Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen

Dr. Manfred Kets de Vries - I Came Back Yesterday From Moscow

Scott J. Allen Season 1 Episode 112

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Dr. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries is the Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organisational Change and the Raoul de Vitry d’Avaucourt Chaired Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus, at INSEAD. He brings a different view to the much-studied subjects of leadership and individual and organizational change. Bringing to bear his knowledge and experience of economics (EconDrs, University of Amsterdam), management (ITP, MBA, and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association), he scrutinizes the interface between international management, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and dynamic psychiatry. His specific areas of interest are leadership, career dynamics, executive stress, entrepreneurship, family business, succession planning, cross-cultural management, team building, coaching, and corporate transformation and change. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries directs The Challenge of Leadership Executive Education program.

He has received the INSEAD Distinguished Teacher Award five times. He has held professorships at McGill University, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and the Harvard Business School and has lectured at management institutions worldwide. 

He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 50 books and has published over 400 papers as articles or chapters in books. His books and articles are translated into thirty-one languages. He is a member of seventeen editorial boards, and he’s a Fellow of the Academy of Management. 

Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist rated Manfred Kets de Vries as one of the world’s top fifty leading management thinkers and one of the most influential contributors to human resource management. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association (the Leadership Legacy Project), being viewed as one of the world’s six founding professionals in developing leadership as a field and discipline.


A Few Quotes From This Episode

  • “I try to train reflective leaders. People who have some self-knowledge, some self-awareness...have some ability to deal with the complexity of what’s going on.”
  • (Speaking in Russia on 2.28.22). I made three comments when I ended my class because people were becoming panicky.
    • Ideology overrules rationality.
    • Paranoia is the disease of kings.
    • He who rides a tiger cannot dismount.


Resources Mentioned In This Episode

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.


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