ADM 612 - Leadership

1. ADM 612 - Leadership Lecture 12 – Psychodynamic Approach

2. Introduction • Features bits and pieces drawn from several scholars and practitioners. • Several fundamental propositions. • Leaders are more effective when they understand their own psychological makeup. • Leaders are more effective when they understand the psychological makeup of their supporters.

3. Introduction • To summarize, the psychodynamic approach places emphasis on leaders’ obtaining insight into their personality characteristics and understanding the responses of subordinates, based on their personalities. • Secondarily, leaders should encourage group members to gain insight into their personalities so that they can understand their reactions to the leader and to each other.

4. Background • Insight begins with an examination of the roots of the individual in the family. • Parents become our leaders for a few years. They create deep-seated feelings about leadership. • Paternalistic. • Maternalistic. • Familial.

5. Background • Some people respond to authority figures, some rebel. • Key to effective leadership is understanding one’s own personality and the personalities of followers.

6. Background • Psychodynamic approach draws on Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung.

7. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Family of origin. • Role of parent to socialize child into society. • Child begins life as very self-centered. Parent must meet needs of child • Complete mutual interdependence. • Leadership: paternalistic or maternalistic management – complete interdependence.

8. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Maturation or individuation. • As time goes on, child becomes more independent of parent. • However, properly socialized child carries “parent within” – conscience. • Two key issues: • Responses to authoritarian leaders: dependent on authoritarian or laissez-faire parents. Reactions not rational. • Intimacy and openness: from kindness to distance based on parental upbringing. All adults tend to one or the other. • As leaders and followers, people range from authoritarian to permissive and from nurturing to critical and everything in between.

9. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Dependence and Independence. • Leader’s style reflects parental upbringing. May adopt style of parent (authoritarian or permissive) or adopt the opposite. • Follower may react to a leader dependently, counterdependently, or independently.

10. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Repression and the shadow self. • Deep psychology. Children schooled not to lash out in anger. Socialization produces repression. Repression causes anger to come out in other forms in leadership situations. • Jung: concept of the shadow. Shadow self that engages in behavior that she has been trained is unacceptable. Leads to denial and an incomplete understanding of her personality.

11. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Archetypes. • A strong pattern in the human psyche that persists over time. A template of human behavior and belief. • Six archetypes. • Innocent – exists before journey. • Orphan – moves out of comfort zone. • Martyr – devotes time and energy to the welfare of others. • Wanderer – independent or counterdependent. • Warrior – goes out into battle. • Magician – adaptability.

12. Concepts of Psychodynamic Approach • Two archetypes relevant to leadership: warrior and magician

13. Concepts of the Psychodynamic Approach • Relational Analysis. • Three ego states: parent, adult, child. All adults have all three. Some are more dominant than others. • Parent ego state: critical (judgmental, fault-finding, strict) versus nurturing (kind, gentle, loving). • Child ego state: playful (dependent) versus rebellious (counterdependent). • Adult ego state: ability to do reality testing, trial and error. Integrates parent and child egos. Uses those most appropriate to the situation.

14. Concepts of the Psychodynamic Approach • Relational analysis. • Transactional analysis: behavior of the leader or subordinate will draw out (cathect) a countering response (dependent or counterdependent) from the other side. • A good leader attempts to bring out adult ego states in subordinates.

15. Concepts of the Psychodynamic Approach

16. How Does the Psychodynamic Approach Work? • Psychodynamic theory designed to produce change in the client. • All psychodynamic trainers assume that insight into the psychological past of the individual will bring about changes in feelings, attitudes, and behaviors.

17. Strengths • Analysis of relationship between leader and follower. • Universality of the approach. • Emphasizes insight on the part of the leader. • Discourages manipulative techniques of leadership.

18. Criticisms • Much of the early research based on clinical examination of limited populations. • Subjective nature of findings. • Based on case study reports for individual practitioners.

19. Criticisms • Cultural biases of practitioners. • Ignores organizational factors. • Does not lend itself to training.

20. Application • Focuses on relationship of leader to subordinate. General context of human relationships. • Clinical background; personal growth of leaders.

21. Application • Build awareness of patterns of emotional response. • Experiential training sessions. • Use testing of dimensions of personality to uncover unconscious interactions.