This article by Manfred Kets de Vries looks at the life history of the late business tycoon Robert Maxwell, taking a clinical perspective. It attempts to explain the psychological forces which influenced his success and led to his downfall. The Maxwell case is used to illustrate the darker side...

This article reviews the two extreme styles of managerial personality which can be found in business life. Not all people have stable, middle-of-the-road emotions. Manfred Kets de Vries terms these two personality styles -- ways of managing mood states -- 'hypomania' (cyclical and significant...

Manfred Kets de Vries and Katharina Balazs, from a clinical perspective, suggest that insights drawn from individual change processes can be applied to the domain of organizational transformation to facilitate and speed up the process. Based on large-scale surveys, the authors explore the...

This article analyzes a problem that can be described as the retirement syndrome. In exploring the difficulties many leaders face in letting go at the end of a full career, it reviews a number of the barriers to exit: financial, social, and psychological. It looks at the physical and...

This presentation to business graduates at INSEAD addresses the question of what makes for happiness. An attempt is made to deconstruct this elusive concept. It is suggested that essential aspects of happiness are someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. In this essay, each...

This article addresses the question of contributing factors that make for vanguard companies. Effective leadership is considered a determining factor in creating high performance organizations. In making this happen, leaders take on two roles: a charismatic and an architectural one. Envisioning,...

In this article, individual reaction patterns to downsizing operations are explored in the victims, the survivors (those staying with a company after layoffs) and the 'executioners' (those responsible for the implementation of downsizing) involved in the process. Data are obtained from...

To illustrate the transition that has occurred in Russia since 1992, the authors studied Russian business leadership and entrepreneurship in a range of situations, from the transformation of a Soviet-era biscuit factory, to high-tech start-ups modeled on Western business practices. This article...

The objective of this article is to explore what makes for effective leadership and what contributes to leadership derailment. For the purpose of elucidation, one of the most famous leaders of all times has been selected: Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who more than any other person changed...

In this article the argument is made that unconscious dynamics have a significant impact on life in organizations. In support of that argument, the salient aspects of the clinical paradigm are introduced, motivational need systems are explored, and observations are made about the role of core...