Through the Dark Clearly: The Art of Seeing What Others Miss

About the author

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries offers a distinctive perspective on the interconnected worlds of psychotherapy, organizational behavior, leadership, executive coaching, and consulting. With an academic foundation in economics (Econ. Drs., University of Amsterdam), management (ITP, MBA, and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Paris Psychoanalytic Society, and the International Psychoanalytic Association), he explores the existential dilemmas that shape individuals and organizations.

He is Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD and the founder of its Executive Master’s Program in Change Management. He also established and directed INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center. A pioneer in team coaching, he has been instrumental in developing this intervention method to support transformational change in individuals, teams, and organizations. A celebrated educator, he has received INSEAD’s Distinguished Teacher Award six times and held faculty positions at Harvard Business School, McGill University, and HEC Montréal. He is also a visiting professor at the European School for Management and Technology (ESMT), Berlin, and has lectured at institutions worldwide. Publications such as The Financial Times, The Economist, Le Capital, and Wirtschaftswoche have recognized him as one of the world’s foremost management thinkers.

Kets de Vries is the author, co-author, or editor of more than sixty books on leadership, coaching, and organizational dynamics. His titles include The Neurotic Organization, The Irrational Executive, The Leadership Mystique, The Leader on the Couch, Family Business on the Couch, Coach and Couch, Sex, Money, Happiness, and Death, The Hedgehog Effect, Mindful Leadership Coaching, The CEO Whisperer, Leadership Unhinged, Leading Wisely, Storytelling for Leaders, The Darker Side of Leadership, A Life Well Lived, Narcissistic Leadership, and Trump in Mirror Land, among many others. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.

He has also published over 400 academic papers, contributed to numerous book chapters, and authored more than 100 case studies—seven of which have won Best Case of the Year awards. In addition to frequent contributions to the Harvard Business Review, INSEAD Knowledge, and Medium, his insights have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, Le Figaro, El País, and more.

Kets de Vries has developed widely used leadership assessment tools such as the Global Executive Leadership Mirror, the Leadership Archetype Questionnaire, The Internal Theatre Inventory, and the Organizational Culture Audit. He serves on seventeen editorial boards, is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, and sits on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. He is a founding member and lifetime honoree of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO).

His contributions have earned him numerous accolades, including the International Leadership Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award—the first awarded to a non-US recipient. The association has also given him the first ILA board Chair award. He has also received the American Psychological Association’s Harry and Miriam Levinson Award, the Freud Memorial Award, the Vision of Excellence Award from the Harvard Institute of Coaching, and honorary doctorates from four universities. INSEAD honored him with its Dominique Héau Award for inspiring educational excellence, and he has been named an Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau by the Dutch government.

As a consultant, he specializes in organizational design, transformation, and strategic HR management. He has worked in over forty countries with companies such as McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Standard Bank, Aegon, NAB, Lego, Nokia, Heineken, Novo Nordisk, ABN AMRO, Shell, BP, and many others. He is also the founder and non-executive chairman of the Kets de Vries Institute (KDVI), a global boutique consulting firm for leadership development (www.kdvi.com).

Outside of academia and consulting, Kets de Vries is an avid explorer and fly fisherman—he was the first to fish in Outer Mongolia, once holding the world record for the Siberian hucho taimen trout. He is a member of New York’s Explorers Club and can often be found trekking through the rainforests and savannas of Africa, the taiga of Siberia, the mountains of Central Asia, or deep within the Arctic Circle.