You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger ― Executive Coaching Challenges

You don't have to be mad to work here – but it helps! Sometimes that's more than just a tedious joke. As anyone who has worked as an executive coach knows, sometimes people who hold very senior and responsible positions are more than just difficult and erratic – sometimes they're downright toxic.

Toxic behavior has a contaminating effect that ripples through an organization, incurring many hidden, unforeseeable costs in the process. Working with these individuals can be seriously emotionally and physically draining.

Manfred Kets de Vries, one of the world's leading authorities on the psychology of leadership, and a pioneering practitioner in the field of clinical and psychodynamic executive coaching, has written a trilogy of short books on crises in leadership written for executives and those who work with them. In You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Kets de Vries shows how to avoid the traps set by difficult clients, how to harness your own emotions when dealing with difficult people and conflict, and how to avoid becoming an inadvertent participant in a 'duel' with your client.

This book is all about helping coaches to become more effective. Each chapter presents a profile of a particular type of toxic executive – the narcissist, psychopath, cold fish, obsessive-compulsive, and many more—and offers coaches examples of interventions that have worked – and those that haven't. Kets de Vries offers expert advice from the front-line of working with puzzling executives.

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries is the Distinguished Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, the Founder of INSEAD's Global Leadership Centre, and program director of INSEAD's top management program, 'The Challenge of Leadership: Developing Your Emotional Intelligence,' and Scientific Director of the Executive Master's Program 'Consulting and Coaching for Change'. The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries among the world's top 50 leading management thinkers.