Beware the Rise of Zombie Leadership: Is Your Organisation Infected?

Is zombie leadership spreading through your organisation, choking innovation, suppressing development, and feasting on the brains of progress? The undead walk among us—not in tattered suits moaning for "braaains" but in the form of outdated, debunked leadership ideas that refuse to die. Thanks to a recent article by Alexander Haslam and his colleagues, we now have a name for this phenomenon: Zombie Leadership.

What Is Zombie Leadership, and Have You Been Bitten?

Zombie leadership is the persistence of dead ideas about leadership—ideas that empirical research has long since buried, yet continue to rise, infecting leaders, consultants, and organisations alike.

Haslam identifies eight axioms of zombie leadership—outdated beliefs that won’t stay dead, despite overwhelming evidence proving them wrong. Worse, these ideas spread unchecked, contaminating leadership development and organisational strategy.

Let’s expose these zombified myths and arm ourselves with the tools to fight back.

The 8 Undead Myths of Leadership

1: Leadership Is All About Leaders

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Only those in formal leadership roles are leaders, and studying them tells us all we need to know.
🔬 The Reality: Research shows that across various contexts, including investment banking, science and sports teams, real leadership often comes from colleagues, not just those in high-ranking roles.

2: All Great Leaders Have Specific Qualities

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: There are particular qualities that make a great leader.
🔬 The Reality: Even the strongest predictor of leadership success (intelligence) explains just 4% of leadership variance. What matters is whether followers perceive a leader to have leadership qualities.

3: All Great Leaders Do Specific Things

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: There is a set of particular behaviours that are the hallmark of effective leader.
🔬 The Reality: While research has unearthed that behaviours like initiation of structure and consideration are helpful, what really counts is how followers interpret those behaviours.

4: We All Know a Great Leader When We See One

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Leadership greatness is universally recognised.
🔬 The Reality: Whether someone is seen as a great leader depends entirely on whether they advance the goals of their specific group. We perceive someone as being a great leader when they achieve what we value.

5: All Leadership Is the Same

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Leadership skills are universal—you can lead a sports team, a law firm, or a government in the same way.
🔬 The Reality: Leadership effectiveness depends on context. A CEO’s leadership style won’t necessarily work in a nonprofit or a tech startup. Leadership needs to adapt to reflect the norms, values, history, culture, goals and aspirations of the group being led.

6: Leadership Is for the Elite Few

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Leadership is exclusive, expensive, and reserved for "exceptional" individuals.
🔬 The Reality: Treating leadership as an elite club backfires. When the pay gap between CEOs and employees widens, motivation and engagement plummet.

7: Leadership Is Always Good

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Leadership is inherently positive and benefits everyone.
🔬 The Reality: Leadership often benefits some at the expense of others. Leaders drive agendas that may harm opposing groups.

8: People Can’t Cope Without Leaders

🧟‍♂️ The Myth: Every group needs a leader to function.
🔬 The Reality: Research on shared and distributed leadership shows that some groups actually perform worse when a leader is imposed on them.

Feeling Disoriented? Here’s the Cure

If you’re now questioning everything you thought you knew about leadership—good. That means the antidote is working.

Haslam’s research provides a living definition of leadership that moves beyond the dead ideas:

Leadership is the process whereby one or more people motivate others to achieve collective goals by shaping beliefs, values, and understanding of context—rather than by exercising stick-and-carrot control.

This means:

Leadership is relational, not a solo act.
Leadership is validated by followers, not dictated by leaders.
Leadership is about inspiring action, not forcing it.
Leadership is a group process, not just an individual role.

The True Cost of Zombie Leadership

If left unchecked, zombie leadership infects organisations with serious consequences:

It buries employee efforts by failing to recognise contributions.
It isolates team members, making them less willing to contribute.
It turns leaders into narcissists, making them deaf to feedback.
It eats away at productivity, draining innovation and engagement.

 How to Slay the Zombies

Haslam’s cure involves four key priorities:

Expand leadership beyond individuals. Leadership isn’t just for formal roles—it’s a collective effort.
Encourage shared leadership. Leadership works best when everyone plays a part.
Prioritise group connection. Effective leadership depends on relationships between leaders and followers.
Revolutionise leadership development. Focus on building leadership as a shared process, not an elite skill set.

Final Warning: Don’t Let the Undead Ideas Win

Zombie leadership thrives on unquestioned beliefs and blind tradition. It’s time to stop letting outdated ideas shamble through your organisation, draining its potential.

Are you ready to fight the zombies? Or will you let them take over?