Manfred Kets de Vries

Leadership and organisational behaviour expert Manfred Kets de Vries brings together the fields of management and psychoanalysis effectively and persuasively. His pioneering research into executive stress and behaviour using psychoanalysis is internationally lauded and respected. With the unique view of a psychoanalyst and the solid foundations of an academic economic background, he compounds international management, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and dynamic psychiatry. In his 1984 book The Neurotic Organisation, Manfred and Danny Miller examined the relationship between personality, leadership, corporate culture and strategy.

Following his work with over 40 further publications, including Organisations on the Couch and Struggling with the Demon, Manfred has established himself as one of the world’s most trusted authorities on business thinking through the eyes of a psychoanalyst. With a finely-tuned focus on the employment of high-performance teams for healthy organizations, Manfred believes that many CEOs are obsessive and can be narcissistic, which is necessary to a degree in corporate life but can be damaging in excess.

Manfred calls this constructive narcissism and offers practical strategies to curb and nurture different personality traits within senior levels of organisations. The distinguished Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, Manfred founded the organisation’s Global Leadership Centre, and is Program Director of INSEAD's top management program, The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders. He is also Scientific Director of the Executive Master’s Program Consulting and Coaching for Change, and has received INSEAD's distinguished teacher award five times.

With professorships at McGill University, The Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, the European School for Management & Technology, Berlin, and the Harvard Business School, Manfred’s international academic record is unparalleled. Rated as one of world's leading leadership thinkers by the international press, Manfred is placed among the world’s top leading management thinkers and among the most influential contributors to human resource management. Manfred’s life outside business and academia is full of adventure. He was the first fly fisherman in Outer Mongolia, a member of New York's Explorers Club, and a regular tourist in the rainforests or savannas of Central Africa, the Siberian taiga, the Pamir and Altai Mountains, Arnhemland, or within the Arctic Circle.