Narrator: In May 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the head of the International Monetary Fund and the leading contender for the French presidency. He was at the absolute pinnacle of global power. Days later, his career was in ruins, obliterated by a sexual assault allegation from a New York hotel housekeeper. While the criminal case eventually collapsed, his leadership position was gone forever. Strauss-Kahn’s downfall is a dramatic, but not uncommon, example of a pervasive and costly problem: leadership failure. Despite a leadership industry worth billions, workplaces are rife with disengagement, and leaders derail their careers with shocking regularity. Why does the advice we get about leadership so often fail to match the reality on the ground?

In his book, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer provides a bracing and evidence-based answer. He argues that the leadership industry is fundamentally broken, built on inspiring fables and feel-good myths rather than the hard, uncomfortable truths of organizational life.

Narrator: Pfeffer’s central argument is that the leadership development industry is a catastrophic failure. Despite an estimated $50 billion spent annually on leadership training, books, and coaching, the data paints a grim picture. Gallup polls consistently show that a vast majority of employees are disengaged from their work. CEO tenure is declining, and managerial incompetence is estimated to be as high as 50 percent. The industry, Pfeffer contends, has produced almost no evidence that its efforts are creating better leaders or more humane workplaces.

He draws a powerful analogy to American medical education before 1910. At that time, the field was filled with for-profit schools, unproven "cures," and charlatans. There were no rigorous standards. Then, the Flexner Report was published, a scathing, data-driven review that exposed the system's deep flaws. The report led to the closure of a third of all medical schools and established the scientific, evidence-based foundation of modern medicine. Pfeffer argues the leadership industry is in a similar pre-Flexner state. It’s dominated by gurus who build credibility not through scientific knowledge, but through public notoriety—TED talks, blogs, and books filled with advice that may or may not be valid. The industry prioritizes inspiration over evidence, selling what people want to hear, not what they need to know.

Narrator: The leadership industry endlessly promotes virtues like modesty and authenticity. Yet, a hard look at who gets ahead reveals a starkly different reality. Pfeffer systematically dismantles these cherished ideals.

Take modesty. While modest leaders who share credit can foster commitment, immodesty and even narcissism are often more effective for career advancement. Narcissists are skilled at self-promotion, exude confidence, and are more likely to be noticed and selected for leadership roles. Research shows that narcissistic CEOs earn more and hold their positions longer. Donald Trump, for example, built a global brand through relentless and unapologetic self-promotion, plastering his name on buildings in giant letters, a strategy many found tasteless but undeniably effective.

The same critique applies to authenticity. The advice to "be yourself" is problematic. Leaders often must play a role that is inconsistent with their natural feelings. A leader grieving a personal tragedy, for instance, cannot simply express their raw sadness at work; they are expected to project stability and motivate their team. Furthermore, acting in a way that feels inauthentic can be a powerful tool for growth. At Intel, former CEO Andy Grove recognized that many of his brilliant managers were too shy to advocate for their ideas. He sent them to a course nicknamed "wolf school" to learn how to be more assertive—to act powerful, even if they didn't feel it. This strategic inauthenticity was crucial for their success within Intel's demanding culture.

Narrator: Pfeffer argues that lying is not an aberration in organizations; it's a common and often unpunished feature of work life. From inflated résumés to corporate "vaporware"—promising software that doesn't exist yet—deception is widespread. Leaders often lie to create self-fulfilling prophecies. Steve Jobs was a master of this, creating a "reality distortion field" to convince his team and the market that Apple's products were revolutionary, sometimes long before they were. He famously recruited John Sculley from Pepsi by asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" This grand, and at the time unproven, vision was a form of strategic deception that built one of the world's most valuable companies.

Consequently, the conventional wisdom that trust is the bedrock of leadership is deeply flawed. Pfeffer argues that trust is notable mostly by its absence. There are often few consequences for violating it, especially when the violator gains money and power. He points to the story of Bill Gates and Microsoft, who bought an operating system from a small company for $50,000 and sold it to IBM as MS-DOS, never revealing the full scope of their plan. This maneuver, a clear breach of implicit trust, laid the foundation for Microsoft's empire. A degree of distrust, Pfeffer suggests, is not only realistic but advantageous, as it protects individuals from being exploited.

Narrator: Contrary to the popular concept of "servant leadership," Pfeffer presents overwhelming evidence that leaders consistently prioritize their own well-being. During economic downturns, airlines used bankruptcy to shed pension obligations and cut employee wages, while senior executives often remained protected. The gap between CEO pay and average worker pay has exploded from 20-to-1 in the 1960s to more than 300-to-1 today. This happens because leaders are psychologically and physically distant from their employees, and they are motivated to protect their own self-esteem by blaming external factors for failures.

Given this reality, Pfeffer's advice is stark: take care of yourself. Relying on the benevolence of your employer is foolish. Companies and leaders will almost always act in their own self-interest to ensure their survival and prosperity. An employee's past contributions mean little when a company needs to cut costs. Therefore, individuals must adopt the same self-reliant mindset. This isn't cynicism; it's a pragmatic recognition of how the system works. As Adam Smith noted, it is not from the benevolence of the butcher that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Leadership BS is that the path to better leadership and healthier workplaces does not lie in more inspirational stories or feel-good fables. It lies in confronting the uncomfortable, evidence-based truths about human behavior and organizational systems. The leadership industry has failed because it sells a fantasy. It tells us what we wish were true, not what is true.

To fix leadership, we must stop confusing what is desirable with what is real. We must watch what leaders do, not what they say. This requires a fundamental shift—away from the pursuit of inspiration and toward the disciplined, and sometimes difficult, practice of seeing the world as it is. The challenge, then, is not to find more heroic leaders, but to build systems that are less dependent on them and to equip ourselves with the clear-eyed realism needed to navigate the world of work successfully. Can you handle the truth? Your career may depend on it.