Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

Ideology of hate

A comparison of destructive and constructive leaders suggests that the rhetoric, vision, and worldview of destructive leaders contain images of hate and anger—vanquishing rivals and destroying despised enemies. Hitler's anti-Jewish rants or Foday Sankoh's hatred of the urban elite in Sierra Leone contrast sharply with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s expressions of racial equality and Gandhi's approach to resistance.

LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHT

Political leadership: Uganda's Idi Amin Dada

The Idi Amin Dada story illustrates the impact of a flawed leader working in unison with weak and susceptible followers and chaotic environments with dysfunctional social and legal institutions.

Idi Amin was the dictator of Uganda. He also became known as the “Butcher of Uganda” for his inhuman, repressive rule during his Ugandan regime in the 1970s. He was a colorful and charismatic dictator who ranks among the most infamous of all Africa's postindependence rulers. He seized power in a military coup in 1971 and ruled over Uganda for eight years. As many as 500,000 people were killed, tortured, or imprisoned during his eight-year dictatorship. He was deposed in 1979 in another violent coup. He was allowed by Saudi Arabian rulers to live in that country as an exile, where he remained until his ...