The recent proliferation of populist movements worldwide - along with the often dangerous
demagogic leaders that accompany them - have prompted questions about the underlying conditions
that give rise to such troubling developments. Leadership Unhinged: Essays on the Ugly the Bad
and the Weird examines what is going on at a deeper level both collectively and individually
between leaders and followers. Employing theories derived from psychoanalytic psychology
developmental psychology neuroscience and evolutionary psychology these essays help to
unravel and expose the pathological leader-follower dynamics that generate such movements.The
book is infused with Kets de Vries's now famous and inimitable style of analysis which draws
from myths creates fairy tales and uses irony and metaphor to bring his conclusions into
greater relief and trigger new insights. As Kets de Vries explains effective leaders have the
capacity to bring people together and even make them better stronger. Doing so suggests that
those leaders are value driven able to set a moral tone. Yet when such a tone is absent or
at worst twisted toward the destructive leadership quickly becomes dangerous. History has
shown the devastation left in the wake of unhinged leaders who have gone unchecked. To become
fully conscious of the conditions that allow for the emergence of such leaders has become a
moral requirement of our time. In ways both moving and entertaining Kets de Vries's new
contribution puts us in a better position to fulfil that requirement.
