HAIL TO THE CEO:
The Failure of George W. Bush and the Cult of Moral Leadership

An unethical and undemocratic cult of business leadership seems to hold sway over the minds of President George W. Bush and many other leaders in our society, according to ethics and leadership expert James Hoopes.  This cult claims that leadership is attained and exercised through morality. But by instilling false pride and moral egotism in executives, the leadership cult intensifies the tendency of power to corrupt.

The new book, HAIL TO THE CEO: The Failure of George W. Bush and the Cult of Moral Leadership, (Praeger, January 2008, $34.95/Hardcopy, $38.45/ eBook) by James Hoopes, reveals the dangers of moral leadership and shows the way to leadership of greater integrity and competence.

This is the first book to explain that President George W. Bush's failures--from faith-based initiatives to the unconstitutional war on terror--reflect not only him, but also the business culture that created him. It offers a new model of leadership in which moral influence is earned, not used, by managing as competently and justly as possible.

More importantly, HAIL TO THE CEO (Facebook)  reminds citizens of the democratic principle that leaders may be moral menaces as well as moral exemplars--a reminder that will help people better guard their freedoms from our leaders' often ruinous decisions.

JAMES HOOPES is the Murata Professor of Business Ethics at Babson College. He is the author of False Prophets: The Gurus Who Created Modern Management and Why Their Ideas Are Bad for Business Today. He is regularly quoted on business-and-society issues in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, and USA Today.

Podcast: Prof. Hoopes speaks with Babson President Brian Barefoot and Babson Prof. Lydia Moland on the Babson framework for ethical decision-making: http://www3.babson.edu/Offices/President/podcast/2007_12_07171006.cfm