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The leadership shadow: How to recognise and avoid derailment, hubris and overdrive. (2014)

“Leaders can do enormous harm if they do not sustain an awareness of the dangerous psychological states it is so easy to be sucked into as a leader

 

Erik de Haan, Director of Ashridge’s Centre for Coaching and Professor of Organisation Development and Coaching at the VU University, Amsterdam

Anthony Kasozi, Director of Quilibra Consulting and an Associate with Ashridge Consulting

Kogan Page Publishers.

Under stress and challenge, the qualities executives have relied on to get them to the top and to achieve outstanding results can overshoot into unhelpful drives that lead to business and personal catastrophes.

The Leadership Shadow draws on the lived experience of executives to make sense of what actually happens when their drivers overshoot and they act out the dark side of leadership. It shows how executives can find stability in the face of uncertainty, resilience in the face of gruelling demand, and psychological equilibrium as a leader in the face of turbulence.

“Leaders can do enormous harm if they do not sustain an awareness of the dangerous psychological states it is so easy to be sucked into as a leader, comments reviewer Prof. Ralph Stacey of the University of Hertfordshire.

He describes the book as “a welcome antidote to the usual overblown presentations to be found in the enormous number of books and research papers on leadership.

“Most writing on the matter of leadership presents an idealised, sanitised view of leaders which does not mention the pathologies and neuroses of those who take up leadership roles and because of this provides very unrealistic and unhelpful thinking on leadership. The Leadership Shadow provides a much more realistic and helpful account of the problems leaders face and how they need to take into account their own leadership shadow.”

Access the book form the publisher’s website here: The leadership shadow 

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