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Winner of the 2018 Axiom Award for Business Commentary The troubling psychology behind some of America's most famous menSteve Jobs, Dov Charney, Lance Armstrong, Donald Trump. Each one has reached the pinnacle of American success. Is it because they were ambitious visionaries and talented entrepreneurs? Most Americans would say yes to both. But what else do they have in common?They're known for being mean.Though heralded as great leaders, each of these men and many more have also been exposed as toxic, raging, and manipulative. Yet, because America loves a winner, we look past even the most outrageous behavior from our heroes if it generates a gold medal, a windfall IPO, or a political victory. But at what price does our complicity come? And what role does gender play - is meanness at this level reserved for men?Drawing on author Mark Lipton's extensive experience as adviser to major corporations, start-ups, government agencies, and not-for-profits, Mean Men synthesizes decades of psychological research to expose what really drives this subset of America's leaders.
About the Author
Mark Lipton is graduate professor of management at The New School in New York City. For over forty years, he has been a trusted adviser to Fortune 500 corporations, think tanks, philanthropies, not-for-profits, and start-ups.
His diverse entrepreneurial client base includes founders of transformative start-ups in technology, manufacturing, media, education, health care, finance, and marketing. His coaching skills and leadership development programs are engaged by C-level executives across all sectors of the economy, and his development of corporate and nonprofit boards allows them to govern more effectively. In the not-for-profit realm, he has consulted to and led leadership development initiatives for organizations ranging from multibillion-dollar philanthropic game-changers to local community-based social service providers to the world's largest international NGOs. Much of his work to infuse progressive leadership practices into the NGO and not-for-profit world has been made possible by significant grants from the Ford, Rockefeller, Mott, and Charles H. Revson Foundations, among others.
His work as a consultant and professor has inspired his writing for such publications as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Journal of Management Consulting, as well as his previous book, Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course (Harvard Business School Press, 2003) . A leading authority on the founders' dilemma, the strong and often dysfunctional psychological forces that organizational founders experience when they are pressured to step down, Mark has been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio's Marketplace to discuss CEO transitions in the corporate sector.
Mark holds a PhD from the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and was an Erik Erikson Visiting Scholar-in-Residence in 2009 at the Austen Riggs Center. He lives in New York City and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
