Bad or toxic leadership, abusive supervision, and petty tyranny in
organizations are perennial issues. But to date, there has been
little effort to examine the scope and nature of bad leadership in
the military. Tarnished rectifies that lack of attention by
defining the problems and suggesting possible solutions appropriate
to the military's unique structure and situation. Leadership
is central to the identity of the U.S. military. Service academies
and precommissioning processes have traditionally stressed the
development of conscientious leaders of character. The services
regularly publish doctrinal works and professional journal articles
focusing on various aspects of leadership. Unsurprisingly, in most
of those publications leadership is presented as a universally
positive notion, a solution to problems, and something to be
developed through an extensive and costly system of professional
military education. Leadership expert George E. Reed,
however, focuses on individual experiences of toxic leadership at
the organizational level, arguing that because toxic leadership has
such a detrimental impact on the military organizational culture,
additional remediation measures are needed. Reed also demonstrates
how system dynamics and military culture themselves contribute to
the problem. Most significant, the book provides cogent advice and
insights to those suffering from toxic leaders, educators
developing tomorrow's military leaders, and military administrators
working to repair the current system.