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The Arrogant Leader

Dealing with the Excesses of Power

by Stephen Jenks and Fritz Steele

It is high time that arrogance is identified, analyzed and evaluated. Too many arrogant leaders never realize the costs and benefits of their behavior. This book is an important window into the Machiavellian world of how power corrupts and how leaders undermine themselves unwittingly.  An important contribution to the leadership literature.  

Edgar H. Schein
Professor Emeritus
MIT Sloan School of Management

The Arrogant Leader is itself a contradiction; which is the point of this timely book.  Rooted in reality but backed by sound theory, it is a reminder that self-confidence unchecked can lead to willful blindness and organizational disaster.  Every aspiring leader would be wise to keep it by the bedside.

Charles Handy, author

The Arrogant leader is a book everyone should read, whether they have a boss or are the boss. Jenks and Steele put arrogance in the workplace in perspective, explaining why so many business leaders can't find humility.  The authors provide helpful strategies for dealing with arrogance in others and, even occasionally, in oneself.

Daniel Omstead, Ph.D.
CEO, Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, LLC

Unlike books that focus on victims of arrogance in corporations, this compelling and readable book is written to engage the leaders, their behavior and the whole culture of the organization

Barbara B. Bunker Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology Emerita

Jenks and Steele recognize individual and institutional arrogance as a set of limiting behaviors, rather than a form of personality disorder.  The authors skewer the practical impacts of arrogant behavior and provide wise guidance on how to deal with them.  Through this lens, we can better understand recent corporate failures. This book is of singular importance to nonprofit as well as corporate leaders.

Richard Evans
President
EMC Arts, LLC

It is sad that this book had to be written, but it did. The arrogance of too many in power has destroyed jobs, income, market dominance, shareholder wealth – and in some cases, lives. Jenks and Steele vividly portray not just the blindness of the arrogant, but the causes that drive their dismissive behavior, and the possible antidotes.

Allan R. Cohen
Edward A. Madden Distinguished Professor of Global Leadership
Babson College