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Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman shares her research on destructive leadership patterns in the tech industry, and the response of various types of positional followers in those companies. Her findings include the behaviors of Challenger followers and their communities of coping that give rise to positive acts of self-restoration and collective resistance.

• “Challengers were revealed not just as individual followers who wanted to resist destructive leadership as part of their personal integrity or their moral belief about a thing but as a social process.”
• “If you can find a group of folks who can help you sort out the true from the false and help you acknowledge that what you’re experiencing is real, then that community of coping is not just about coping, but about giving you the agency to do something about it.
• “You see over and over and over that performance outcomes and efficiency goals are being prioritized over employee well-being.”
• “Destructive leadership is a genetic mutation that’s a disease in an organization. It’s toxic. It spreads like a virus. You can’t let it do that.”

About Karen

Dr. Karen Perham-Lippman serves as Senior Manager of Global Inclusion and Belonging at Otis Worldwide Corporation. As a pracademic and mission-driven business strategist with nearly fifteen years of demonstrated strategic and process thinking results in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), ESG, and social impact, she has worked with nonprofits, state government, municipal clients, and businesses across diverse industries and sectors globally. She currently serves as Co-President of the League of Women Voters South Hampton Roads in Virginia and was appointed to the State League’s DEI Committee.

Karen is a Certified Diversity Professional and holds a certificate in designing equitable courses from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from Eastern University, where she received the College of Business and Leadership's 2025 Student Service Award presented to a graduating student who has exemplified the college and doctoral program's ideals of leadership and scholarship on and off campus through significant contributions to the field. Karen’s scholarship is published with Ethics International Press, Emerald Publishing, Forbes, Merits International Journal, and SAGE Publishing. Her forthcoming book, Bridging Generations: Transformative Intergenerational Leadership and Followership, will be available from Emerald Publishing in Spring 2026.

Episode References

ILA Global Conference in Prague

Connect with Karen

LinkedIn - for general connections

ResearchGate – for research updates or to collaborate

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Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

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https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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Chris Monö is an author and consultant based in Sweden known for his innovative concepts of "natural followership" and "collaborationship." He has spent nearly two decades exploring leadership and followership from a follower’s perspective, and in this episode we discuss several of the powerful ideas in his new book, Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership.

If you missed the first interview with Chris back in Season 2, I strongly encourage you to go back and listen to that one first, since it provides a lot of background and will make this new episode more intuitive and useful.

• “Most people just want a group to work, and that’s a group with a shared objective, working together to achieve a goal. When you have a group like that you don’t need someone to guide them.”
• “While we can try to manipulate people into obeying us, true followership is always in the hands of the followers.”
• “It’s the group that’s supposed to make things happen and they just use the leader as a tool to get there and I think we need more of that mindset because that’s really what a democracy is.”

Episode References:

Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership, by Chris Monö
https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Follow-Followership-Leadership/dp/9198847325

S2 E21 - Natural Followership - Christian Monö
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/13838983-natural-followership-christian-mono

Global Followership Conference
http://www.followershipconference.com

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support

Send Fan Mail by Text!

Thomas Rieser is the owner of Nou Tango, a tango studio in Berlin, Germany that just celebrated its 20-year anniversary. In this episode, he shares his perspective on how simple yet powerful tango exercises, can be shared outside the world of social dance in supportive group settings to bring healing and joy in surprising and delightful ways.

Over the past 20 years of teaching and organizing, Thomas has developed a focus on combining the individual development of each student with the requirements of a group. The individual person is at the center, and at the same time he encourages an active effort of everyone involved to create a social culture. He sees this as a reflection of the core, heart and potential of tango.

• “[Tango] is something that touches you emotionally and at the same time you don’t really know why.”
• “People see something [that] they don’t know exists, which is physically, spatially, and emotionally connecting to one another and being able to move in a way that is just magical.”
• “I don’t think it’s magical. I just think the body can do much more than the mind allows it.”
• “Being in a group setting where you open yourself and be present, your body takes over, and when you let your body take over, you can grow.”

Episode References

Nou Tango Studio
https://noutango.berlin/

Tango Connects Conference
https://tango.connects.berlin/

S4 E1 - Leading & Following in the Tango - Veronica Toumanova
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/episodes/16416925-leading-following-in-the-tango-veronica-toumanova

"Efficacy of Tango Argentino for Cancer-Associated Fatigue and Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Controlled Trial"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37296883/

Connect with Thomas Rieser

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Thomas.Rieser

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-rieser/

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com

Order the book: Lead & Follow
https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support