Jim Jones: Super Bad Leadership

Jim Jones the infamous cult leader of the People’s temple is an example of evil, corrupt, and intemperate leadership. He was corrupt because as a cult leader in the United States he robbed people of their livelihoods and quashed dissent within his flock by weaning people from their blood relatives. He was intemperate in his abuse drugs and numerous affairs with cult members. Jones was evil because after leading 900 of his followers into the jungles of Guyana he didn’t allow them to leave. When reporters came and quickly discovered that people were being kept prisoner he ordered his followers to drink Kool-Aid poisoned with cyanide so that the dark secrets of his community would never to come to light and he would never meet justice for his crimes. Self-interest ruled his decision making. Even though Jones portrayed himself as a man of God and led his followers to believe that he was providing them spiritual guidance he was at best profoundly delusional or at worse sociopathic. Either way he was a skilled manipulator, able to attract and control a large amount of followers. In believing that he was the second coming of Christ Jones also exhibited one of the seven characteristics of unsuccessful people in that he identified too much with his organization.

Jones also demonstrates the fact that even the most promising leaders are susceptible to becoming bad ones. In his youth he was heavily involved in the desegregation Movement in Indiana, supporting Black families and talking to the white families in the neighborhoods where blacks moved to try and convince them not to move away. Jones adopted children of many races as well. His adoptions don’t automatically make him a better person but inter-racial adoptions were unheard of at the time that he did it. Although Jones was a man with promise, he didn’t live up to it, at least not in a positive way. All of his accomplishments have been overshadowed by the mass suicide he presided over in Guyana. Yet without the early accomplishments to establish Jones as a morally good and capable leader he may not have been able to become an infamous one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMlzzymawC0&feature=fvst