By Manfred Kets de Vries In many organisations, the top executive team is described in heroic language. It is said to be the “strategic brain,” the “guiding coalition,” the “engine room,” the “place where the future is made.” These descriptions are...
By Manfred Kets de Vries Many of the challenges leaders face are timeless. Asked what was most difficult in the world, the Greek sage Thales is said to have answered: “Know thyself.” More than two millennia later, the advice remains as relevant as...
The Emotional Work Leaders Rarely Name By Oriane Kets de Vries, CEO, KDVI Twenty-two years as an entrepreneur have taught me that leading through change is as much emotional work as it is strategic. Leaders tend to focus on managing change while...
Leadership and the Paradox of Perception By Manfred Kets de Vries In the late nineteenth century, the great naturalist professor Louis Agassiz of Harvard subjected his students to a peculiar form of intellectual torture. He would place a fish in a...
By Manfred Kets de Vries Our unconscious life To truly understand ourselves, we have to look beyond what we say and do — and turn inward, toward the private stage where our inner dramas unfold. Within each of us is a hidden theater: a flickering...
By Manfred Kets de Vries The idea that a single extraordinary individual determines the success or failure of an organisation, the classic “Great Man” or “Great Woman” theory, still lingers in popular imagination. Yet most contemporary scholars and...
A 360° Leadership Development Assessment Tool By Manfred Kets de Vries Executives in the twenty-first century must cultivate capacities that earlier generations rarely needed to master the global stage. Leadership now unfolds in a world that moves...
Emotional turbulence in new ventures By Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries Recently, I was invited to deliver a keynote address at a coaching conference in China. The event brought together executives, entrepreneurs, consultants, coaches, and...
By Manfred Kets de Vries In Alexander Pushkin’s Boris Godunov (1825), one of the most psychologically charged moments occurs when the tsar addresses his young son, Fyodor. On the surface, the speech reads like a manual of prudent governance: a...
Last month, we explored how psychodynamic team coaching transforms team effectiveness. We examined how it surfaces the emotional and relational forces beneath performance. This month, we shift from why team coaching works to what makes it work...
Oriane Kets de Vries is CEO and owner of the Kets de Vries Institute. She leads a global team of coaches, consultants and educators dedicated to developing reflective, emotionally intelligent leaders and cultivating workplaces where people can thrive. In her faculty role, she draws on extensive experience designing and directing leadership programmes for senior executives, contributing her expertise in psychodynamic coaching, organisational culture, and transformational leadership development.
Oriane has served as consultant, coach, and programme director for clients including Pictet, Deutsche Bank, Merck, UBS, Mishcon de Reya, and Engie, and she has taught on open-enrolment programmes with leading institutions such as Cambridge Judge Business School, Oxford Saïd, INSEAD, ESCP, ESMT and CEDEP. Her interests centre on the human side of leadership, particularly identity, creativity, entrepreneurship and gender dynamics. She holds an MBA and Executive MA in Coaching and Consulting for Change from INSEAD, has trained at the Harvard Kennedy School, and brings more than a decade of professional experience in creative and entrepreneurial industries into her work with leaders.
Manfred Kets de Vries is a pioneering authority in leadership development, coaching, and organisational change. He is a founder and director of the Kets de Vries Institute (KDVI) and served as Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organisational Change at INSEAD. With academic credentials in economics (University of Amsterdam), management (MBA and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (trained in Canada), he brings a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective to leadership. His work bridges management theory and clinical insight, establishing him as a global thought leader in executive coaching and transformation. At INSEAD, he founded the Global Leadership Centre and led the flagship programme The Challenge of Leadership for 31 years. He also served as scientific director of Coaching and Consulting for Change, an 18-month Executive Master’s programme that has shaped over 3,000 senior leaders and executive coaches worldwide. He has advised and coached senior executives at global firms including Goldman Sachs, BP, Shell, Unilever, McKinsey, and Volvo. A prolific author of over 60 books and 400 articles, his work appears regularly in The Financial Times, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review. Recognised by Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Financial Times as one of the world’s top 50 management thinkers, he is widely regarded for advancing more human-centred approaches to leadership.
Senior Adviser (Luminary) at Accenture and executive coach with over 12 years of board experience. Formerly a banker and McKinsey consultant, Yulia has led banking transformations in digital, agile, organisational change, and talent development. Her coaching spans the finance, tech, and consumer goods sectors, blending technological insight with emotional intelligence to guide leaders through transformation. Recently, she advised BBVA on agile methodologies and senior talent development. Influenced by thought leaders such as Manfred Kets de Vries and Gabor Maté, Yulia brings an analytical, reflective approach to leadership. She has lived and worked across the UK, Spain, the US, and Russia.
Elizabeth has worked closely with Manfred Kets de Vries for many years and has served as a Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow at INSEAD. Her extensive background in leadership development spans organisational consulting, executive coaching, and academic research. She holds advanced degrees in Organisational Development and Clinical Organisational Psychology and is a certified Coaching Supervisor through the Tavistock Institute. Her doctoral research explored experiential domains in executive education, and she has authored or co-authored numerous academic articles, case studies, and books on leadership and organisational dynamics. Elizabeth led the development teams behind KDVI’s diagnostic instruments, including the GELM, OCA™, and ITI. Drawing on her diverse training and global experience, she brings deep cross-cultural insight to her work with leaders worldwide. Originally from California, Elizabeth has made France her home for over 30 years.