“Resisting the Zombification and Vampirization of Leadership”
The following piece picks up on a previous Creative Leadership Hub article, “The Undead in the Executive Suite: Zombie and Vampire Leadership Today” – which itself extended the ideas in a research article by S. Alexander Haslam and his colleagues (2024). My earlier argument was that the ‘Undead’ leader operates in a liminal state between forward movement and stasis, draining the lifeblood from colleagues and organizations while refusing to release their grip on power discussed the proliferation of Zombie and Vampire leaders. Perpetuated by the Leadership Industry and emboldened by social media and Al-enhanced platforms, they exploit our uncertainties or lack of grounding and peddle simple solutions based in dead ideas and self-serving visions obscured by polished branding.
So what concrete steps can organizations and leaders take to resist the zombification and vampirization of leadership in the social and platform age? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Emphasize historical and cultural literacy in leadership education and development
Rather than focusing narrowly on an endless progression of individual skills and behaviors, leadership programs should help participants situate contemporary challenges and practices within a larger historical and cultural context. This might involve studying the evolution of leadership thought, examining case studies of leadership successes and failures across different eras and cultures, and reflecting critically on how today's dominant leadership paradigms are shaped by specific social, economic, and technological conditions.
The leadership development approach at Unilever offers a compelling example. Under former CEO Paul Polman, Unilever integrated historical case studies and cultural perspectives into its leadership curriculum through its ‘Four Acres’ global leadership development centers. Participants study leadership across different eras, from ancient governance systems to modern corporate structures, explicitly connecting historical understanding to contemporary challenges like sustainability and digital transformation. This approach helped Unilever leaders contextualize their decision-making within broader historical trends, leading to more nuanced and culturally attuned leadership practices (Polman & Winston, 2021). This historical grounding contributed to Unilever’s successful implementation of its ambitious Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), which balanced profit with purpose across diverse global markets.
What distinguishes Unilever’s approach is its rejection of leadership development as merely acquiring the latest techniques. Instead, the company incorporates rigorous historical analysis into its leadership forums, examining how past leaders navigated similar challenges across different contexts. When launching initiatives in emerging markets, for instance, Unilever executives study the historical evolution of consumer goods in those regions rather than imposing Western models. This historically informed approach has enabled Unilever to avoid the ‘colonizing’ mindset that has undermined many multinational expansion efforts. An understanding of the historical arc of leadership thinking helps leaders resist faddish approaches and develop contextual intelligence that transcends the moment. This commitment to historical literacy directly counters the zombification of leadership by grounding practice in rich cultural and historical understanding rather than decontextualized ‘best practices’.
2. Cultivate a culture of critical and creative reflection and dialogue around leadership
Like the military has done effectively, organizations should create spaces where leaders and followers can engage in open, honest conversations about the challenges and complexities of leadership practice. This might take the form of regular forums, reading groups, or facilitated discussions where participants are encouraged to question assumptions, share diverse perspectives, and grapple with the ethical dimensions of leadership. By fostering a culture of critical and creative reflection, organizations can help inoculate themselves against the simplistic nostrums of the leadership industry and the seductive narratives of charismatic narcissists.
Pixar Animation Studios has institutionalized this approach through its "Braintrust" meetings, where directors present works-in-progress and receive candid, constructive feedback from peers. As detailed by co-founder Ed Catmull in his book Creativity, Inc. (Catmull & Wallace, 2014), these sessions are characterized by psychological safety, intellectual honesty, and a collective commitment to excellence rather than ego protection. Importantly, the feedback is purely advisory; directors maintain creative control, but benefit from diverse perspectives that challenge their assumptions. This practice has helped Pixar maintain its creative edge while avoiding both autocratic leadership and groupthink. When facing the enormous technical and storytelling challenges of films like Inside Out (2015), the Braintrust process enabled director Pete Docter to refine a complex concept into an emotionally resonant story, demonstrating how structured creative dialogue can lead to breakthrough innovations.
