BookReview.qxd


BOOK REVIEW 99

Manfred Kets de Vries: The Leadership Mystique – a users’

manual for the human enterprise. Prentice Hall, Great

Britain. 2001. 

Manfred Kets de Vries is one of Europe’s leading management

thinkers and writers. He is an academic of international standing

(Econ. Drs. Amsterdam, DBA Harvard & Psychoanalyst of

International Psychoanalytical Association) who currently holds

the Chair of Human Resource Management at INSEAD. He is

programme director of INSEAD’s top management programme,

The Challenge of Leadership: De veloping your Emotional

Intelligence, and director of the INSEAD/HEC joint programme,

Coaching and Consulting for Change. He also consults widely on

organisational transformation and strategic human resource

management.

In Leadership Mystique he applies a clinical psychology

paradigm to his considerable experience of leadership in

organisations today. The result is an insightful, entertaining and

thought provoking read as he addresses the many complex issues

that underlie effective leadership, and considers the day-to-day

behaviour of leading people in the human enterprise. He invites

the reader to participate throughout by analysing his/her

behaviour and understanding each step along the way. He

addresses essentially those who aspire to lead more effectively.

The subjects he covers are:

� The importance of emotional intelligence in the current

world of work. To motivate and hold people to commitment

requires an awareness of an ability to manage one’s own

emotions as well as the ability to identif y and manage those

of others. Reference to Luborsky’s ‘core conflictual

relationship scheme’ is valuable here as it conceptualises

one’s inner emotional dynamic and the impact this has on

interactions with others.

� The changes faced by the organisational paradigm at

present. These he characterises as a move from control,

compliance and compartmentalisation, to a focus on ideas,

information and interaction. This requires a change in

leadership style from authoritarianism to communication for

the effective management of on-going change. It requires a

breadth of interaction that addresses all manner of

stakeholders.

� Those things that make for poor leadership and the effect

they have on the organisation. Using the clinical paradigm

he describes the dysfunctional behaviours of a leader as a

dramatic, suspicious, detached, depressive or compulsive

personality and the resulting, potentially dysfunctional

organisational culture. In a separate chapter – The Dilbert

Phenomenon – he addresses the ‘deadness within’ as a leader

and his/her organisation face a crisis of meaning typical of

our rapidly changing world suggests how to achieve

revitalisation.

� The characteristics of effective leadership, how this is

developed and how succession can best be achieved. He

notes three clusters of competencies – personal, social and

cognitive – which he has identified in most effective leaders.

He considers how best to identif y these in others and then

develop them to the required level for succession. He is

adament that a leader is responsible for the development of

his/her subordinate leaders and ultimate successor.

� Leadership in a global context and the best organisations

for which to work. He addresses issues of multiculturalism

and notes how effective leadership naturally allows for this.

He considers the research on organisations people regard as

ideal employers and characterises them as ‘authentizotic’,

that is they are true to their vision and values and provide

employees the opportunity for self assertion to produce a

personal sense of effectiveness and competency. The leader

must thus walk the talk and empower and enable his

followers to do likewise.

In conclusion Manfred Kets de Vries shows that leadership now

requires very different behaviour from the 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 have them make that extra effort. It’s all about

human behaviour and thus the applicability of the psychological

paradigm. It’s about understanding the way people and

organisations behave, about creating committed relationships,

and about adapting one’s own behaviour to lead in a creative

and motivating way.

Leadership Mystique is primarily addressed at those who would be

better leaders. It is also worth reading by those responsible for

identif ying and developing potential leaders in organisations, as

it is for those simply curious to understand ‘the human

enterprise’.

Reviewer: Bryan Love (M.A. B.Comm.), Industrial Psychologist

in private practice.