On leadership: Genius makers vs. vampires

Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Allison Vaillancourt distinguishes between the “genius makers” and the “vampires” of academic leadership (link here):

The genius makers are “excited about revealing others’ smarts,” “open to creating a shared vision,” and engaged in “creating organizational energy.”

The vampires are “obsessed with proving” their own smarts, focused on others’ flaws, and committed to “sucking the lifeblood out of innocent people.”

She offers these characterizations in connection with a mini-review of Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (2010). While the book has earned very positive reviews, Vaillancourt’s own dichotomy nicely wraps it up in a bow for me, and certainly applies well beyond the Chronicle‘s academic readership!