Assessment Front Sheet
All written assignments MUST be submitted with this cover sheet. Assignments submitted without
this cover sheet will not be accepted.
Student Number:​ ​17000070
Course Code: D10
Unit Name:​ ​Theory
Unit Number: SC7001_01_001
Submission Date:
Confirmation: Please tick the following boxes to confirm:
1.
I confirm that the word length is ​3266 ​which falls within the word length tariff for this
assignment ​
2.
​□x
I confirm that I have taken all reasonable measures to ensure the anonymity of all the
□x
patients, clients, professionals and institutions referred to in this assignment ​
3.
I confirm that this submission is my own work and the ideas and written work of others has
□x
been identified and correctly referenced ​
Title: Theory essay
We all contribute to the processes through which leaders emerge and to the way
they take up their roles. Discuss the systemic and psychodynamic processes which
influence the selection/behaviour of leaders, using your own experience in a work
organisation and your learning from all aspects of the course.
Introduction
3
The systemic psychodynamic approach to leadership
4
Basic assumptions and leadership
6
The implication of authority, task and boundaries in leadership
7
Student representative
9
A temporary organisation
11
Conclusion
13
References
14
Introduction
Leadership is one of the most discussed topics in business, and it has become more and
more an ideology, an ​idealistic idea (Western, 2013). Most literature takes an idealistic and
rational way to look at leadership defining a good, or a bad leader. However, this approach
fails to consider the continuous changes and transformations leading to increased leadership
anxiety (Obholzer & Roberts, 1994). This is a lack of attention to the complex and primitive
emotional relationship between leaders and followers helps to understand the selection and
behaviours of leaders.
Simon Western (2013), defines leadership as a psychosocial influencing dynamic,
underlining the interactive and fluid character of leadership in combination with the primitive
unconscious mechanism occurring in both leadership and followership, within the self and
between the two. In this essay, I will discuss, though my work1 and learning experience, the
systemic psychodynamic approach to the leadership process.
Three years and a half ago, I was employed as a psychologist by a firm applying data
analytics to behavioural change. Since then the organisation has grown exponentially
quadrupling in size and enlarging the range of its services. However, last March, the
organisation has been through a massive change due to a new data regulation, moving from
a plan for exponential growth to its closure in June. The leader of this organisation has
played a fundamental part in both the growth of the organisation and its closure. Some
example of the interaction between his leadership and our fellowship will be discussed in this
essay.
The first part of the essay will offer an overview of the systemic psychodynamic approach to
the process of leadership using some examples from my previous working experience. I will
then focus on the two recent inter-group events as part of the course; the election of student
representative and a beginning of a module of consulting to year one.
1
I​ decided to use this experience as at the moment I’m not working, recently I did some freelancing work after
the closure of my previous workplace. Even if I consider my freelancing experience interesting as material for
discussing this essay topic I feel the need for more experiences to better develop hypotheses on my new
developing profession.
The systemic psychodynamic approach to
leadership
The systemic psychodynamic approach to leadership focuses on the underlying irrational
processes and dynamics within the system that makes a leader arise and behave. The
essence of leadership resides in human emotions and behaviours between leaders and
followers and their ​inner word (Bion 1961; Rioch, 1975; Western, 2013; Stein 1997).
Furthermore, this complex relationship is studied looking at the primary task, boundaries,
authority and role (Rorberts 1988; Obholzer 1994; Shapiro 2001 ) in the organisation and the
group.
The primitive needs that make leadership so present in our lives are to find in a primary
objective relationship. Our first instincts as a human being are to survive, in satisfying this
need the mother establish an early relationship with her baby, who is dependent on the
mother for his survival. Melanie Klein identifies a primitive mechanism of defence of the baby
in a relationship to the object that offers nutrition and survival. The baby feels its mother, in
particular, her breast as a good object that gives nutrition and satisfies his/her needs, but
also viewed as a bad object and persecutory when it doesn’t meet the needs of the baby.
