Leadership Substance, Style and Shadow 43while maintaining clear accountability. Hierarchies alone,
however, tend to be rigid. They need to be balanced by small
groups or self-organizing teams that bring innovation and
creativity into an organization.
However, when an authoritarian power-driven hierarchy
tries to maintain power rather than move toward its vision
and carry out the shared tasks it was set up to do, then we
have a cult. ‘Cult’ usually describes a religious or quasi-
religious group, but I like to use the word more widely
to describe any power-driven authoritarian group.
A cult has no external checks on the leader, no appeal
against their judgement, no way out without losing every-
thing the members have accomplished in the cult. The
shadow guru, meantime, behaves above the law they profess
to administer, above the vision they expound. They set their
needs above those of everyone else in the group. They apply
a law but count themselves above it. Such leaders have to be
regarded as perfect and right, because the followers’ self-
respect depends on it. The more bizarre the doctrine, the
more they have to believe it or lose everything, so they often
defend the leader without knowing the facts. The leader has
to be right. Newspapers sometimes expose so-called ‘spiri-
tual leaders’ that live the life of utmost luxury while their
disciples are delighted to give up what little they have for
their leader. In the worst and most tragic circumstances they
can even be persuaded to give up their lives.
Cults are power driven. They are also exclusive, an in-
group with a clear impermeable boundary. They separate
from non-members. They limit free-thinking and action
among members, sometimes even to the point of controlling
areas that have nothing to do with their vision, such as what
food members can eat, what people they can talk to and
what clothes they can wear.
A community, as opposed to a cult, is a group of people
who come together freely to achieve a common goal driven
by a shared vision. Everybody participates and the bound-
aries are not rigidly controlled. Communities not only
tolerate, but value diversity. They also usually permit what