The authors of Leaders Who Lust: Power, money, sex, success, legitimacy, legacy (2020), Barbara Kellerman and Todd Pittinsky, tell us that lust has long been ignored in leadership research and theory and that, in order to understand exceptional leading, scholars need to turn to lust. The typical characterization of lust is of a destructive force but Kellerman and Pittinsky propose that it should be viewed more neutrally. Viewing lust as the drive behind both positive and negative leading helps us begin to know it as something that might be managed, although they say that lust is an innate quality that cannot be taught.
Leaders who lust uses a case or personality analysis approach to justify their claims. The six sources of lust they describe and the personalities they explore include: Power, Roger Ailes and Xi Jinping; Money, Warren Buffett and Charles Koch; Sex, John F. Kennedy and Silvio Berlusconi; Success, Hillary Clinton and Tom Brady; Legitimacy, Nelson Mandela and Larry Kramer; and Legacy, Bill and Melinda Gates and George Soros. Lust in each of these cases, for good or ill, is defined as an intense drive, almost desperate in nature, to accomplish a specific object or circumstance. And, lust in these cases is a life-long obsession that appears, in the end, to be insatiable.
The authors of Leaders who lust proceed throughout the book to clearly define their terms, describe the context of the dogged pursuit of each type of lust, address the role of followers, and demonstrate through examples how lust can create incredibly positive or disastrously negative outcomes. They acknowledge that sometimes more than one type of lust may be present, as is common in the relationship between unbridled lust for power and for sex. They implicitly reinforce the idea that lust can be a magnate that attracts like types, as can be seen in the two lust for money cases of Buffett (with his investors) and Koch (with political influencers). And, the authors provide examples to demonstrate that the public acceptance for different kinds of lustful leaders varies across nations/cultures and can change over time. There is much food for thought as the personalities, life experiences, and outcomes of the leaders who lust are described.
Kellerman and Pittinsky’s urgent assertion to scholars and educators who seek to cultivate leadership is that leadership and lust are often inseparable, sometimes becoming even symbiotic; the drive coming from lust results in a leader who simply does not give up, regardless of the obstacles. The leadership industry’s focus on teaching, optimism/positivity, and measurement undermines attention that would otherwise include lusts, which is not teachable, can be both destructive and constructive, and is very difficult to measure, if at all. Kellerman and Pittinsky offer critical advice for leaders who sense they may have a lust that drives them as well us cautionary notes to those who follow them in their “Epilogue.”
To Kellerman’s admonition to leadership scholars and educators I would add that, as a result of the extremes represented in their examples, there will be those who will place leaders who lust in a special case, which I believe is a mistake. As we reflect on our own life experiences and encounters, I believe that lust in lesser degrees of urgency may be present in many more cases. Leadership educators should consider how fostering some degree of lust, or as I have written and described as conviction, purpose or passion, can result in a positive motivating force. On the other hand, leadership educators should explore how resisting leaders who have a potentially destructive lust can be resisted through responsible followership.
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