This book explores the way in which character traits and behavioral patterns affect leadership style. Some of the elements that make for successful leadership are presented. It is suggested that the personality of a top executive influences the strategy, corporate culture, and even structure of the organization to such extent that often organizations cannot perform successfully if no attention is given to a leader’s intrapsychic world. A clinical approach is used to analyze how behavior on the part of the leader which may seem completely irrational may on closer inspection have an explanation and a deeper rationale.
A process is described whereby executives can explore their inner scripts through self-examination and through studying the lives of well-known business leaders and their companies. Furthermore, the theme of psychological pressures on leadership is discussed. To clarify why some leaders are more affected by these pressures than others, the shaping of personality is described in the context of narcissistic development, and the concept of reactive and constructive narcissism. A correlation is shown between individual pathology and organizational pathology which often results in “neurotic” organizations. Finally, the danger of leaders’ uncontrolled narcissism and hubris is explored.
Management Briefing, 1996
This book highlights a number of salient aspects of the culture and character of Russia (now the Commonwealth of Independent States) to facilitate an informed understanding of the way Russians deal with organizations and approach leadership style.
Published on 30 Jun, 2009
Telling Fairy Tales in the Boardroom
In this book Manfred Kets de Vries, one of the world's leading authorities on the psychology of leadership, and a pioneering practitioner in the field of psychodynamic executive coaching, draws on the format of traditional fairy tales and tells us five stories that dramatize five key themes of dysfunctional leadership.
Published on 11 Nov, 2015
This book takes readers into the private worlds of Virgin founder Richard Branson, ABB's Percy Barnevik and British Petroleum titan David Simon to provide candid accounts of how each has managed to redefine organizational growth and development in the late 20th century.
Published on 17 Mar, 1999
Journeys into Coronavirus Land: Lessons from a pandemic
Our journey together through the pandemic can lead us down a path of division or a more hopeful path of mutual responsibility, reconciliation and true renewal, ensuring healthier organisations and a better society for our children and future generations. In his latest book Journeys through Coronavirus Land, Manfred Kets de Vries takes us through his ruminations during confinement, widening his explorations into group phenomenon, leadership and organisational dynamics and economic and environmental crisis. The central question is, how have each of us responded to this adversity and where will this journey lead us, individually and collectively?
This book is available as a free download. A donation to Unicef Save Generation Covid i strongly encouraged..
Published on 3 Jul, 2020
Reflections on Character and Leadership
In this book, Manfred Kets de Vries offers an overview of his work spanning four decades, a period in which he has established himself as the leading figure in the clinical study of organisational leadership.
Published on 11 Mar, 2009
De Menselijke Kant Van Reorganiseren
In this book, individual reaction patterns to downsizing operations are explored in the victims, the survivors (those staying with an organization after layoffs) and the “executioners” (those responsible for the implementation of downsizing) involved in the process.
Published on 31 Dec, 1997
The CEO Whisperer: Meditations on Leadership, Life, and Change
At this critical junction in the history of humankind, leaders that are proficient in magical thinking aren’t going to solve our problems. Creating alternative realities is not the answer. We need a very different kind of leadership―leaders who can resist the calls of regression and whose outlook is firmly based in reality. We need leaders who analyse and draw conclusions from, or use their own experiences as a development tool, face their strengths and weaknesses, and critique their own experiences in order to build new understandings.
Published on 30 Nov, 2020
The New Russian Business Leaders
This book presents six in-depth case studies focusing on companies of vastly differing sizes, ranging from a newly privatised operation and the creation and organisation of an oligarch's empire, to several entrepreneurial start-ups in different service industries.
Published on 5 Sep, 2005
The Leadership Mystique (2nd Edition)
This book unpicks the many layers of complexity that underlie effective leadership, and gets to the heart of the day-to-day behavior of leading people in the human enterprise.
Published on 30 Aug, 2006
Reflections on Leadership and Career Development
Reflections on Leadership and Career Development is the second of the three books in the Manfred Kets de Vries on the Couch series. This book takes an in-depth look at the way basic psychological processes operate on individual and corporate performance.
Published on 11 Mar, 2009
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