The Darker Side of Leadership

Manfred Kets de Vries is one of the most authoritative voices on organizational dynamics, leadership, executive coaching, and psychotherapy today. In all his roles, he has noticed that questions are now, increasingly, coming back to one thing – the wider state of the world. Using an engaging and highly readable style throughout the book, Manfred helps us to make sense of the confusing and, some might say, psychotic times in which we now live.

Revealing the darker side of leadership, Manfred explores the tendency for people to adopt ‘sheeple’ or herd-like behavior, the populist threat that we are facing, the dangers that come with feelings of perceived injustice, the rise of dictatorships, and the impact of Leviathan (neo-authoritarian) leadership behavior. Guided by theoretical concepts, the book provides readers with a better understanding of the underlying forces that drive these phenomena to the surface. What are the psychological dynamics at play? Why do groups of people behave in this manner? Beyond merely diagnosing what’s happening, Manfred introduces various coping strategies to counteract the emergence of these regressive forces.

The book offers a unique and original approach to answering the micro- and macro-psychological questions of how to mitigate against populism and autocratic leadership, and will be of interest to the general reader as well as the key audiences of organizational leaders, psychoanalysts, coaches, psychotherapists, sociologists and social psychologists.