Coaching challenging executives

This book chapter explores the mental health of senior leaders, its impact on the organization, and the role of coaching executives in the workplace. Specifically, we explore four regularly encountered toxic behavior patterns amongst leaders that can derail their organizations. For each personality type, we describe the conditions underlying the behavior pattern, how to recognize the pattern, how to coach individuals who exhibit this pattern, as well as to provide a real live case study to illustrate how coaching can bring about better ways of running their organizations

Colhendo tempestades : A gestão de pessoas criativas

Este artigo aborda o desafio que existe em transformar métodos criativos, mas não ortodoxos, em acção organizacional construtiva. As pessoas criativas são muitas vezes consideradas como causadoras de problemas, mas, na realidade, elas podem ser uma fonte de produtos, ou de processos, inovadores para a sua organização. O documento começa com uma discussão sobre o que é criatividade, focando quer a noção popular quer a noção de genialidade. Em seguida, são explorados alguns dos aspectos do desenvolvimento psicológico que contribuem para a criatividade individual. Como resultado das experiências vividas ao longo do desenvolvimento, conclui-se que a criatividade pode assumir uma de duas formas possíveis: construtiva ou reactiva. Para ilustrar estas formas de criatividade, são dados exemplos de artistas, escritores e compositores reconhecidos internacionalmente. Por fim, o artigo mostra como o conhecimento das raízes da criatividade é essencial em contexto organizacional. São dadas sugestões para dirigir pessoas criativas em contextos organizacionais, culturais e de liderança diversificados

The Group Coaching Conundrum

This article sheds light on the challenges facing coaches when undertaking the journey to becoming a group coach. It begins with observations on the state of the art of group and team coaching and continues with a description of the various conundrums faced by coaches interested in pursuing this kind of activity. Subsequently, it describes a coach’s reflections on leadership group coaching and shares his inner journey toward becoming a group coach. The second part of the article reflects on what makes group coaching an effective intervention, discussing the dynamic processes applicable to individual participants and the ‘cloud issues’ or themes that the group-as-a-whole brings to the table. It describes seven premises that characterize the clinical paradigm, a psychodynamic lens that can be turned on our inner theatre. The article also highlights a number of other psychodynamic processes that take place during the group coaching process, creating tipping points for change

The impact of self-esteem, conscientiousness and pseudo-personality on technostress

Purpose We investigated how personality traits are associated with workplace technostress (perception of stressors related to the use of Information and Communication Technologies—ICTs). Methodology We collected 95 self-rated and 336 observer-rated questionnaires using the Personality Audit and a shortened version of the Technostress Scale. To analyze relationships between personality dimensions and technostress, we applied partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings Our study shows that in line with previous studies, self-esteem is negatively related to levels of technostress. Contrary to our expectations, conscientiousness is positively related to technostress. Finally, the gap between a person’s self-ratings and observer ratings in all personality dimensions is positively associated with technostress. Practical implications We showed that the experience of technostress varies significantly amongst individuals. By taking personality differences into account when allocating responsibilities and creating guidelines for ICT use at work, technostress could be addressed. Instead of setting organization-wide norms for availability and use, we suggest it would be more effective to acknowledge individual needs and preferences. Originality/value This study contributes to current technostress research by further examining antecedents, and by focusing on the role of personality. In addition, we examined how differences in “self” and “observer” ratings of personality characteristics may point to variations in the way individuals experience technostress. We outline concrete best practice guidelines for ICTs in organisations that take inter-individual differences into account

Relating cultural distance to self-other agreement of leader-observer dyads: the role of hierarchical position

Multisource feedback is important for leadership development and effectiveness. An important asset of such feedback is that it provides information about the self-other agreement between leaders and observers. Self-other agreement relates to several positive individual, dyadic, and organizational outcomes. Given the increasingly intercultural context in organizations, it is imperative to understand whether and how cultural distance between leaders and observers relates to self-other agreement. We hypothesize that cultural distance within leader-observer dyads is negatively associated with self-other agreement. Moreover, we expect that this relationship is stronger for leader-superior than leader-subordinate dyads. We use a unique multi-cultural dataset of 7,778 leaders (52 nationalities) rated by 22,997 subordinates (56 nationalities) and 10,132 superiors (54 nationalities) to test our hypotheses. Results confirm that cultural distance is negatively associated with self-other agreement; we show that this relationship is driven by increased self-ratings and by reduced other-ratings. In addition, we find that these results are more pronounced for leader-superior than for leader-subordinate dyads. Implications for the theory and practice of self-other agreement and multisource feedback are discussed

El lado oscuro del empresario.

Muestra de la interesante perspectiva que se abre al penetrar en los meandros de la conducta empresarial. Empleando el psicoanálisis, Kets de Vries busca precisar ciertas obsesiones típicas de estos hombres inmersos y dedicados al mundo de los negocios

El lado oscuro del Empresario

Muestra de la interesante perspectiva que se abre al penetrar en los meandros de la conducta empresarial. Empleando el psicoanálisis, Kets de Vries busca precisar ciertas obsesiones típicas de estos hombres inmersos y dedicados al mundo de los negocios