constantly bombarded with expectations and the things that the routine work that needs to be done. There are implications for health, implications for family, implications for burnout. And I think some people see that and go, that's not me.

I don't want to put myself into that situation. They've seen others get into that situation, and they stay away from it. And the other reason why they stay away is the age of social media, where you're constantly under the microscope, constantly judged, and some of it can be extremely harsh.

You put the two together, you see a lot of good people saying. That's not me, I don't want to get into that. So that creates a little bit of a deficit of good people in the pool to start with.

On top of that, if we fall victim to the razzle-dazzle of resumes and social media personalities, where you can certainly come up with a profile that is so glamorous but that lacks some of the authenticity and the depth, you end up not so qualified people being put in leadership roles and they do stumble within a short while. And leave behind a bad taste in the employee's mouth, as well as in terms of damage to the organization.

Juravich: Galen, what do you think? Do some people fail upward?

Emanuele: Absolutely. They do. And I think that, you know, this comes up a lot as well in my work is that what I see is there's a failure inside a lot of organizations to put systems and mechanisms in place to evaluate the leaders that they have.

So, you know, what we've talked about before is like being really clear about who we put into a leadership position, but. Leaders, you know, there's organizations that don't ask for feedback from employees about their direct leader They don't you know They don't do 360 reviews on leaders

And so, you, know, I think it's a story as common as a penny every one of us either has Experienced or know someone who's currently experiencing a situation where their boss or their leader is completely incompetent Completely inept nobody really likes them on the team because they're not a good communicator or they're just a command and control style leader.

Power hungry and all about authority and the organization, if organizations aren't taking a look at evaluating and being able to assess those leaders, those leaders continue to get promoted inside the organization.

A lot of times because what organizations are promoting for is tenure, right? Or that people like them. And if, you know, I think it's very common for a leader to not be very effective, to have their team be completely demotivated by how they are treated by that leader.

And that leader continues to get promoted because the people making the decisions to move them up are above that leader, but they don't, right? If it's a feedback, if we're not going to employees to say, Hey, what do you think about your leader and tying that into culture?

If we say, hey. Some behaviors and ground rules of our culture is that people are open to feedback, right? That they, how they navigate conflict in a really respectful way directly at the source that we don't badmouth other people, you know, whatever those sort of layers of culture and behaviors that we want to create intentionally.

If we're not going to employees and saying, hey, does your leader show up in these ways? Do they exhibit these qualities and behaviors? How do you feel about them? Then a lot of times... An organization has no way of knowing if a leader is not competent, but is not a great leader in terms of their effectiveness of being able to create culture that's positive, to motivate employees to have people feel engaged and perform better on their jobs. And so I think that's a really common problem. And then people just get promoted.

Juravich: Yeah. Well, Galen, you just made me think of something with those 360 evaluations. So I guess that if you were interviewing for a job, would that be a sign of a good company if they actually have 360 evaluations? Is that true? Because now that makes me feel like in a job interview, that would be a good question to ask instead of just asking, Do you like working here? You can say do you have 360 evaluations?

Emanuele: Yeah, because, you know, when organizations are really intentional about the way that they are evaluating and assessing how people are showing up in their jobs, that's important. And so those are the kind of mechanisms that let us know, hey, these leaders in the organization are really effective.

There's no great leader in the world whose team hates them. And so There's pretty simple ways, as an organization, for us to identify. If we have hundreds or thousands of employees, we don't have one-on-one contact with every single middle-level leader in the organization, but we can put systems in place that help us identify.

Perhaps for areas where we have leaders, right, who are struggling in certain areas. And the clearer that we are about what those areas are that we're ensuring that we care about, right, that someone is open to feedback, that they're a good communicator, that they make people feel safe or, you know, whatever those kind of values and behaviors that exist in the culture that we want to create, then we can, as an organization, we can identify strong leaders.

