Retail Price: $34.95 LS Price: $23.75 You Save: $11.20 (32%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours Format: Hardcover, 366pp. ISBN: 9780470742426 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: May 26, 2009 Average Customer Review:

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Reflections on Character and Leadership is the first of the three books in the Manfred kets de Vries on the Couch series.

Here, Kets de Vries looks at entrepreneurship, the pathology of leadership, and the personality of the leader. The reader will visit the disturbed inner worlds of leaders like Alexander the Great, Shaka Zulu and Robert Maxwell, discover how to distinguish between a cold fish and a live volcano, and identify impostors, despots, organizational fools and global leaders.

The book highlights the basic principles of the clinical paradigm—the process of putting organizations and the individuals who lead them on the psychoanalyst’s couch. It includes studies of personality archetypes and the effects they have on organizational life and culture—and the effects that organizations have on them. Referring frequently to key management concepts, Kets de Vries looks not only at what happens when things go wrong, but also at how to create the psychological and organizational space to make sure that things go right.

Bringing the person back into the organization

In the books in this series Manfred Kets de Vries—failed engineer, entrepreneur manqué, reluctant economist, international management guru, psychoanalyst, wit, and outdoorsman—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 organizational leadership.

At a key point in his career, working, as he puts it, “in the twilight zone of economics, management, and psychoanalysis,” he decided to strike out on a little-trodden path and “bring the person back into the organization.” Now Kets de Vries occupies a unique position in the academic business world, putting leaders and companies on the couch and working at the often intimate interface where the inner theater of the individual meets the outer world of the organization.

Reflections on Character and Leadership, examines some major contemporary issues about leadership. What makes a leader? What is good leadership? And what is bad? What happens to organizations if a leader derails? What are the impacts of successful and failed leadership on followers and organizations? How must organizational leadership respond to globalism and the opening of new markets? Kets de Vries looks at the way various dysfunctional character types are thrown into sharp focus against an organizational background. Among the heroes and villains in this book are Alexander of Macedon, Shaka Zulu, Richard Branson, Jack Welch—and numerous executives who have spent time, literally or metaphorically, on the author’s famous couch.




About the Series

The series offers an overview of Kets de Vries’s work spanning four decades, a period in which he has established himself as the leading figure in the clinical study of organizational leadership.

The books in this series contain a representative selection of Kets de Vries’ writings about leadership from a wide variety of published sources and cover character and leadership in a global context, career development and leadership in organizations. The original essays were all written or published between 1976 and 2008. Updated where appropriate and revised by the author, they present a digest of the work of one of the most influential management thinkers of the present day.

"We all strive to create a consistent high performance organisation and that means discovering or creating leaders. These are the people with the "fairy dust" that can make the organisation special or alternatively can cause untold damage. In this book Manfred Kets de Vries describes many of the character types that we all come across in top management. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand and then manage their top executives better."

—John Stewart, former Group CEO, National Australia Bank.

Manfred was honoured in November 2009 in Los Angeles at the International Leadership Association's 10th conference when he and six others were inducted into the Leadership Legacy Project of the ILA and given Lifetime Achievement Awards. (Manfred was also the first non-American recipient of the International Leadership Award for “his contributions to the classroom and the board room” by the ILA back in November 2005). This is the first time that this very prestigious organization has honoured "founding professionals in the development of leadership as a field and as a discipline."

This was a huge honour for Manfred, Bernard Bass & Joseph Rost (posthumously), Warren Bennis, James MacGregor Burns, and Frances Hesselbein --a truly stellar group of leadership pioneers. The presentation ceremony of the International Leadership Association Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday 13th November was before a packed amphi. Laurent Lapierre, his old student and Professor of Leadership at HEC, Montreal, gave a very fitting and unusual introduction and personal tribute to Manfred's lifework, touching on his many accomplishments in the field of leadership. During the conference and various gala dinners Manfred sat beside Frances Hesselbein and met Warren Bennis.

