Book Review
The leadership mystique: A user's manual for the human enterprise
Manfred Kets de Vries
ISBN: 978-0273656203; 2001; 352 pages; Pearson Education Limited, London;
Nicholas G Procter
Professor and Chair: Mental Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Division of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide SA
This is much more than a book about leadership. It is the coming together of the disciplines of clinical psychology and management theory. The author has a degree in Economics from Amsterdam University, as well as an MBA and DBA from Harvard University. In addition, he studied psycho-analysis at the Canadian Psychoanalytic Institute. He has the unique, convincing and scholarly ability to analyse organisations through the combination of the thoughtful inter-subjectivity of the academic, with the deep and reflective insight of the practising psycho-analyst. With a different and strategically oblique understanding of the much-studied subjects of leadership and the dynamics of individual and organisational change, the author scrutinises the interface between people management and psychoanalysis.
The author's understanding of psychoanalysis gives clarity to the intangible and complex attributes of organisations and the people who work in them. This orientation is of great value to those looking to grasp an understanding of the internal and social dynamics; the unconscious and invisible processes that influence the behaviour of individuals and organisations.
The book comprises of fourteen chapters covering topics such as leadership development, the dynamics of succession, achieving personal and organisational change, leadership in a global context, emotional intelligence in the workplace and dysfunctional leadership factors.
The author articulates (for example) two kinds of leadership failures known as 'Inaccessible Leaders' and 'Game Player Leaders'. Inaccessible Leaders are so full of self-importance that they have no time for others. It would never occur to them to lead by example or to walk around the workplace listing to their primary constituencies. Lofty and unapproachable, they shield themselves behind a battery of secretaries and assistants and closed-door policies.
Game Player Leaders are political animals who can talk and think of only themselves, and their attention falters when others talk (unless they themselves are the subject of discussion). For Game Player Leaders personal goals sway the organisational goals. They refuse to let their subordinates shine, using and abusing them rather then helping them to grow and develop. They try to hog the limelight, whether it's aimed below or above them. They're unwilling to plan for leadership succession, envying anybody who might take their place. Not surprisingly there is high turnover in these environments and lack of succession planning.
While analytical and scholarly, this book is also interactive as it contains several quizzes, self-assessment exercises and reflective questions. The author hopes that these exercises will facilitate the process of self-reflection in readers. To my mind the questions and activities are a worthwhile and successful addition to the main text by going beyond the directly observable. The author pays attention to the presenting internal and social dynamics; to the intricate playing field between leaders and followers; and to unconscious and invisible psychodynamic processes and structures that influence the behaviour of individuals and groups in organisations. He sees leadership as a means to bring people back into organisations rather than systems and structures taking precedence over people.
This book will be of interest to nursing and health professionals for at least three reasons.
First, it will challenge readers to ask themselves what they are doing about their leadership style - how it is executed and how it is made sense of in the context of work practices and career goals.
Second, as nurses we are asked to take the lead in clinical teams, clinical decisions, workplace reform, student supervision, and crisis management. In all of these situations there exists the need for organised, explicit approaches to understand the dynamic and inter-subjective structures that influence and guide decision making. Everywhere you look in this book there is something that moves you beyond your thinking. The text forces us to consider what makes organisations innovative and enhancing of individual and organisational performance.
Third, leadership skills are necessary in all nursing and health care settings across the lifespan. According to the author we should look closely at ourselves when we ask the following fundamental questions: 'What is my leadership strength?', 'How is it expressed, understood and more importantly perhaps, integrated into my work practices?', 'Am I primarily a leader, a manager or an administrator?', and 'Am I more reactive or proactive in my personal and organisational decision making?'. By working through our personal and professional ways of knowing we have the opportunity to move our leadership style forward. Being critically aware of our leadership prejudices, biases, strengths and limitations helps us to understand what is suggested or inferred by them, and subsequently how we lead others and ourselves.
With an enhanced and deeper awareness of background, contextual and personal issues, we can make sensitive revisions of our understanding of ourselves and place of work.We can be more open to the complex and dynamic interplay between social, political and emotional issues at play in work and personal lives and how such understandings influence leadership practices. Our understandings define not only the way we engage others verbally and non-verbally, but also our vision for leading people - both present and future.
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