Leaders that have various opportunities or that don't belong in the organization because they're toxic or not effective or right, or have lack of character. Right. Not just competency. That's another common thing, right? Is high performing people who are jerks and performance is important, but if you leave a trail of bodies behind you, that has so much negative impact inside an organization.

And so being conscious, being intentional, putting mechanisms in place to evaluate those things and being really clear about what are we evaluating? What do we think is exceptional? Those are the things that prevent incompetent and bad leaders getting promoted inside organizations and continuing to move up to the top for sure.

Juravich: Alongo, what do you think of the idea of a 360 evaluation? Would certain organizations be afraid of that and not want to implement it because they don't want lower level employees weighing in?

Elangovan: Oh, I think you're going to find that to be a fairly common sentiment, but I think it is an essential tool for evaluating leaders, the 360, and I think especially when you have leaders in roles where the visibility of their output is not tangible, meaning for example if you're running a hundred meter sprint, it's very clear who the winner is, but when you have work environments and which is typical of a lot of organizations where your contributions, your input into the work is part and parcel of an ecosystem of inputs and at the end result there's not a direct line between what you have done and what the final output is.

You're starting to say what are the other ways in which I can evaluate when the visibility of the output is not that tangible. So that's where 360 is very important and the you have a discussion with not your boss, but your boss's boss about your boss.

So you will see some organizations which are very open to 360 also are very open to skip level meetings, where that kind of a conversation between skipping one level in the middle suddenly keeps everybody honest.

Because then you know there is a direct line, you're not the filter from what your direct reports think of you. To your superiors that they can talk directly to them. And it's formally managed and it's actually built into the system, into the evaluation, into the ongoing conversations.

Juravich: Our guests this hour are A.R. Alongo, Elangovan, management scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and team culture and leadership expert, Galen Emanuele.

And coming up, we are going to talk about the concept of the glass cliff in leadership.

You're listening to All Sides that is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News. You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich.

We're talking about leadership this hour. Why there are so much bad leadership and why seemingly unqualified people rise to the top. There are always leadership transitions in business, politics, education, lots of industries.

As an example, the 18-member Big Ten Conference has seen eight of its presidents or chancellors exit in a little over a year, and a ninth plans to depart later this year. Recently, Ohio State University former president Ted Carter joined those ranks as departed leaders. Still with us is A.R. Alongo, Elangovan Management Scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Thanks again for being here, Alango.

Elangovan: Happy to be here, Amy.

Juravich: And also with us, team culture and leadership expert, Galen Emanuele. Thanks for being here, Galen.

Emanuele: Thank you, Amy.

Juravich: Um, I wanted to just dive into briefly that what I, the example I just gave. So there's 18 members of the big 10 conference and eight of their presidents or chancellors have exited in just a little over a year with a ninth planning to leave later this year.

So that's that we're at half of them leaving. Um, you don't have to comment specifically because, you know, they're not all, they didn't all leave for an inappropriate relationship like Ted Carter did, there's lots of different reasons. One of them got a job as a president at an Ivy league school.

So they left a smaller school for a bigger school. You know, there're lots of reasons to leave. But Just talk to me a long go about the idea of this churn. That is a lot of churn in just 18 colleges and universities, half of them losing their leader in the same year. Wait, what is happening here?

Elangovan: Well, I think partly it reflects a trend in other domains as well, where you have the leadership tenure as one of the lowest in recent years in terms of the duration, as well as the expectations that the different stakeholders have, and a certain degree of impatience in having to deliver on those expectations.

Sometimes you see this language of a 16-month trend. Basically, you get a year plus. To kind of show that you can actually deliver the goods, or at least very strong signs you're delivering goods. And if that's not there, there is a sense of frustration. It's a bit more complicated in the academic environment.

As you know, universities and academic institutions are not straightforward hierarchies. That is the hierarchy in terms of the non-academic staff. But in terms of the faculty members, and I am a faculty member, there is certainly a high degree of autonomy that faculty members have.

