The Leadership Mystique: A User's Manual for the Human Enterprise

By Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries

Book Overview

"This is a book that any senior executive will find enlightening, as it peels back the layers of self-deception to reveal how our hidden personalities, largely hard-wired since early childhood, affect the way we lead and manage others." Carol Kennedy, Director magazine

"This book is a real gem. The author writes with flair and precision. ... I recommend this book very highly. It is clear, timely and accessible. De Vries is a master of the elusive topic of leadership. For the busy manager and consultant, it is a valuable balance to a growing library that merely idealises and idolises leadership." HR Monthly, Australia

"Your business can have all the advantages in the world; strong financial resources, enviable market position, and state-of-the-art technology, but if leadership fails, all of these advantages melt away." - Manfred Kets de Vries

Organizations are like automobiles. They don't run themselves, except downhill.

Successful leadership today demands very different behavior from the conventional leadership tradition we are used to. It requires leaders who speak to the collective imagination of their people, co-opting them to join in the business journey; leaders who are able to motivate people to full commitment and spur them on to make that extra effort. It's all about human behavior. It's about understanding the way people and organizations behave, about creating relationships, about building commitment, and about adapting your behavior to lead in a creative and motivating way.

So, stop right now and ask yourself what you're doing about the leadership factor. How do you execute your own leadership style? Whether you work on the shop floor or have a corner office on the top floor of a shimmering skyscraper, what have you done today to be more effective as a leader?

There are no quick answers to leadership questions, and there are no easy solutions. In fact, the more we learn the more it seems there is to learn. In The Leadership Mystique, management and psychology guru Manfred Kets de Vries 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. Assess your own leadership qualities with the probing self-questionnaires and learn how to develop your skills for maximum impact as a leader.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1405840196
• ISBN13: 9781405840194
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: FT Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended !

Business schools and shareholders focus so relentlessly on hard numbers and cold facts that it's no surprise that data reigns supreme in the corporate world. But executives who downplay the importance of emotion and intuition do so at their own peril, management expert Manfred Kets de Vries convincingly argues. He offers a wealth of useful tips for leaders who are ready to reintroduce the human side, the soft side, to their organizations and their own lives. The author occasionally drops in stories and quotes from his clients, but his argument would have been bolstered by even more examples. We recommend this easy-to-digest volume to leaders who want to improve their interpersonal skills.

Strange Bosses Unmasked

Know any managers who act quite strangely? Or even downright dysfunctionally? Do you ever find yourself doing something you wished you had not, and then wondering, "What came over me?"Humans behave oddly at times, even in the workplace; even at the top of the hierarchy. And no one, it seems, is quite who they seem to be. Did you know that family entertainment mogul Walt Disney made a habit of eating donuts drowned in whiskey-for breakfast!A veritable smorgasbord of engaging tales and insights are chronicled in this book. Manfred F.R. Kes de Vries knows much about executives' strange behaviors because he's a psychologist who interacts with senior managers the world over. A clinical professor of leadership development, he is program director of a top management program at INSEAD in France. De Vries also taught at McGill University in Canada, the Harvard Business School in the U.S., as well as lecturing and consulting around the world.De Vries chronicles and explains a wide variety of counter-productive executive maladies such as: excessive narcissism (self-centeredness); unusual-even inappropriate-responses to associates; excessive compulsions; extreme need for control; self-defeating behaviors; and on and on. Flip through the book, land on any page and your sure to recognize a description of someone you know (perhaps even someone who stares back at you from the mirror).The book provides a fascinating glimpse into the vagaries of human behavior, especially by people who have been conferred with organizational power. De Vries offers up many insightful examples, interesting anecdotes, some wit, and very approachable explanations of psychological concepts in lay terms, along with some self-assessment exercises (of varying usefulness).The book is not held together by a discernible thesis; it doesn't provide you with many actionable skills. But if you'd like to know more about why you and other otherwise very bright and capable people do odd things, this book provides a delightful peek into the executive skull.