ABSTRACT
Th e word “leader” has some strange specifi cs: It has a positive connotation in all languages that I am aware of, except two languages, German and Italian. “Führer” and “Duce” are words that one would not use in the two countries with enthusiasm, rather with great care to avoid misunderstandings, with repugnant reference to history, or not at all. Sometimes they are used as an insult. Whenever I discuss leadership in classes in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, I have to be careful about the words that I am choosing. George Reed wrote a brief article on the continuum between great and toxic leaders (2014)*. He correctly describes how this leadership continuum can be found in the military, where he comes from. It exists everywhere humans organize to generate outcomes, so it is obviously a topic also for project management.