Those primitive defences can also be found in the relationship between leadership and
followership. When a leader is internalised as a bad and persecutory object, he or she can
be perceived as incapable to fulfil the role, leaving space to potential new to emerging
leaders. Opposite, a leader can be idealised by followers, for their capacity for goodness,
which can make a leader fall into narcissistic and grandiose behaviours and omnipotence
feelings (Western, 2013). A leader internalised as a good object can as well activate envious
feelings into his/her followers. Envy is also a primitive and unconscious emotion.
Melanie Klein theory is that the baby has envious and aggressive feelings towards the good
internal object, followed by a sense of guilt for those attacks. Envy involves the relation to
others who are perceived more skilled and fortunate than oneself, ​often accompanied by an
impulse to take it away or spoil it. ​An envious attach to a leader comes from a sense of
inferiority and a high level of dependence in the leader/followers relationship (Stein, 1997;
Menon & Thompson, 2010). In an organisational context, an envious attack cannot seem so
its present to pursuit progress and ultimate truth. The attack, typically the envious attack is
led by the person in the organisation with the highest valency2 for a rivalry. However, this
person is unconsciously selected by the system to express their needs; the group acts as a
projective identification3, projecting into the elected feelings which he or her with identifying,
attacking the leader on the behaviour of the group (Obholzer, 1994 p.44).
The CEO, of the organisation where I used to work, was constantly asked to put in place
processes, create a solid structure for the different levels of the organisation. The promoters
of those requests were mostly senior managers, constantly complaining about their feelings
being ignored they stayed firm on their opinions. In light of the theories discussed, I believe
that the senior management where enviously attacking the CEO who was developing a
narcissistic leadership. Those attacks combined with his personality resulted in making the
CEO feeling omnipotent, and so legitimating him to oversell our products. He was
unconcerned of the impact that his choices were having on the reputation of the
organisation. This hypothesis can find validation in the behaviour of those senior leaders
after the closure of the company. Those senior leaders have all opened their own
organisation, doing very similar things of what we use to do. Thinking about the last months
of the organisation I believe that the exaggerated coverage that the organisation had on the
media, could also be read as an envious attack.
Stein looks at envy from the leader perspective discussing how a leader can feel envious of
the easier situation of their subordinate or feeling attacked a followers ability and skills and
feeling their position in danger which can then escalate to a narcissistic leader (Stein, 1997)
Following this position, I’m wondering if the CEO had some envy towards his followers. He
hosted many nights out, behaving charismatic and charming towards the employees, which
made me and my colleagues view him as one of us
​For Bion, each has a 'valency' for a particular basic assumption; ​a capacity for an instantaneous involuntary
combination of one individual with another for sharing and acting on a basic assumption'​ (Bion, 1961, p. 153).
Also, the valency is considered ​the countered part of cooperation, a spontaneous, unconscious function of the
gregarious quality in the personality of a man​ (Bion, 1961, p. 170).
2
​Following Klein theory, Ogden, in his paper ‘On projective identification’, defined how projective identification is
based on three steps: ​ridding parts or aspect of him/herself and putting in someone else in a controlling way.
Second, aspecting that the recipient experiences the feeling projected. Lastly, the receiver identify with the
projection ​(Ogden, 1979)
3
Basic assumptions and leadership
A study of leader-follower relationships necessarily addresses the psychology of groups,
Bion (1961) argues that in every group, two groups are present: ​work-group​ and
​basic-assumption​ mentality and functioning. If the workgroup mentality is the one that
consciously carries out its primary task, the basic assumption mentality, by contrast, is based
on
unconscious
mechanisms.
Bion
identified
three
basic
assumptions
in
groups—dependency, fight-flight, and pairing. ​In each basic assumption, ‘​there is generally a
basic collusive inter-dependence between the leader and the led, whereby the leader will
only be followed as long as he fulfils the basic assumption task of the group’ ​(Stokes, 1994).
In the table below those basic assumptions and explore from the leader perspective.
