Leadership. Dozens of universities around the country offer courses in its study. Every other year casts up onto the bestseller list another book on the topic. And all of it is basically goo. The people writing about leadership can't even agree on what it means. A few years ago, Bernard M. Bass pointed out that "a two-day meeting to discuss leadership" will often start "with a day of argument over the definition." Joseph Rost looked at almost 600 academic papers on leadership and found well over 200 rival definitions of the word, bitterly dueling within them.
Or so, at least, reports the latest bestseller on the topic, Leaders: Myth and Reality by former general Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jay Mangone. And with this book, we have reached something approaching peak goo.
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