Mind of the Leader - by T Byram Karasu (Paperback)

About the Book

The Mind of the Leader provides psychosocial and communication tools for effective leadership. With case vignettes and old-world parables, filled with uncommon wisdom, it promotes the cultivation and ultimately, the embodiment of highly desirable personality traits for successful leadership.

Book Synopsis

The Mind of the Leader provides psychosocial and communication tools for effective leadership. With case vignettes and old-world parables, filled with uncommon wisdom, it promotes the cultivation and ultimately, the embodiment of highly desirable personality traits for successful leadership.

Review Quotes

Dr. Karasu brings his great expertise as an eminent psychiatrist, researcher, teacher, and author to this important book, The Mind of the Leader. Drawing on his vast experience, he describes four essential pillars of leadership: an acute awareness of self and others, effective communication, strong relationships, and the ability to manage stress in a healthy way. He primarily uses a cognitive conceptualization to understand the common dysfunctional patterns of beliefs and behaviors characteristic of leaders who experience psychological impediments that impede their effectiveness. Clinical examples, metaphorical stories, and relevant aphorisms bring these topics to life. I highly recommend this book to leaders, their therapists, consultants, and coaches.

The radically polarized and socio-politically turbulent world of our times desperately needs the wise, good-hearted, and deeply informed understanding offered by Byram Karasu's book The Mind of the Leader. Based upon extensive in-person work with political leaders and movers and shakers of our society, Karasu introduces us to the emotional and cognitive intricacies of decision-making and exercising power. He describes the conflicts, tensions, and inhibitions felt by leaders, without ever pathologizing them, and delineates a path for their obtaining equanimity and clarity. This is a masterly blend of mentoring, psychotherapy, personal coaching, and, what he playfully calls, ' Socratic midwifery'. Karasu's book is a remarkable conceptual achievement and a landmark societal contribution!

The Mind of the Leader is an original and significant contribution to the preconditions and problems of organizational leadership. Karasu's subtle, tactful, yet courageously direct interventions with leaders are illustrated with multiple examples throughout the book, revealing not only his sophisticated psychoanalytic understanding, but also his outstanding common sense, life experience, and wisdom.

What keeps highly intelligent, extremely motivated, and uncommonly hard-working leaders from succeeding from succeeding? Often, according to Dr. Byram Karasu, it is their own psychological limitations that get in the way. With a perspective drawn from a half-century in psychiatry, executive coaching, and leadership development, Dr. Karasu helps established and potential leaders become more aware of their inner states and more understanding of how they come across to others. No matter a leader's characteristic style, he or she will benefit from the insights provided by this well-written and profoundly engaging book.

About the Author

T. Byram Karasu, MD., is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Silverman Professor and University Chairman Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the American Journal of Psychotherapy, and the co-founder of the Annual Tarrytown Leadership Conference. Dr. Karasu is a widely renowned psychiatrist, educator, master coach and psychotherapist, and best-selling author whose work has been translated into many languages. He has published more than twenty books, including novels and poetry, and several volumes on psychological, philosophical, and psychotherapy-related topics. He received the Harvard Bicentennial Lectureship at Massachusetts General Hospital and was the recipient of many awards, including the A.H. Stanton Award at McLean Hospital; the Harry Stack Sullivan and Sigmund Freud Awards; the American Psychiatric Association's Presidential Commendation Award; and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Psychiatry of Yale University's School of Medicine.