In Abrahams (2009). Adapted from Stroke (1994 p.23)
Followers in basic assumption groups live an ambivalent emotion that questions their desire
to stay in the group. If they feel relieved by the anxiety and responsibility taken by the leader,
however, they also feel sacrificing individuality skills and the satisfaction of working
effectively (Stroke, 1994). I can identify myself and most of my ex-colleagues sharing this
desire to leave the organisation. I felt many times that I was not expressing myself, losing my
individuality and today I realised that I sacrificed many aspects for a need for safety and
belonging. This emotion also relates to organisations who move from a culture, mostly based
on a paring basic assumption; the leader is felt as a parental figure. When the organisation
grows moving towards a corporative culture a shift to an unconscious fight or flight basic
assumption can happen.
The implication of authority, task and boundaries in leadership
‘Every person in a role in a system will need to exercise their own authority, whether to
manage themselves or others and therefore needs to be clear about the aims of the system,
since their authority derives from those aims’​ (Roberts, in Foster and Roberts, 1999, pg. 53).
Authority in a system, based on Obholzer, derives from a system of delegation. He has
identified three sources of authority in organisations. Authority from above which can be from
a board or authority, ​below which is recognised by the member of the system and ​within, a
personal relationship with your meaning of authority. (Obholzer 1994, p 39-41). seen as an
attribute of a person, not of a role. Authority is fundamental in the relationship leader and
follower in the sense that both a recognised and agreed consciously and unconsciously to
the authority in their role.
Leadership is also directly related to pursuit the aim of the primary task of the organisation.
(Obholzer, 1994). The primary task, intended as the task it must perform if it is to survive
(Rice, 1963) its fundamental for a leader to pursue the primary task in order to maintain his
or her fellowship.
The other fundamental aspect of leadership in an organisation is their responsibility to hold
and cross the system. Nowadays organisation boundaries are becoming flexible which also
happen that followers are crossing organisation boundaries; ​it seems that where there was a
border, now there is a network​ (Cooper, A., and Dartington, T., 2004)
In my workplace we had troubles in introducing a working from home system, the CEO
believed that if people were working from home they would not be motivated enough. I
hypothesise that often narcissistic leaders are moved by their fear of being attacked,
needing to be in control to maintain their follower dependency and feel secure in their role.
Within this hypothesis boundaries are functioning as a defence against that anxiety. On the
other side of the coin, followers can feel blind when a leader is dealing with other systems,
crossing the boundaries and representing the followers. Just when the organisation was in
the middle of the scandal, I realised the whole organisation's responsibility of having turned a
blind eye to an omnipotent leader.
​Steiner revisiting the Oedipus story identifies two conditions which allowed the cover-up. T​he
first is based on the illusion that there are not prove in support, the doubt that it may be
wrong. The second is collusion, which requires ‘conspirations’, an interesting party who
share the interest to turn away, turning the blind eye​. (Steiner, 1985). I also think that there is
a connection within the family culture and paring assumption, previously mentioned, and the
colluded cover-up in the organisation, as it is related to a primitive parental relationship.
Student representative
This year, like the one before, students from each year were given the task to select one
representative who will attend the Course Committee. Our year had one representant H who
was elected just a few minutes before the deadline in rushed voting, this was felt by the
group as a painful unsuccessful process. During the first meeting, the desire of the group.
The attitudes of the group towards H who by the a student anymore, became challenging,
the group implicitly considered H, lucking in her role. However, nobody directly expressed
strong disappointment toward what she did during the meeting, or in the course of last year.
I believe that the group had a split interiorisation of H leadership; from one side she
represented a good object saving the group in accomplishing the task, however, she was
also perceived as a bad object and persecutory, as she wasn’t a good student representant.
During a new election event , the envious attacks on H leadership,
were characterised in
the group by criticisms on process and communication issues although never directy to H.
During the meeting, E offered herself for the role, expressing the desire to take the
responsibility of representing the group. I suggested to rethink the representant role and
create a space for reflection of our learning experience exploring our phantasies and our
demands as students of the course. I was confused on what I was bringing to the room. I
know that consciously I wanted to bring a consultative stance, but in doing so I was also
putting myself in a consultant role encouraging a competitive feeling in the group. The group
managed to challenge my position noticing my desire to be a consultant and approving or
disapproving my proposal.
the group responded differently to E’s proposition with an unconscious envious attack and
to me, they projected their envy and competitivity. One of my colleagues invited me to
propose my candidature by touching my shoulder I felt intense pressure and the need to
protect my proposal and my identity.
