Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: leaders and organizations in search of treatment
- 1 Hubris and narcissism: the dark underbelly of leadership
- 2 The enigma of an unintentionally toxic leader: an emotionally turbulent, destructive and impulsive workplace
- 3 The narcissistic leader: world-renowned and quite arrogant
- 4 Leader sabotage and the dysfunctional organization: the fish rots from the head down
- 5 The obsessive compulsive leader: a manager's mandate for perfection or destruction
- 6 The borderline leader: when brilliance and psychopathology coexist
- 7 Trouble at the top: high-toxicity implications of a leader with antisocial personality disorder
- 8 Histrionic leadership: the allure of the toxic leader in a volatile industry
- 9 The outer limits of toxic organizational behavior: corporate trauma in the form of disturbed leadership
- 10 Destructive leaders and dysfunctional organizations: tearing downs the walls of professional greed, hubris, toxic genius and psychopathology
- References
- Index
Introduction: leaders and organizations in search of treatment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: leaders and organizations in search of treatment
- 1 Hubris and narcissism: the dark underbelly of leadership
- 2 The enigma of an unintentionally toxic leader: an emotionally turbulent, destructive and impulsive workplace
- 3 The narcissistic leader: world-renowned and quite arrogant
- 4 Leader sabotage and the dysfunctional organization: the fish rots from the head down
- 5 The obsessive compulsive leader: a manager's mandate for perfection or destruction
- 6 The borderline leader: when brilliance and psychopathology coexist
- 7 Trouble at the top: high-toxicity implications of a leader with antisocial personality disorder
- 8 Histrionic leadership: the allure of the toxic leader in a volatile industry
- 9 The outer limits of toxic organizational behavior: corporate trauma in the form of disturbed leadership
- 10 Destructive leaders and dysfunctional organizations: tearing downs the walls of professional greed, hubris, toxic genius and psychopathology
- References
- Index
Summary
The paranoid top executive will seek out and promote others who share his obsessions. The histrionic leader will recruit only dependent, passive and second tier managers so that he himself can make all the key decisions. All of these selection biases maximize the impact of the neurotic styles of the top executives and allow them to endure.
(Kets de Vries & Miller, 1984a, p. 38)CONSULTING WITH COMPANIES ON THE EDGE
Management consulting and executive coaching necessarily involves dimensions of psychotherapy and psychiatry. When leaders and organizations seek out external experts it is never an exercise in pure pragmatic problem solving. The enigmas and explosive nature of the mind and emotions of leadership are typically under question. Seemingly brilliant and successful leaders may secretly harbor excessive and debilitating fears, obsessions and histrionics. Besieged by grievances and pending litigation the executive board of a heart institute desperately searches for explanations of the erratic and abusive behavior of their renowned heart surgeon (see chapter 3).
In Destructive Leaders and Dysfunctional Organizations: A Therapeutic Approach I unveil both the external consultants' and the clients' narratives and interpretations of organizations and leaders on the edge. Who knocks on the consultant's door? Why do seven-figure leaders and CEOs send emails, call on their personal cells at 1 a.m., and request a candid meeting in the middle of the night? At stake is more than a behind-the-scenes look at the underbelly of business.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Destructive Leaders and Dysfunctional OrganizationsA Therapeutic Approach, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009