What makes Pixar’s approach particularly effective is its explicit separation of power from creative dialogue. Unlike conventional review meetings where hierarchy often dictates outcomes, the Braintrust creates what Catmull calls ‘temporary power-free zones’ where the authority of ideas trumps organizational rank. This approach reflects Pixar’s understanding that zombie leadership often emerges when positional authority shields leaders from necessary critical feedback. The company reinforces this culture through its ‘Notes Day’ practice, where the entire studio suspends operations to collectively reflect on organizational challenges and propose solutions.
During the troubled production of Ratatouille (2007), this reflective practice enabled the identification of communication barriers between technical and creative teams that were hampering the film’s development. Rather than imposing top-down solutions, leadership created space for collective problem-solving that yielded both a successful film and improved cross-functional collaboration. As Catmull observes, “Candor isn't cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together” (92). This philosophy directly counters leadership zombification by creating institutional structures that prioritize truth-seeking over formula-following and authentic dialogue over charismatic pronouncements.
3. Prioritize humility, empathy, and service in leadership selection and development – without making these values formulaic or ends in themselves
Rather than valorizing the charismatic visionary or the ruthless disruptor, organizations (and investors and media) should seek out and cultivate leaders who demonstrate a commitment to understanding and serving the needs of others. This might involve incorporating measures of emotional intelligence, ethical reasoning, and stakeholder engagement into leadership assessments, and rewarding leaders who prioritize the long-term health and sustainability of their organizations over short-term gains or personal aggrandizement.
The leadership of Reed Hastings, co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, offers a compelling example of this approach. Hastings pioneered a corporate culture built on radical candor, employee autonomy, and trust that prioritizes organizational resilience over controlling management (Hastings & Meyer, 2020). His approach to leadership emphasizes transparency, contextual understanding over control, and creating systems where employees can thrive and innovate freely, demonstrating how empowering others while maintaining accountability can drive both technological transformation and sustained growth. Hastings’ leadership philosophy is distinctive in its commitment to dismantling the control mechanisms that often serve leaders’ egos rather than organizational effectiveness. By eliminating traditional approval processes, travel policies, and formal performance reviews, Netflix created a context where employees could exercise judgment rather than follow rules.
However, Hastings balanced this freedom with exacting standards and brutally honest feedback – what the company calls ‘farming for dissent’. This combination of high autonomy and high accountability creates a system that doesn't depend on the leader’s personal charisma or constant presence. As Hastings explains, shifting away from a conventional metaphor for business organizations, Netflix was not a “family” but a “professional sports team” (168), establishing clear expectations that the organization exists to achieve excellence, not to fulfill the leader’s need for loyalty or adoration. This approach directly counters vampire leadership by orienting the organization around shared success rather than feeding the leader’s ego or status, while simultaneously avoiding the zombification that comes from rigidly applying leadership formulas without contextual adaptation.
4. Establish robust systems of accountability and oversight
To prevent the rise of vampire leaders who exploit their organizations for personal gain, it is essential to have strong governance mechanisms in place. This might include independent boards, transparent reporting structures, and regular audits to ensure that leaders are acting in the best interests of the organization and its stakeholders. It also means creating a culture where dissent is welcomed and whistleblowers are protected, so that unethical or abusive behavior can be quickly identified and addressed.
The governance structure at Pentagram, the world's largest independent design consultancy, offers an instructive example from the creative industries. Founded in 1972, Pentagram operates as a true partnership where all partners have equal ownership, equal say, and equal financial stake regardless of seniority or revenue generation. This flat structure deliberately constrains power accumulation, as detailed in Pentagram: Living By Design (Schaughnessy, 2023). New partners must be unanimously approved, and the firm maintains rigorous financial transparency across all projects and offices.
This model has enabled Pentagram to thrive for over five decades while avoiding the ‘star designer’ syndrome that has compromised many design firms. When faced with difficult decisions during economic downturns, its structured consensus process prevented the concentration of power that often enables destructive leadership. The firm’s remarkable longevity in a volatile creative sector suggests that distributed accountability systems can sustain creative excellence while preventing the emergence of vampire leaders who extract value at the expense of organizational health.
