"Death anxiety and succession issues"
This article takes a clinical lens to explore death anxiety as a motivational force, how it affects behaviour in organisations, and how we metabolise the feelings death evokes. In addition, the author examines the various ways we deal with our knowledge of death. Some of us go into overdrive in trying to suppress it, while others fall into a state of resignation and depression. To deal with the ultimate narcissistic injury that death represents, we resort to a variety of immortality strategies to create permanent or enduring meaning. Furthermore, from an organisational perspective, three maladaptive responses to death anxiety are explored: the manic defense, succession issues, and the edifice complex.
INSEAD Working Paper, 2014
Read more"Executive complexes in organisations"
Complex Executives I have Met in Coaching and Consulting
This working paper explores the nature and origin of complexes and then explores five complexes regularly encountered in organizational coaching and consulting work.
Published on 7 May, 2006
"Identifying and dealing with SOBs"
This working paper explores ways of identifying and dealing with SOBs—Seductive Operational Bully—from an organisational and individual perspective, and recommends a clinical orientation to organisational diagnosis and intervention.
Published on 1 Jul, 2012
"Leadership by terror: Saddam Hussein"
Entering the Inner Theatre of a Despot: The Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein
This working paper investigates leadership by terror, a form of leadership that is both an ageless phenomenon and a contemporary problem.
Published on 1 Apr, 2003
"Rescuer syndrome and excessive helping behavior"
Leadership Coaching and the Rescuer Syndrome: How to Manage both Sides of the Couch
In this article the author explores the problem of excessive helping behavior—The Rescuer Syndrome—with particular reference to executive coaching.
Published on 9 Dec, 2010
Struggling with the Demon: Perspectives on Individual and Organizational Irrationality
Struggling with the Demon examines the search for meaning in human activity and highlights the values that foster commitment and involvement and, ultimately, success.
Published on 1 Jan, 2001
"Executive coaches as modern day shamans"
The Shaman, the Therapist, and the Coach
This working paper discusses various similarities and differences between the healing practices of shamans and the work of therapists and executive coaches.
Published on 30 Sep, 2014
"Design of transfor- mational executive programs"
Creating Identity Laboratories to Enable Executive Change and Transformation
This working paper describes the design of transformational executive programs and presents three conceptual frameworks for facilitating change.
Published on 6 Mar, 2006
"The victim syndrome in org contexts"
Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?
This working paper explores the victim syndrome within an organisational context, and provides a checklist to identify people who are victims of it.
Published on 24 Jul, 2012
"Leadership development as a transitional journey"
This paper describes transitional leadership development programs as the beginning of a journey, and propose that for this type of program, an integrated collaborative approach to evaluation is logical and appropriate.
Published on 8 Mar, 2008
"In search of introspection and reflection"
Doing Nothing and Nothing to Do: The Hidden Value of Empty Time and Boredom
In this working paper, the author argues that doing nothing and being bored can be invaluable to the creative process.
Published on 5 May, 2014
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