And they have faculty members who have tenure. And in terms the demands and expectations of the senior leadership, that can be very challenging. And especially in the current environment, very different perspectives and viewpoints on what's important to the country, what's importance to us.

You have senior leaders like university presidents. Dealing with an extraordinary level of conflicting, contradictory kinds of expectations that can really wear you out. Either you decide to leave or the situation is such that the institution wants you to leave. And I think all this is adding to the churn that you just highlighted.

Juravich: Yeah, Galen, what do you make of this churn? People are not going to stick around as a leader of an organization for 20, 30 years anymore.

Emanuele: Um, yeah, I mean, I think that that, the, you know, tenure for leaders and employees has, has shortened a lot. Um, I, I part of that is, you know, shiny new thing.

Dr. Longo touched on it. There's just immense pressure and conflicting priorities and things. I mean it's, you know, leadership at the top is very difficult. It's very lonely. It's very demanding. It's very, you know, there's no such thing as work-life balance. It's, you know there's just a lot of crisis control. I mean there's just a lot to it. And so.

Um, yeah, I think that it's just that kind of common trend either, you know, the other thing that you see is like your private equity companies that have like shorter term, uh, goals where they're like, we're going to come in, we're gonna make this as profitable as possible, as quickly as possible. And then get out.

I think the, you know, there's sentiment of some of that, like what's the next biggest thing, what's the shiny thing. And so yeah, I think there's a lot of different contributing factors. And of course, every individual leader and every individual situation is completely different.

But I think the trend towards, you know, just getting somewhere and be like, this place is chaos, or, or organizations being like, no, we wanted these results and this amount of time, whether that's unrealistic or not, and then being like let's see if somebody else can do this. So I think there's. A lot of different contributing factors.

Juravich: And Galen, before you joined the show, I asked a long go about the idea of the inappropriate relationship, you know, that phrase. And we don't have to litigate what happened with Ted Carter here at Ohio State, but just in general, in your experience, what have you seen as an impact on team culture whenever an inappropriate relationship is discovered? And that's the reason for turmoil.

Emanuele: Yeah, I mean, I think the same as finding out that some leader or some high-powered person inside an organization has done something unethical or illegal or wrong, right? I think it's the same impact as finding that somebody was embezzling, right.

It's like this person has violated a protocol, a set of sort of, you know, rules that exist or legal things, you've done something in ethical enough to cause them to leave. It's a blow, right? I think especially if those leaders are loved by people because you can be really competent and a good leader, then also exercise really poor judgment and make a stupid decision and lose your job.

So it definitely does have an impact, you know, great leaders or leaders that are impactful that people like and enjoy. When they leave the organization, whether it's voluntary or not, it does have impact. It's a shift in change. It changes dynamics. Somebody else comes in, they have a very different vision.

It can change, you know, it can cause a lot of change and disruption. And in terms of, you, know, culture, it could affect morale a lot. You know, sometimes leaders are terrible. And then they leave and it is a positive impact on morale.

And that's also another common thing is that it's not always bad when somebody leaves or does something unethical because, you now, especially somebody who doesn't exhibit high character or, you no, just ethics. You know, a lot of times that's a very positive thing because, you know, there's other symptoms of them not being really the right person for that role.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.

We're talking about leadership with team culture and leadership expert Galen Emanuele. And also with us is management scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, A.R. Alongo Elangovan.

There's a practice where women and minorities are promoted to senior positions in times of crisis or high risk failure. And it's known as the glass cliff. So a glass ceiling is broken, but only in a time of crisis. So it's more of a cliff there, the glass cliff. And that's according to a couple of psychologists who came up with this term. Alongo, are you familiar with this concept of the glass cliffs?

Elangovan: Yeah, yes. Yes, I am. And you, I mean, what he just said is exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Juravich: Okay, so when when this happens, I mean, can the woman or the minority leader fix it? Or are they just put in there as a placeholder in a sink or swim scenario?

