"An important and exceptionally well-written book."
Prof. Dennis Tourish
Professor of Leadership and Organisation Studies
University of Sussex Business School
"A major contribution."
Julien de Fraipont
Advisor to the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade
"Resets the clock on how to appraise heroic leadership."
Prof. Johanna Mair
Co-director at the Global Innovation for Impact Lab, Stanford University
"A timely and thoughtful publication."
Henrik Skovby
Chairman, Dalberg Group; Executive Chairman: Nordic Development Corporation
About the book
In Why Leaders Fail and What it Teaches Us About Leadership Willem Fourie helps us make sense of leaders’ failures.
Whereas some leadership failures can be rectified, others lead to the failure of teams, organisations or institutions. Willem Fourie helps us understand why our expectation of leadership infallibility is misguided.
He explores five factors that cause leaders to fail:
- Ignorance of personal weaknesses
- Overconfidence in their influence over others
- Destructive in-group bias
- Bad fit in their organisation
- Misjudged risk
Why Leaders Fail provides readers with the tools to understand and respond to leader failure, distilled into seven lessons for post-heroic leaders. It will be released by Routledge in 2023.
Selected endorsements
Prof. Dennis Tourish
Professor of Leadership and Organisation Studies and editor of Leadership, University of Sussex Business School
This is an important and exceptionally well written book. Willem Fourie thoroughly debunks the heroic bias that has derailed much leadership research, but also shows how we can do better. Highly recommended.
Julien de Fraipont
Advisor to the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade
A major contribution to the field of leadership studies, this book can help the choices of both voters in their booths and leaders in chanceries around the world. Willem Fourie convincingly argues that the very traits that render heroic leaders attractive to their followers often lead them to failure.
Prof. Johanna Mair
Co-director at the Global Innovation for Impact Lab, Stanford University
We hardly talk about heroes and failures. Willem Fourie does! His book takes stock of decades of knowledge, challenges prevailing myths about leaders and failure, and resets the clock on how to appraise heroic leadership.
Dr Alex Vines
Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House
For anyone interested in better leadership, Willem Fourie’s new book is a welcome fresh contribution to the academic literature.
Prof. Wolfgang Amann
Professor of Strategy and Leadership and Academic Director, HEC Paris
Prof. Willem Fourie takes the reader on a captivating journey of discovery and addresses key questions. In his unique resource for leaders and leadership researchers alike, Prof. Fourie provides hands-on advice in the form of seven highly relevant lessons.
Henrik Skovby
Chairman, Dalberg Group; Executive Chairman: Nordic Development Corporation
A timely and thoughtful publication on the type of leadership we need to address unprecedented planetary challenges. Rather than hoping for the next hero to save the planet, Willem Fourie helps us understand how each one of us can take more personal leadership – perhaps the fastest and only way we can address the global challenges we all are facing together.
Cecilia Njenga
Director for Intergovernmental Process and Collective Progress at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Willem Fourie offers us with a convincing account of the type of leaders we need to address urgent shared challenges: people who are courageous, take responsibility and who are able to cross group, sectoral and other boundaries to craft shared solutions.
Prof. Richard Bolden
Professor of Leadership and Management at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England
A timely exploration of the links between ‘heroic leadership’ and the causes of individual, group, and organisational failure. Fourie exposes the fault lines in contemporary thinking and the need to develop a more nuanced and contextualised appreciation of how and why leaders fail and an understanding of what can be done to mitigate against this.
Prof. Rick Delbridge
Professor of Organizational Analysis, Cardiff Business School, Editor-in-Chief of Research in the Sociology of Work
In this engaging book, Willem Fourie walks us through the evidence and draws some important conclusions on why understanding leaders’ failure can help lessen the likelihood of it happening. No leader is infallible – indeed, lesson one is ‘accept your fallibility’ – but reading this book will help leaders be better and do better.