Published one week prior to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Karthik Ramanna’s The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World could not have been timelier in addressing the urgent need for institutional leadership renewal in our increasingly troubled world. In his comprehensive and accessible book, Ramanna focuses on identifying the multiple causes of social unrest and provides a roadmap, informed by both theory and practice, for organizational leaders and managers to follow to not just survive, but to thrive through adversity. Arguing for a radical moderation of leadership today, the author presents a compelling vision of how, through deliberative and collaborative processes, sustainable and resilient organizations can be built to withstand the current volatile and polarized climate. Rather than relying on a singular “strongman” style of leadership, the author prizes an approach built upon humility, temperance, and intentional engagement of stakeholders, guiding readers to engage with the shifting moral commitments and challenging leadership questions of the day.
In charting a course forward, this book pulls no punches in painting the bleak picture of social unrest and upset that organizations face. Environmental degradation, rapid technological change, demographic pressures and migration, economic disparities, geopolitical conflict, information polarization, and widespread weakening and distrust of institutions have created a perfect storm, producing widespread fear for the future, disillusionment, and social unrest. Within this context, when faced with outrage, the author posits that organizational leaders must first “take the temperature down” in order to make sense of a moment of crisis. To do this, he argues an organization should convene a pre-arranged working group, representing a wide cross-section of stakeholders, to create a supportive environment to share their perspectives and make space for initial solutions or pathways forward. With this group established, the book develops a four-step framework that forms the backbone of the author’s ideas for navigating contemporary unrest:
- Identify the Drivers of Outrage – What’s causing the outrage and how is it affecting the organization?
- Scoping the Organizations Response – In light of the outrage, does the organization’s commitment to its values necessitate a response? If yes, how might that response be formulated?
- Understanding the Leader’s Power – How should a leader leverage their power and influence to chart a course forward for the organization?
- Building Organizational and Personal Resilience – Through both collective and individual practices, how might capacity be built to foster resilience throughout the organization?
Articulating a vision for organizational leaders that is at once practical and aspirational, the book explores the applicability of key concepts and strategies within a diverse range of case studies drawn from the author’s experience as both a professor and a leader at the Harvard School of Business and Oxford University’s Blavatnik’s School of Government. Arguing for an updated vision of leadership informed by deliberative and collaborative processes, the author makes a compelling case for values-based engagement of stakeholders and for leaders who think and act from a more distributed and authentic stance grounded in moral sensibilities.
The strengths of The Age of Outrage are multiple in both substance and style. Comprehensive in scope and depth, the analytical power derived from the author’s framework provides a strong through-line for the work. Chapters flow together logically and with clear conceptual argumentation. For example, the author’s use of explanatory theories on the psychological foundations of human aggression, along with organizational behaviour with regard to sources and uses of leader power and influence, provide authority and depth to the book’s content. Moreover, the author engages sensibly with a broad range of literature from public policy, business leadership, and governance, providing substantive depth to key ideas. Moving beyond simple prescription and books like Why We’re Polarized (Ezra Klein) and The Way Out (Peter T. Coleman) that analyze the psychological and political causes of polarization today, Ramanna diagnoses but also prescribes a path forward to guide institutional leaders to navigate outrage and the complex dynamics of leading large-scale organizations in both the private and public sectors. Bridging business ethics, governance, and academia, The Age of Outrage provides a unique lens that is more comprehensive in scope than similar works on the current polarized zeitgeist, such as When the Center Does Not Hold (David R. Brubaker) or Right Here, Right Now (Stephen Harper). Another distinguishing feature of the book are the numerous and diverse case studies that expand upon key concepts and strategies. Selected cases represent a wide range of circumstances and are drawn from both private and public sectors, with organizations such as Nestle, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), Brazil’s Ministry of Education, and IKEA, interwoven into chapter content. Examples spanning the United States, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, India, and Vatican City provide readers with a global perspective that highlights the applicability of key ideas across cultures. Perhaps the most defining feature of Ramanna’s book is its strong ethical foundation. No one is an island, and no organization can pretend to be disconnected from the larger whole of humanity. In humbly asserting that leaders must shepherd their organizations while understanding their changing moral obligations to stakeholders, cautioning that the work of leadership is never fully complete, and advocating that organizations themselves can simultaneously be seen as the source of and the solution to contemporary social ills, the Age of Outrage represents an important antidote to today’s egoic corporate and political culture. This advocacy for temperance as a leadership virtue goes against the grain of many versions of the strong, individualistic leader that are all too popular today.
From the perspective of readability, the author successfully strikes a balance of providing the reader with enough material to engage with his framework, but not enough to overwhelm, emerging with a thoroughly readable book with enough conceptual substance to drive a meaningful and compelling narrative about the pitfalls and possibilities of organizational leadership. Ramanna’s style is accessible, moving easily between key concepts and application, allowing readers to pause and reflect, make a few notes in the margin, and pick up where they left off without losing the thread of the story. At times, when delving into core ideas and concepts, one can get the feeling of being in a graduate seminar on leadership. Not everyone wants to be back in school, but the conceptual richness, depth of analysis, and development of theory and practice sometimes means accepting a slower and more deliberate pace of reading. (Framework components and theoretical foundations also don’t make for a light read.) In this way, although not a page-turner, the ideas presented make the reader want to dive back into particular sections to pass over again and take a note or two for future reference. My own messy pencil notes on many pages are a testament to the engaging nature of the ideas and case studies.
School leaders and administrators would be well served to read this book, as it provides both a diagnosis and a strategy to work with the times we live in. “A Roadmap for Educational Leadership” would also be a suitable subtitle for the book, as forces acting upon the education field today, such as ethics, conflict resolution, the impact of social media, and curriculum and policy debates, are strongly connected to its theme of outrage. Educating our students from an ethical stance to prepare them to navigate the future is more important than ever. Principals and school staff must uphold ethical standards when making decisions about the welfare and safety of students. The ideas presented throughout the book encourage leaders to create transparent and principled decision-making processes to maintain trust and allow for collective solutions more responsive to local conditions to come to the fore. Through focusing on deliberative structures and collaboration, the book provides a structured approach for school leaders to manage conflicts among students, parents, and staff. Increasingly vulnerable to online criticism and outrage, educational leaders need strategies and tools to manage crises effectively; the book provides a workable framework, strategies, and specific tools to guide schools in crisis management in an ethical and sustainable way. Ramanna’s book stands out because it moves beyond explaining why polarization happens and instead focuses on how institutions and leaders can uphold integrity while making difficult decisions in charged environments. This makes it particularly useful for principals, administrators, and corporate leaders seeking to navigate today’s divisive landscape.
The Age of Outrage is a worthwhile read for leaders and managers alike. Providing a diagnosis of our times and a prescription for change, Karthik Ramanna skillfully weaves together lessons learned from working with government, business, and academia that at times reads like a leadership masterclass, substantive academic journal article, and business case analysis all wrapped into one, producing an important book about the challenges and potential of institutional leadership today. Spending some time with the ideas from the book spurs the question: What would the world look like if leaders and managers took the lessons from The Age of Outrage to heart? No spoilers here: find out for yourself, I highly recommend it.
THE AUTHOR:
Mark Bunten, Ed.D., Head of Guidance, Lauremont School (Richmond Hill, ON)