5. Engage in scenario planning and strategic foresight
In a rapidly changing world, leaders must be able to anticipate and adapt to new challenges and opportunities. By engaging in regular scenario planning exercises, organizations can help leaders break out of short-term, reactive thinking and develop a more strategic, forward-looking way of leading. This might involve imagining alternative futures, identifying potential disruptions or ‘black swan’ or ‘gray rhino’ events, and developing contingency plans to ensure organizational resilience.
The BBC’s strategic foresight practices offer an instructive example from the media industry. Facing unprecedented disruption from streaming services and changing audience behaviors, the BBC established a ‘Technology Futures Group’ in 2015 to help the organization anticipate and adapt to rapidly evolving media landscapes. Rather than simply forecasting technology trends, the BBC also integrated scenario planning with audience ethnography to understand emerging consumption patterns. This approach led to the development of BBC Sounds, a strategic pivot toward audio-first content that anticipated the podcast boom. What distinguishes the BBC’s approach is its cross-disciplinary nature – bringing together technologists, content creators, and audience researchers to develop thick descriptions of possible futures (Archer & Smith, 2021).
This integrated approach helped the BBC shift from reactive crisis management to proactive adaptation. Faced with the existential challenge of declining linear television viewership among younger audiences, the BBC’s Research & Development foresight work has continued to track and present independent strategic advice not only on technological changes but their relationships to complex social, political, cultural, and environmental conidtions in the UK and globally (Cooke & Kerle, 2023). This example demonstrates how creative organizations can develop ‘prospective sense-making’ capabilities that balance creative vision with systematic analysis of emerging trends, avoiding both formulaic prediction and ungrounded speculation.
6. Embrace a more distributed, collaborative model of leadership
Rather than relying on a single, heroic leader to set the course and make all the decisions, organizations should cultivate a more distributed, collaborative leadership model that empowers individuals and teams at all levels to take ownership and initiative. This might involve investing in team-building and cross-functional collaboration, creating opportunities for employees to lead projects or initiatives, and recognizing and rewarding leadership contributions from across the organization.
Satya Nadella’s leadership of Microsoft offers a compelling case study of this approach. When Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, he embarked on a major culture change initiative at Microsoft to shift from cut-throat internal competition to empathy, principled collaboration, and growth mindsets (Nadella, Shaw, & Nichols, 2017). Under his leadership, Microsoft has become a more agile, innovative, and inclusive organization, with a renewed sense of purpose and mission.
What distinguishes Nadella’s approach is his systematic dismantling of Microsoft’s previously siloed organizational structure that had fostered internal competition rather than collective innovation. He eliminated the company’s divisional P&L structure that had incentivized protecting territorial boundaries, replacing it with collaborative revenue sharing models across product teams. This structural change was reinforced through cultural interventions, including the ‘Model, Coach, Care’ framework that redefined leadership as enabling others’ success rather than commanding compliance. When facing the existential challenge of cloud computing, Nadella resisted the urge to centralize decision-making, instead encouraging cross-functional teams to experiment with different approaches.
As former Microsoft engineer James Whittaker put it, “leaders should reflect the ideals and values of those below them rather than those above them. Promoting those leaders is the fastest way to fix a company’s broken culture” (2019). The company’s turnaround resulted from Nadella enabling thousands of better decisions throughout the organization by empowering decision-making through stuctural changes like promotions and overall value-sharing and trust-building. This distributed leadership model has enabled Microsoft to rapidly scale its Azure platform through multiple parallel innovations rather than a single top-down strategy. The case demonstrates how combating leadership zombification requires not just cultural change but fundamental restructuring of power relationships and decision rights to enable distributed intelligence and innovation.
7. Foster a growth mindset and a culture of experimentation and growth
In a complex, fast-moving world, leaders must be willing to admit what they don't know, seek out new perspectives and information, and take calculated risks to test new ideas and approaches. By fostering a growth mindset and a culture of experimentation and growth, organizations can help leaders break out of zombie-like adherence to outdated models and practices, and develop the agility and adaptability needed to thrive in an age of disruption.
