We consider the linear stability of spherical stellar systems by solving the Vlasov and Poisson equations which yield a matrix eigenvalue problem to determine the growth rate. We consider this for purely growing modes in the limit of vanishing growth rate. We show that a large class of anisotropic models are unstable and derive growth rates for the particular example of generalized polytropic models. We present a simple method for testing the stability of general anisotropic models. Our anlysis shows that instability occurs even when the degree of anisotropy is very slight.