Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries - The CEO Whisperer: Meditations on Leadership, Life, and Change

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, is one of the worlds leading thinkers on leadership, coaching, and the application of clinical psychology to individual and organizational change.

Palgraves professional business list operates at the interface between academic rigor and real-world implementation. Professor Kets de Vriess work exemplifies that perfect combination of intellectual depth and practical application and Palgrave is proud to bring almost a decades worth of work together in the Palgrave Kets de Vries Library.

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I decided to become a psychoanalyst because too many management scholars in the field of organizational behavior conveniently left the person out of the equation. Organizational structures seemed to be a much more attractive proposition for most of them than studying the behavior of people in a work settingfar too messy and confusing. I decided that a clinical training would give me a very helpful lens to counter this regrettable trend and acquire a greater understanding of the complexity of human beings. And I have been proved right. Clinical training and practice have provided me with a more holistic understanding of why people do what they do. It has also made me realize that theres no Chinese Wall between peoples public and private lives. Working life affects personal life, and vice versa.

Given my work, I am sometimes privy to strange requests for advice. In the past, people would only occasionally solicit my advice but with the rise of social media the barriers to access have disappeared. Nowadays I receive a continuous stream of communications that are often cries for help. But although many of these requests are interesting, they dont make my life any easier. Like Henry David Thoreau , I find myself thinking, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Although most people we meet seem completely normal, behind this faade there often lies a very different reality. Quiet desperation isnt difficult to find. For example, what do you make of the following email, which is typical of the sort of thing I get these days. Like every case study in this book, I have anonymized it and disguised the details.

Dear Professor, I hope that this e-mail will reach you. But let me first introduce myself. I am an executive at a medium-sized IT company where I have been working for many years. Until recently, I kidded myself that I was doing ok. But when I look at my current situation, I realize my life is falling apart. I am not doing well at work or in my private life. My personal worries are affecting my work and my work worries my personal life. My boss recently told me that my performance is not up to snuff. Now I am worried that she is going to fire me. If that happens, it will be a disaster. My salary is my only source of income. There are also lots of deeply troubling issues in my personal life.

The reason I am writing to you is that I have read a number of your articles. In particular, your articles about the victim syndrome andgreedresonated with me. I also looked at one of your articles about psychopathic behavior. These articles brought me with some comfort, as they helped me understand my present predicament. Thank you for making these articles available. I really appreciate how you wrap up all these threads of human dynamics into a nice, understandable ball. Your articles made me realize that Im like some of the victims you describe. They helped me better understand why certain things are happening to me.

Until recently, I thought I had my life together but that changed when my stepfather died. Since then, things have been falling apart but Im beginning to wonder whether that started much earlier, to be exact, when I caught my brother in a sexual act with my wife. I forgave my wife but now Im asking myself why I didnt I see it coming. How long was their affair going on? Was I blind? And since then, my 19-year-old daughter has told me that my brother used to make passes at her. Everything is such a mess. My relationshipwith my wife has never been the same. There isnt much going on between us.