Elangovan: Well, you know, it's one of those situations where if you look at the challenges women and minorities in general have in getting into leadership roles, and there's quite a bit of data behind that, when these kinds of opportunities come up and other seasoned mainstream leaders kind of stay away from a risky situation, and this is kind of put in front of a minority as saying, here's an opportunity for you to step up, I think they often are.

Aware that this is a very risky situation, that this could be something that they may not come out looking good. However, it is an opportunity and they do know that perhaps with the right support, perhaps with right conditions, perhaps with a right strategy, they can pull it off.

And if they do pull it off, of course, it is fantastic because suddenly... You have turned a very negative situation, a crisis, into a very positive one. It's a high-risk gamble that you get into.

But if you look at the fact that, yes, these opportunities are rare that come by in a general sense, you say, yeah, I'm going to go for it. And you step in and you do that. And it happens. And I know that in those kinds of situations, walking in with your eyes wide open would be important. And to make sure you've got all the pieces around you to optimize your chances of success.

Juravich: And Galen, what do you think of the glass cliff? Is it just putting someone into an impossible situation and hoping they fix it, or is it a good move?

Emanuele: Uh... It i mean it Really when it comes down to it, it's just about optics, right? I mean those organizations, they're either damage control They're more concerned about the PR of it Like hey, here's something that we wouldn't normally do and conditions are great and now let's do this to appear progressives or something

I yeah, it it's unfortunate because you made the sinker swim analogy You're saying hey climb into this boat this holes in the bottom. It's leaking water and taking on water It's chaos. But like here you go. Try to fix this it's unfortunately, but I think what Dr. Longo said is true.

Sometimes an opportunity like that is a great opportunity for somebody, even if they're, you know, stopped for sale or it's definitely more difficult. I also think it's true that women, minorities, face a lot bigger challenges, right, to reach the same ground historically in business and currently in business.

And so, you now, kind of par for the course, but I think it is unfortunate. I don't necessarily think it a good move. I think we should put the most. Competent people in positions all the time, including when things are great. Uh, and so, you know, yeah, I wish it weren't the case, but I think it's, it's true. I think

Juravich: And Alongo, we're running out of time, but I just wanted to get you to touch on, you know, what is taught in business school. So to be a leader of an organization, do you need to have your MBA? Did you need go to business school? Did you to take a whole bunch of leadership classes?

Elangovan: Well, it certainly helps in terms of getting a sense of the ecosystem of the world of business, getting a chance of how do you understand organizations and how do understand success and the different competencies that you need.

But what I think is important and starting to happen in business schools is starting to recognize the importance of character, importance of understanding management as a calling, the importance of connecting your future as a leader in business.

And connecting it to your own internal values and personalizing it, and not just having a kind of an arm's length distance to, you know, these are the competencies, this is what I need to do in my work, that's different from me as a person, but connecting the two, that is starting to happen.

If you think of learning as having knowing, doing, and being, for the longest time, business schools and universities in general focus very heavily on the knowing part. There's a lot of knowledge being conveyed.

But not enough emphasis on the doing and the being. The doing is the skills and the being is the character. I think that shift is starting to happen and it's a good thing that we're doing that. And I think I'm optimistic that down the road business schools will adapt and will have programs that really cater to building leaders with character and competence.

Juravich: Our guest today has been A.R. Alongo, Elangovan, Management Scholar at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Alongo thank you so much for your time today.

Elangovan: My pleasure, Amy.

Juravich: And we've also been talking with team culture and leadership expert, Galen Emanuele. Thank you so much for joining us, Galin.

Emanuele: Thank you so much for having me.

Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And you can like the show on Facebook or be sure to follow the show on Instagram, our handle is at @allsideswosu. You're listening to All Sides on 89, 7 NPR news. I'm Amy Juravich.

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