The leader is only human

MANFRED Kets de Vries is one of the world's most distinguished clinical professors of leadership development and organisational change. He has published over 400 academic papers and 50 books, and a few commentaries in The Business Times.

But his new book, The CEO Whisperer, published in March 2021, does not read so much like a management book as a quasi-memoir of a professor who, having spent years coaching top executives, has distilled the most important lessons of being a good leader - and, perhaps more importantly, a good human being.

He ambles, meanders, philosophises, and repeats points if he suspects it didn't fully register the first time.