Acknowledgments Preface Psychoanalysis and organizational life First case: an entrepreneur The clinical paradigm About this book PART I: LEADERS, FOOLS, AND IMPOSTORS INTRODUCTION Playing the organizational fool 1. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSONALITY Introduction Entrepreneurship: views from other disciplines Common psychological themes in the entrepreneurial personality The effects of family dynamics Case study: The entrepreneur’s story Falling into extremes The Medusa women The meaning of work Competition and self-defeating behavior The symbolic nature of the enterprise The process of change The entrepreneurial life cycle Working effectively with entrepreneurs Endnotes 2. THE HYPOMANIC PERSONALITY. Introduction The Dionysian quality of charismatic leadership Case study: Hypomania in action Elation and its vicissitudes Managing a hypomanic Hypomania in the workplace Possible interventions Self-help measures The plus side for organizations Endnotes 3. THE ALEXITHYMIC PERSONALITY. Introduction The ‘dead fish’ syndrome Identifying alexithymia Alexithymia as a communication disorder Where do the origins of alexithymia lie? Degrees of alexithymia Alexithymics in the workplace The Alexithymic CEO Working with an alexithymic manager Managing an alexithymic Searching for solutions Endnote 4. THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME. Introduction What makes an impostor? The creative artist as impostor The impostor as national leader The impostor: a character sketch Case study: The impostor as entrepreneu Endnote 5. NEUROTIC IMPOSTORS: FEELING LIKE A FAKE. Introduction. What creates imposturous feelings? The neurotic impostor in the workplace How the fear can become a reality How neurotic impostors can impact on businesses Finding solutions Endnotes 6. THE ORGANIZATIONAL FOOL: BALANCING A LEADER’S HUBRIS. Introduction The role of the fool The fool as cultural hero The benefits of humor What makes a fool? The organizational fool The value of the fool Endnote PART II: THE PATHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION 7. PRISONERS OF LEADERSHIP Introduction Externalizing inner conflicts The search for authority Regressive group processes Distance and aggression in leaders Managing leaders’ behavior in organizations Endnotes 8. THE SPIRIT OF DESPOTISM: UNDERSTANDING THE TYRANT WITHIN. Introduction Setting the scene for tyranny What motivates tyrants? How tyrannies operate How despotic regimes are maintained The despot’s toolbox The economic costs of tyranny The need for democracy The dangers of power Why despotism must be fought Unjust deserts Judicial remedy The International Criminal Court Endnote 9. LEADERSHIP BY TERROR: FINDING SHAKA ZULU IN THE ATTIC. Introduction The life and death of an absolute despot Deconstructing the despot’s inner theater The colluding mind A tyranny of self-deception Leaders and followers Shaka’s legacy Endnote PART III: TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION 10. ‘DOING AN ALEXANDER’: LESSONS ON LEADERSHIP BY A MASTER CONQUEROR Introduction The life of Alexander Alexander’s legacy Lessons in leadership … la Alexander Conclusions Endnote 210 11. LEADERS WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Introduction The effects of leaders on their organizations Different leaders, same results The architectural aspect of leadership The charismatic role of leaders Conclusions Endnote 12. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND: MANAGING CREATIVE PEOPLE. Introduction Characteristics of creative people Stimulating creativity Playing in a transitional world Two roads to creativity Creative management Watching for the danger signs Endnote PART IV: LEADERSHIP IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT. INTRODUCTION. 13. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLOBAL LEADER WITHIN THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION. Introduction A case study in internationalization Forms of global organizations Qualities needed in global leaders Training, transfer, teamwork, and travel A framework for analyzing the development of the global leader Conclusions Endnote 14. IN SEARCH OF THE NEW EUROPEAN BUSINESS LEADER. Introduction The challenge of diversity Internal and external competition Is a single model possible? A middle path Dealing with change The making of the European leader Leadership in Europe and beyond Endnote 15. LESSONS FROM THE ‘WILD EAST’: RUSSIAN CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP. The Russian character Contextual factors in the formation of the Russian character Russia’s transition: from cooperatives to capitalism New leaders and new followers Eight leadership lessons Challenges for global Russian business leaders The end of the beginning Endnotes CONCLUSION: CREATING HIGH-COMMITMENT ORGANIZATIONS. The inevitable march of globalization Meta-values for great companies Motivational need systems Leaders and meta-value creation Concluding comments Endnote References.  Index

Reflections on Groups and Organizations: On the Couch With Manfred Kets de Vries
Reflections on Leadership and Career Development: On the Couch with Manfred Kets de Vries
The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People & Organisations