The 'Deliberately Developmental Organization' (DDO) model, embraced by companies like Bridgewater Associates, Decurion, and Next Jump, is one promising approach developed by Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey, and their colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Kegan et al, 2016). These organizations have created structures and practices to support ongoing learning, reflection, and development, and have seen significant benefits in terms of employee engagement, innovation, and performance. At Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, founder Ray Dalio institutionalized a practice of ‘radical transparency’ where all meetings are recorded and employees at all levels helps create a deeper understanding that leads to improvement, including that of senior leadership. This practice of consistent feedback creates what Kegan calls a ‘holding environment’ that supports continuous development. Similarly, at theater chain and real estate company Decurion, employees engage in open-ended ‘check-ins’ at the start of most meetings where they can bring their humanity and interior lives to work every daty and and see every situation as an opportunities for individual and collective growth.
What distinguishes DDOs is their integration of personal development into everyday work rather than relegating it to occasional workshops or training sessions. These organizations explicitly connect business outcomes to individual growth, treating problems not as obstacles to be overcome but as developmental opportunities. This approach fundamentally reconceptualizes leadership from a static set of competencies to an ongoing developmental journey, directly countering the tendency toward zombie leadership practices that privilege formulaic behaviors over authentic growth.
Toward Vital, Nourishing, and Historically Informed Leadership
Ultimately, the goal is to develop a more historically informed, culturally attuned, and ethically grounded approach to leadership – on that resists the simplistic formulas of the leadership industry, the seductive allure of charismatic narcissism, and the flattening effects of digital culture. By taking concrete steps to cultivate critical reflection, prioritize service, establish accountability and oversight, engage in strategic foresight, and embrace a more collaborative and adaptive leadership model, organizations can help ensure that their leaders are truly alive to the needs and aspirations of their stakeholders – and that they are building a leadership legacy that will endure beyond the tyranny of the now.
Such examples as Reed Hastings, Satya Nadella, and the Deliberately Developmental Organization model offer hopeful glimpses of what this kind of leadership could look like in practice. They show that it is possible to lead with transparency, contextualized empathy, and a commitment to stakeholder well-being, even in the face of significant challenges and disruptions – and that doing so can yield powerful benefits for individuals, organizations, and society as a whole.
At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that these examples may not be representative of contemporary leadership, and that the temptations of zombie and vampire leadership remain deeply entrenched in many organizations and sectors. Resisting these tendencies will require sustained effort and commitment from leaders, followers, and other stakeholders – but the stakes are too high to simply accept the status quo. By embracing a more vital, nourishing, and historically grounded form of leadership, we can begin to chart a path forward – one that leads not to the realm of the undead, but to a brighter, more humane, and more sustainable future for all.
References
Peter Archer and Mike Smith (2021) “Scenario Planning for Public Service Media” [Virtual Presentation], European Broadcasting Union, Community Events, February 25, 2021; https://www.ebu.ch/events/2021/02/scenario-planning-for-public-service-media#relatedPresentations-95e78429-b50f-4f62-a3dc-754688774c2e.
Brad Bird, Director, and Jan Pinkava, Co-director (2007) Ratatouille [Film], Buena Vista Pictures;,Pixar Animation Studios.
Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace (2014) Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Expanded Edition, New York, Random House.
Henry Cooke and Antonia Kerle (2023) “Projections: ‘Things Are Not Normal’,” A BBC Research & Development Foresight Report, September 2023; https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/advisory/bbcrd-projections-foresight-report-sep-2023.pdf.
Pete Docter, Director (2015) Inside Out [Film], Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios.
S. Alexander Haslam, Mats Alvesson, and Stephen D. Reicher (2024) “Zombie Leadership: Dead Ideas that Still Walk Among Us,” The Leadership Quarterly, 35, 101770.
Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer (2020) No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, New York, Penguin Press.
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, with Matthew L. Miller, Andy Fleming, and Deborah Helsing (2016) An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization, Boston, Harvard Business Review Press.
Satya Nadella, with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols (2017) Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, New York, Harper Business.
Paul Polman and Andrew Winston (2021) “The Net Positive Manifesto,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 2021.
Adrian Schaughnessy (2023) Pentagram: Living By Design, 2 vols. London, Thames & Hudson.
James Whittaker (2019) “Speaking Truth to Power: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft,” Medium, October 21, 2019; https://onezero.medium.com/speaking-truth-to-power-reflections-on-a-career-at-microsoft-90f80a449e36.