A WSJ editorial cartoon from earlier this year has a psychoanalyst speaking to his patient, a dog, lying on a couch. “How did it feel to find out the invisible fence never really existed?”
Psychoanalysis is perhaps the most widely known form of psychotherapy. It also turns out to be a perfect fit for the modern leadership movement.
For one thing, its practitioners have a tendency to view their approach to psychology as uniquely elegant and immensely satisfying intellectually. It’s a kind of self-referencing system that its theorists have developed to such an extent that it effortlessly absorbs all information – there can be no contradictory evidence, no confounding consequences.
It’s a black hole. You either observe its mysteries in ignorance from without, or you are irretrievably drawn within.
Or think of it as a graceful mathematical model that can be adjusted with precision and even beauty to seem to describe reality – but is not rigorously tested against it. Indeed, it is not suited to such testing, and seems to be shielded from that by its fluid plausibility.
The modern leadership movement’s prescriptions regarding its more peculiarly mystic notions of individual leadership and the individual leader are much like this. And there is no question but that these ideas are still actively promoted by highly-credentialled and influential proponents. Indeed, the use of psychoanalysis as a “tool” to understand leadership is central to many of their efforts.
It shouldn’t be all that surprising, really. After all, we have long known that many of its precepts – particular leadership traits, for example – have been either not demonstrated or specifically dis-proven. But that hasn’t stopped them from insisting on its validity, and their own almost unapproachable insight into it, has it?
It just seems to make so much sense, and to be mutually reinforcing, and we can make our individual experiences and observations consistent with it in the most delightfully intricate and satisfying ways. And so, we continue happily chasing our tails.
Why do you suppose that is? And why is the pyschoanalytic approach to understanding leadership so attractive to so many gurus?
We’ll take a brief look at that, tomorrow. See you then!
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Today’s tip: Speaking of special insight into your every thought and action, please see this intriguing piece from The Economist about how some researchers are tracking your and your colleagues’ every move at work to try to understand what makes for productive and non-productive behavior.
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4 Comments
Great question, Jim. I propose that what you term the “psychoanalytical approach” is so popular because it sets the guru up as an expert and because there will always be something to blame when things go badly, but the “system” is never at fault.
I think we hunger for charisma in our leaders. Charisma was the anointing that showed a leader had the favor of the Gods. It is powerful and magical. We don’t want to accept the fact that leadership is always incarnated in a fallible human being and embedded in a particular situation. We don’t want to accept the fact that a leader can do everything right and still have things come out wrong or do everything wrong and be blessed by fortune.
Hi Wally,
I agree! Not only does it set up the guru as expert, but as the only person capable of evaluating the validity of his or her assertions. A terrific situation to be in.
I love your depiction of charisma – a sign of being touched by the gods. The Egyptians have an old tradition of tolerance for madmen, believing they may have been driven to madness by a glimpse of God – a great definition of charisma (something in it for everyone!)!
Thanks for stopping by – as always, new ideas come from your comments!
My comment begins with a question: is it really true that modern management gurus are STILL in love with psychoanalysis in 2008?
I honestly experience business “types” as having more common sense than that.
I agree with Wally’s focus on charisma as a possible thread. As social creatures, most humans are followers attracted to people who radiate self-confidence which, like colorful plumage, conveys vitality, chosen-ness, or some other property that might be worth hitching a wagon to in a dangerous, uncertain world.
It’s actually turned out to be a strong adaptive strategy, which is why it persists in the face of the obvious nonsense concocted to explain it.
Just a thought.
Hello Shaun,
It is amazing, isn’t it, but there are still both “gurus” and the press are still enthralled by psychoanalysis as a tool for understanding individual leadership.
As you have observed, though, most managers at most levels see through it (although, sadly even, or especially, at the highest levels, though it is still somewhat rare, some allow themselves to be flattered, after a fashion, by it).
I like Wally’s ingenious and insightful take on charisma, also. I would be interested in hearing more about your view that our tendency to attach ourselves to people who radiate confidence, especially in uncertain times, is an adaptive tactic.
The reasons for that do seem persuasive on the face of it, even in modern times – and especially when you toss in the truism that an imperfect plan executed with force is almost always superior to a perfect one never settled upon. But there is a great deal of risk associated with the tactic, which is also thoroughly represented in present, as well as historic, times. Moreover, there are ways to move forward without settling on either blind certainty or paralyzing perfection.
Thanks, as always, for a thought-provoking visit!
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[...] Yesterday we looked briefly at one of the reasons that psychoanalysis seems to be so attractive to so many in the modern leadership movement as a vehicle for approaching the subject of individual leadership. It comprehends a self-referencing and self-validating system that can easily and gracefully find ways to absorb and account for vast ranges of information. Moreover, it does this in so inherently plausible a fashion that it simply defies the need for objective verification – even in the face of mounting evidence of its inability to attain it. [...]
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