Effective leadership requires deep self-awareness and psychological understanding, not just strategic skills and technical knowledge. We can, and should, better prepare prospective leaders for their exceptional responsibilities by educating them to be psychodynamically minded—capable of introspection and self-reflection, attuned to unconscious as well as conscious feelings and motivations, and able to recognize empathy and care for others as strengths.

A conversation with Ruth Ben-Ghiat on authoritarians, debasement, and defending Democracy

February 23, 2024. Exactly two years since russia launched its brutal assault on Ukraine. The situation in Ukraine remains dire. It is our common moral duty to continue to help the people of Ukraine. And to understand that the war the Ukrainians are fighting is not just theirs and not just over there.

The massacre in Lewiston Maine is not just the heinous cowardly act of one man with a gun, but symptomatic of a broken society.

Oliver Sacks’ body of works present an ideal balance of insight and erudition with wonderful story-telling and deep compassion for individual human experience.

Fraud is a crime of relationships. It involves dishonesty, deception, betrayals of trust and abuses of power. This article elaborates the complex psychodynamics in fraud matters and delineates psychologically sophisticated tools for actionably leveraging psychodynamic intelligence.

How does an organization achieve the goal of high-performing governance? Transformational change doesn’t just happen. It takes strategic vision, planning, and huge reserves of commitment, fortitude, and hard work from all the institutional stakeholders.

My experiences on and after that day transformed and still inform the trajectory of my life and my career.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat Interviews Alexander Stein on the Psychology of Fraudsters and Power Abusers

Why do enterprise leaders and institutional stakeholders reject expert help even when there’s clear need and benefit? Here’s what every leader needs to know.

Do you want to be a terrible leader? Not terrible as in not good. But in the classical sense: venal, amoral, remorseless. Feared and admired. Destructive and self-serving. Then this is the how-to guide you’ve been waiting for.

Some thoughts on human cruelty spurred by a recent interview on the topic with a Yale psychology professor.

Choosing a replacement chief executive is among the most consequential decisions a company’s board may ever tackle.

A discussion with Martin Kenney on the core psychological devices used in the commission of fraud that are normal, shared by all and simply part of being human.