{"id":20372,"date":"2018-11-15T17:57:26","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T01:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=20372"},"modified":"2018-11-15T17:57:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T01:57:26","slug":"jack-of-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/jack-of-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack of all…"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Leadership Mistique: leading behavior in the human enterprise<\/em><\/p>\n

By Manfred Kets De Vries<\/p>\n

In his book, The Leadership Mystique<\/em>, Manfred Kets De Vries is concerned with what causes leaders to fail and become corrupt. Why are so many leaders self-destructive? Why don\u2019t leaders get the best out of their people? Why do so many executive teams function so poorly? The author is both fascinated and burdened by the kind of destruction that leaders can create in the world. Most obvious examples are Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Jung Un, and others like them. How does one rise to such heights and attract such masses and then behave as a sociopath who is able to wreak havoc on mass populations?<\/p>\n

Of course, Kets De Vries turned to psychology as part of his quest for answers. What does clinical psychology have to teach us about the functionality and health of a leader, and what are the psychological forces that cause leaders to behave in certain ways? This is a monumental task that the author set out to accomplish in a rather concise way. One may critique the book as appearing to be a \u201cjack of all trades and a master of none,\u201d switching from topics like emotional intelligence to global leadership characteristics to succession dynamics to change theory. What do all of these topics \u2013 each chapter represented a different but related topic \u2013 share in common? The answer is that they all have to do with the psychology of the leader and the psychology of the organization, and emotional intelligence lies at the center of his argument.<\/p>\n

Parallels abound between Leadership Mystique\u00a0<\/em>and Failure of Nerve<\/em>, as both share a concern about psychological forces in leadership, both in the organization and in the leader\u2019s own experience. Whereas Friedman stayed close to Bowen\u2019s Family Systems Theory, Kets De Vries took a broader approach.<\/p>\n

They would both agree that leadership is a complex process of change between people and systems of relationships. They would agree that self-regulation of the leader is critical in order to navigate the anxiety, grief and loss of change. With interactive activities throughout each chapter, Kets De Vries\u2019 book offered more in the way of facilitation of reflection and practical application of theory.<\/p>\n

In chapter 8, the author suggested seven competencies of effective leadership that are worth noting:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Surgency<\/li>\n
  2. Sociability<\/li>\n
  3. Receptivity<\/li>\n
  4. Agreeableness<\/li>\n
  5. Dependability<\/li>\n
  6. Analytical intelligence<\/li>\n
  7. Emotional intelligence<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What may be interesting to the reader are the ways in which each of these characteristics are discussed and evaluated throughout the book. For instance, it\u2019s worth noting that the author is equally concerned about the dangers of analytical intelligence as he is its importance. Elsewhere, he suggests that too much analytical intelligence (most especially when the leader is simultaneously void of emotional intelligence) can result in toxic behaviors:<\/p>\n

    First, people with a high IQ don\u2019t necessarily make good decisions. In fact, IQ and leadership qualities such as decision making are only weakly correlated. Second, people with a high IQ often fall into the intelligence trap, \u2018intellectualizing\u2019 their wrong decisions. Third, people with a high IQ are often so talented at criticizing others that they focus on that rather than on arriving at constructive solutions.[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    Coming out of the Presbyterian tradition, I have often found myself surrounded by leaders with enormous IQ coupled with a noticeably absent EQ. It\u2019s an interesting observation if you think about it. In the \u201corchestra\u201d of theological and spiritual traditions, the Presbyterians have been known for high intellection and low emotional expression (whereas the Pentecostals represent the reverse). Not only are Presbyterian clergy taken through the academic ringer, but the polity and liturgy of the Presbyterian tradition seems to attract engineers. Half of the congregation I served in Seattle worked for the airline\/space industry, whether as pilots or engineers of many stripes for Boeing. When I did my MDiv at Fuller, I was surrounded by evangelicals, many and perhaps most with high pastoral sensibilities, relational capacity and intuition, and high emotional intelligence. Then I did a ThM at Princeton and found such difficulty among many of the brainy Presbyterian students (and the faculty were often significantly worse) who were there for training for a life of academia or some other kind of social work. The notion of leading a church (which we now know is nothing more than a large dysfunctional family with no biological connection) is terrifying for people with social challenges. Personally, I have found significant difficulty serving alongside high IQ engineers, in contexts with a democratic polity, shared leadership, and low EQ trends. What a recipe for endless conflict that can only be resolved to the capacity of the lowest common denominator in terms of EQ capacity.<\/p>\n

    The chapter on global leadership effectiveness is an important one for our cohort, and especially for those of us who find ourselves in contexts that require cultural intelligence. The list of global leadership abilities is worth keeping as reference:<\/p>\n