Bad Leadership

CHAPTER FIVE

Rigid

MARY MEEKER

Rigid Leadership—The leader and at least some followers are stiff and unyielding. Although they may be competent, they are unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information, or changing times.

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID of late twentieth and early twenty-first century leadership that nothing matters so much as having the capacity to adapt to change. For this there are two reasons. First, change occurs faster, more often, and sometimes more suddenly and dramatically than before. For Americans at least, the world after September 11, 2001, has never been the same as it was before. And second, the amount of information available is nearly overwhelming. Moreover, what is fact on one day often becomes fiction on ...