Destructive Leaders and Dysfunctional Organizations: A Therapeutic Approach is the result of a journey that has led me to graduate school, research, writing, and the life of a professor and consultant. As a professor I have always been fascinated by the stories of movers and shakers. In this book I bring the narratives and human dramas of leaders and companies front and center stage. From behind closed doors I have heard swearing and cussing, prayers, confessionals, and self-disclosures that serve up the intricacies and complexities of leadership. As an external coach who is immersed with the client I strive to fully enter the organizational culture. I am committed to first and foremost understanding how a leader lives in her world. From the vantage point of the consultant-as-an-anthropologist I strive to hear what they hear, see what they see, think what they think and feel what they feel. Much like Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist, I must enter the lived world and community en route to partaking in genuine conversations and observing real phenomena. Each chapter represents engagement in another professional and corporate culture ranging from engineering, heart surgery, and real estate development, to high couture fashion and sports and athletic wear.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I trust that the narratives and dramas that unfold in these pages will sufficiently usher you into the trials, struggles and toxicity of extraordinary leaders and their companies.