At the beginning of the first section, E and I sat next to each other consciously challenging
the group. If E confirmed her commitment, I decided not to put myself forward, saying that I
wasn't interested in the role, I just wanted to start a process of thoughts about our learning. I
felt relieved of the pressure of the previous day.
Nobody else proposed their candidature, so we went to vote for one person by default. In
doing so, the group went into the dependency basic assumption avoiding competition and
differences. Bion Talks about this aspect in the dependency group describing how ​in a
dependent group it makes difficulties for the ambitious, or indeed for anyone who wishes to
get a hearing, because it means that in the eyes of the group, and of themselves, such
people are in a position of rivalry with the leader​ (Bion 1961 p.79).
However, E’s leadership was indirectly enviously attacked later on an email chain where
people started complaining about many aspects of the course giving to E. an impossible task
of representing the group.
At the end of the session, I felt satisfied that my proposal was taken into consideration, It
was when we came back to the smaller experiential group that I felt a wave of intense anger
towards all my colleagues. I felt ​unliked,​ desiring to leave those ​undeserving people who
used me to challenge E but then didn’t choose me. Probably, unconsciously my desire was
to take a leadership role but I wasn’t able to recognise it.
A temporary organisation
The other intergroup event I would like to discuss is the first meeting of the module ​consult to
year one.​ The task of the module is to plan and staff a short consultancy intervention in
response to the assessed learning needs of the D10 Year One student group starting from
the formation of a temporary consultancy organisation. Two new consultants were given full
authority by the Tavistock directors to consult the group, this meeting followed the
representative election.
We started discussing the task, the previous year’s experience and the time boundaries of
the excise, after the first half hour, I felt moved by a desire to shake and shape the group
towards forming an organisation. I then took my chair and put it in the middle of the circle,
declaring my willingness to take the lead and forming an organisation also inviting two other
people to join me, I remember feeling my heart going extremely fast, shaking on the chair
waiting for something to happen.
Thinking about this episode I feel connected with Margaret J. Rioch’s work, She compares
human leadership with the relationship between the Shepperd and the sheep, saying that
often, even if dressed up the Sheppard is another sheep. She argued that sometimes the
need for the leader is so strong that it is almost always possible for a sheep to be the
Shepperd of the flock (Rioch, 1975). Furthermore, this episode evoked a reflection about my
valency, my tendency to be moved by the group projection. During this episode I expressed
my need to excise ​personal power as defined by the Grubb Institute, personal power comes
from one’s personality or skills (Grubb Insitute, 1991). Likewise, I think that my action was
also a response to my frustration developed in the representant’s election. Acting in such a
radical way can be read as an authoritarian act; Obholzer identifies in the authoritarian form
of leadership a relation with a paranoid-schizoid state of mind, which is manifested by being
cut off from roots of authority and process of sanction, and being flued by an omnipotent
inner world process​, (​ Obholzer, 1994 p. 41)
My action created tumults in the group, B. moved also his chair declaring his interest to join
me so did two other students both older women, however, they decided to stay still in their
position. The group reacted by taking different positions; some, in particular, two white men
were against the process. Some felt relieved by supporting me and B., others wanted to
bring order and focus on the task. The more the conversation was going forward the more I
felt I couldn't bear to be sitting in the middle of the circle so I retracted my chair with an
excuse, leaving B. alone. The critical moment in the group was when A. a black man, was
invited by the few people in the group to take up authority and join the little group. At the end
of the meeting, five of us remained (B, the two older woman, and A a black man) sitting in
the middle, sharing the phantasy and the enthusiasm of diverse and representative
leadership team, however still seeking for the group authorisation.
This first meeting had come with many emotions; I felt for the first time how difficult it could
be to be the object of envious projection and how difficult it is to take up a role and thanking
my own authority. On a group level, I believe that there was a need for representation. In the
small group, we felt a sense of proudness. However, rethinking on this event I think the
group had an unconscious desire to avoid differences and competition. If the leadership
group is composed of a variety of diverse races, genders, ages, sexual orientations then
everybody is represented, but also nobody competes. Unconsciously, I think the group
enviously attacked a potential leader, boycotting the leadership team​. ​Inclusion and
exclusion are the two side of the same coin. Also, sometimes the difference is oppositional,
as in the ‘them and us’ of industrial relations. ‘We’ need ‘them’ to define ‘us,​ (Miller 1999).
