Depth Leadership: Unlocking Unconscious Potential in the Workplace

Depth Leadership guides leaders to implement their ethical responsibility to ensure that individuals, communities and the planet co-exist as creatively, constructively and sustainably as possible. The book explores a transformative leadership approach based on a foundation of depth psychology and systems thinking, in which leaders work beneath, between and beyond.

By working beneath, the leader should actively pursue integration of the whole self or psyche, both the conscious (on-the-surface) self and the unconscious (under-the-surface) self, which includes the body and the imagination, to unlock potential, resolve conflict and help the individual psyche to thrive. Leaders must pursue integration and build healthy relationships between people to help groups and communities thrive. They need to consider factors beyond their own group or organisation, using an integrative approach towards larger systems, including governance systems and the natural environment, to ensure a thriving planet.

Grounded in academically sound theory, but discussed from the perspective of a layperson, and extensively illustrated by award-winning artist Katherine Glenday, the ideas discussed in this book will benefit anyone leading a group or a team, whether it be in a formal organisation, or a more informal social setting.

Hélène Smit has thirty-five years’ experience in the application of depth psychology theory to facilitation, conflict resolution, leadership development and coaching, building psychological and systemic literacy and integrity in individuals and groups in a variety of settings. Specifically, she is skilled in helping groups and teams deal with seemingly intractable and chronic conflicts and dilemmas. This involves working with unconscious processes both to unleash greater creativity and to minimise the negative organisational impact of under-the-surface conflict. Hélène has worked with NGOs, local, provincial and national government, and many large and small business organisations. She has been Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and now teaches at Henley Business School, looking after the MBA groups. She holds a PhD from Stellenbosch University in which she formulated a model and designed a curriculum for the development of leadership integrity to cultivate an internal moral ecology in leaders that embraces the complex and conflicting demands of individual, collective and systemic well-being.