Most days, Manfred Kets de Vries starts writing at 5:30 a.m. By mid-morning, he’s produced another 2,000-word essay for LinkedIn — his 100th since April. No algorithm optimization, no sponsored content, no brand partnerships. Just a psychoanalyst with a keyboard and an urgent sense of purpose.
And his reason is deeply personal. Many members of his extended family were killed during World War II, and Yad Vashem recognized his maternal grandparents and mother as Righteous Among the Nations for sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. Growing up surrounded by their stories shaped something fundamental in him: a conviction that those who can speak must speak, especially when democracies show signs of fragility.
“I’m not in the military, but at least I can use my pen, or in this case, my computer, to at least try to use a sense of satire, pointing out to people some of the dangers,” Kets de Vries tells me from his Paris apartment over Zoom.
Kets de Vries, a professor of leadership development at INSEAD, isn’t chasing thought leadership for its own sake. He’s trying to prevent a pattern he sees repeating. The solution, he believes, isn’t political or economic but something more fundamental: building critical thinking from an early age through education reform.
Why He Writes Every Morning
Those five-hour writing sessions every morning don’t generate income. So why do it?
“You see, at the moment, old men [are] sending young men to die. In my own family, more than 100 people were killed during the war. So that experience has been very close to me. And I see now that human beings don’t seem to learn from war.”
One of his most recent pieces, “Big Brother and the Cheerful Gulag,” takes George Orwell’s 1984 and examines it through a contemporary lens using extreme satire. When I ask if people understand its satire, his response is unequivocal: “You must be very thick if you don’t get it.”
But that’s the point. Subtlety doesn’t penetrate anymore. Europe faces rising extremism. Democracies worldwide struggle with disinformation campaigns. Critical thinking—the ability to distinguish between satire and sincerity, between manipulation and truth—has become a survival skill, not an academic luxury.
For professionals wondering how they can contribute beyond their day jobs, Kets de Vries offers a straightforward answer: write, teach, engage with difficult ideas. “The element of gratitude is very important and also the element of generativity, dealing with, and helping the next generation.”
The next generation needs people willing to share hard-won wisdom, even when the audience is limited and the financial reward nonexistent. Even when—especially when—the message makes people uncomfortable. Because the alternative, as his family history reminds him, is far worse than discomfort.
The Countries That Got It Right
When Kets de Vries writes about education reform, he points to two examples that have actually proven successful: Finland and Singapore.
Finland’s transformation began in 1968 when parliament passed legislation to replace a two-tier system that sorted children at age 11 into academic or vocational tracks. The new comprehensive school system, implemented gradually from 1972 to 1977, kept all students together until age 16. The reform was deliberately designed by policymakers who understood that for comprehensive school reform to work, the entire teacher education system had to change simultaneously.
The results vindicated their patience. By the 1980s and 1990s, students educated in the comprehensive system performed better academically than those in the old two-tier system.
Today, more than 99 percent of Finnish students complete compulsory basic education, and about 90 percent finish upper secondary school. When Finnish students topped international PISA assessments in 2001, the world took notice. The achievement gap between students and regions remains among the narrowest globally.
Singapore took a different path but with equal seriousness about teaching as a profession. The National Institute of Education receives approximately 16,000 applications annually for 2,000 teaching positions—making it more selective than many elite universities. Teachers are recruited from the top third of each cohort, and candidates must pass rigorous panel interviews assessing not just academic ability, but also commitment to the profession and capacity to serve diverse student bodies. This selectivity creates genuine prestige around teaching.
“It all has to do with education,” Kets de Vries says. “And it becomes more important now [with] social media, which can be extremely disruptive when you look at a younger generation, to educate people on civic thought and also critical thinking, and that had to start very young.”
The problem, he notes, is that most countries don’t invest properly in education or educators. “We don’t always have the best and brightest in education, partially because we don’t pay them well.”
He learned this lesson the hard way. Years ago, he raised education concerns with Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The response was blunt: “Half a million votes.” That’s the political calculation that prevents reform—the cost at the ballot box is too high. Smaller countries can move more decisively. Larger democracies get paralyzed. In France, where Kets de Vries now lives, he’s witnessed this firsthand: “Anytime a minister of education tries to do something different in the interest of the students, [protesters] are on the streets.”
The TV Anchor Problem
There’s something about modern leadership that deeply troubles Kets de Vries.
“Nowadays, to be successful as a leader, you seem to have to be a TV anchor. That seems to be the model for future leadership,” he says.
He’s not being merely cynical. Years before recent political upheavals made headlines, he wrote Leadership Unhinged, warning about pathological leadership patterns. The book identified a dangerous cycle: when large populations feel economically abandoned, they become vulnerable to leaders who validate their anger without offering substantive solutions.
This particular pattern is what we’re witnessing now.
“[Trump] spoke to a large group of people in America who felt disadvantaged, and it’s true,” he explains. “They lost their job, and particularly men, young and middle-aged men who feel embarrassed, they have no job. They are depressed and so they resort to drugs. I mean, it is a very sad situation.”
The economic anxiety is real. The question facing democracies is whether they can address it without empowering leaders who exploit rather than solve it. That requires citizens capable of critical thinking—which brings him back to education.
What Writing Does to the Brain
Kets de Vries practices what he researches. When he lost a close friend he’d known for 50 years—someone he considered a brother—he wrote a book about loss. Not as an academic exercise, but as survival.
“Journaling touches other parts of the brain,” he says. “And it is extremely helpful.”
The science supports him. Psychologist James Pennebaker at the University of Texas has spent decades researching what he calls expressive writing. His protocol is simple: write about stressful or traumatic experiences for 15–20 minutes per session, over four consecutive days. Meta-analyses of over 100 studies show measurable improvements in both physical and mental health outcomes.
Kets de Vries tells his executive students the same practice: “Have a journal, write things down. Even though you have a very busy life, try to spend 15 minutes a day to write about your experiences.”
His advice on grief runs counter to the usual platitudes.
“You will never get over it. It’s always going to be there. But I think you have to acknowledge it. You can actually talk about it.”
The healthier path also involves gratitude and helping the next generation, which psychologists call generativity.
“I am very lucky that I am in education. I am not selling sugared water, or whatever you might call it. I deal with many young people, and it is very constructive.”
The Investment Nobody Talks About
Ask Kets de Vries what advice he’d give young people, and he doesn’t mention networking strategies or career optimization. His answer is stark:
“They should pay attention to friendships. I think the quality of the relationships with people close to you will very much determine the quality of the rest of your life. Don’t ignore it by choosing the defense of busyness or whatever because that’s the best investment you can make.”
“You don’t need so many friends,” he continues, though he acknowledges his own circle spans the globe. The emphasis is on quality, not quantity. It is quality relationships that will sustain you through the losses that are an inevitable part of life.