Jung for Leaders

Conor’s Jung for Leaders Series of Blog Posts

Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life

Carl Jung spent his life exploring what it means to be human. Most leadership development focuses on skills, strategy, and behaviour. Jung explores something more fundamental: the person behind the leader. The single most-read post on this blog is about Jungian archetypes — which tells me that the readers here are not just looking for tactics, they are looking for self-understanding. This series is an attempt to go deeper into that territory.

  1. The Shadow: The Part of You That Sabotages Your Leadership — projection, blind spots, why your strongest reactions point inward, the gift hidden in the Shadow
  2. The Persona: Are You Leading as Yourself, or as a Mask? — inflation of the Persona, the cost of living inside the role, the journey back to self
  3. Individuation: The Journey From Success to Significance — why midlife restlessness is a call not a crisis, what blocks the journey, why it is not selfishness
  4. The Anima and Animus: The Hidden Energies Every Leader Needs — one-sided leadership, integrating strength and empathy, what your professional conditioning suppressed
  5. The Hero’s Journey: Every Leader Must Answer a Call — departure, initiation, return; the call you’re refusing; why the ordeal is the point
  6. The Wise Old Man: Finding and Becoming a Mentor — the archetype in myths, what mentors do that advisors don’t, the shift from receiving to giving
  7. The Trickster Archetype: Why Every Great Team Needs a Disruptor — Loki, Coyote, the Fool; why organisations suppress this energy; how to channel it
  8. Synchronicity: Paying Attention to What Life Is Telling You — meaningful coincidence, intuition as intelligence, the discipline of attention
  9. The Collective Unconscious: “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” — culture as organisational unconscious, how it gets formed, making the invisible visible
  10. Jung’s Psychological Types: The Original Framework Before Myers-Briggs — introversion/extraversion, the four functions, the inferior function as your blind spot
  11. Active Imagination: A Conversation With the Part of You That Knows More — the practice step by step, why it works, how to use it for decisions
  12. Your Personal Myth: Living the Story Worth Living — the closing post; the unlived life; rewriting the myth; the test of a worthy story