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The issue of leaders in BGLOs (and other groups) looting their organizations or simple malfeasance is only one side of the equation. The other side is the culturally ingrained idolization of leaders in African American organizations, which transcends the presence of organizational charts and has to do with the members' expectations of how a leader should conduct him/herself. In my observation there is a projection of the hopes and dreams of "success" of members onto leaders so that the exalted status they occupy is an extension of the hopes and dreams and status of the rank and file. So the bishop,pastor, president, chancellor, basileus, polemarch,etc. should live in a style befitting that status. It's a matter of pride for see the leader driving the fancy car, big house and fly gear! I've seen this dynamic in play in different organizational settings. We've got to evolve out of this mindset so that unscrupulous leaders won't be tolerated and we don't put good leaders into the situation where they are tempted to conform to the way exercising leadership, which is largely grounded in individualistic, charismatic notions of leadership. When you add into this heady mix a group of enablers, you're looking at a "mess." On a cursory examination, this seems to have been going on in the Z Phi B affair.
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