Managing puzzling personalities:: Navigating between 'live volcanoes' and 'dead fish'

This article reviews the two extreme styles of managerial personality which can be found in business life. Not all people have stable, middle-of-the-road emotions. Manfred Kets de Vries terms these two personality styles -- ways of managing mood states -- 'hypomania' (cyclical and significant changes in mood, behavior and thinking) and 'alexithymia' (emotional detachment and lack of feeling). Hypomanics and alexithymics are more common than one would think. The author explores the challenge of working with hypomanics and alexithymics and developing managing and coping strategies by their colleagues. Clearly, executives who are 'emotionally intelligent', i.e. who know themselves and are empathetic to others, can best encourage their colleagues and, in a knowledge-based society, even bring competitive advantage.