Conclusion
The inter-relation of leadership with fellowship finds its roots in the primitive anxiety and
defence happening on individual, group and systemic level.
In this essay, through my experiences, I have tried to highlight how in whatever role and
environment we are all playing a part of the process that makes a leader rise or fall back.
Also, showing through the example of my work experience how change and crises can help
followers like myself to understand the need we have for leadership and what we are
sacrificing in the name of protection and belonging.
Through my analysis of the two-course events, I tried to take a consultative stance on my
experience of taking a leadership role.
In the election event and due to its emotional
complexity, it has been more difficult to organise my thoughts and may have reflected in my
writing. I have learned how hard it can be exposing oneself, as I felt when I put my chair in
the middle of the room, and how frustrating it can be to be an object of group projection as in
the representation election. However, I also realised the relevance of my valency, and I’m
willing to work more to develop categories to read my emotion both as a follower and as a
leader.
References
Abrahams, F., 2009. A systems psychodynamic perspective on dealing with change
amongst different leadership styles (Doctoral dissertation).
Bion, W.R., 1961. ​Experiences in groups. ​London: Tavistock Publications.
Bion, W.R., 1984. ​Second thoughts: Selected papers on psychoanalysis.​ Karnac Books.
Collinson, D., 2006. Rethinking followership: A post-structuralist analysis of follower
identities. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(2), pp.179-189.
Cooper, A. and Dartington, T., 2004. The vanishing organization: Organizational
containment in a networked world. ​Working below the surface: The emotional life of
contemporary organizations,​ pp.127-150.
Foster, A. and Roberts, V.Z. eds., 1998. ​Managing mental health in the community: chaos
and containment​. Psychology Press.
Greyvenstein, H. and Cilliers, F., 2012. Followership's experiences of organisational
leadership: A systems psychodynamic perspective. ​SA Journal of Industrial Psychology,​
38​(2), pp.1-10.
Grubb institute. 1991. ‘Professional management. Notes prepared by the Grubb Institute on
concepts relating to professional management.’ London: Grubb Institute.
Hinshelwood, R.D. 1994, ‘The mind at birth’, and ‘Earliest object relations’, extracts from
Clinical Klein​. Free Association Books, London, pp. 28–34.
Hutton, J., Bazalgette, J. and Reed, B., 1997. Organisation-in-the-mind. ​Developing
organisational consultancy​, pp.113-126.
Menon, T. and Thompson, L., 2010. Envy at work. ​Harvard business review​, ​88(​ 4),
pp.74-79.
Miller, E.,1999. Dependency, alienation, or partnership? The changing relatedness of the
individual to the enterprise. In R. French & R. Vince (Eds.), Group relations, management,
and organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ogden, T.H., 1979. On projective identification. ​The International journal of psycho-analysis​,
60​, p.357.
Rioch, M. J. (1971). “All we like sheep-”(Isaiah 53: 6): followers and leaders. ​Psychiatry,​
34​(3), 258-273.
Roberts, V. Z. 1999. ‘Is authority a dirty word?’ in Foster, A., and Roberts, V. Z. (eds),
Managing mental health in the community. Chaos and containment.​ Routledge, London, pp.
49–60.
Segal, H., 1964. The paranoid-schizoid position. ​Introduction to the works of Melanie Klein​,
pp.24-38.
Shapiro, E.R., 2001. Institutional learning as chief executive. In ​The Systems
Psychodynamics of Organizations​ (pp. 175-195). Routledge.
Stein, M., 1997. Envy and leadership. ​European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology,​ ​6​(4), pp.453-465.
Steiner, J., 1985. Turning a blind eye: The cover-up for Oedipus. ​International Review of
Psycho-Analysis​.
Western, S., 2013. ​Leadership: A critical text.​ Sage.