Chapter 12: Psychodynamic Approach

Chapter 12: Psychodynamic Approach:

1. The psychodynamic approach is about human behavior. It is about what we do, how we do it and why we do it. Leadership is about the way that people behave in organizations, and this type analyzes the ‘how’ instead of the ‘what’.
2. The Clinical Paradigm is the framework which we apply a psychodynamic lens to the study of behavior in organizations. This is how we can discover how leaders really function.
3. The four premises of the clinical paradigm are as follows:

1. It argues that there is a rational behind every human act, or a logical explanation.
2. A great deal of mental life i.e. feelings, fears, motives etc. lies outside of conscious awareness.
3. Nothing is more central to whom a person is than the way he or she regulates and expresses emotions.
4. Human development is an inter-and intrapersonal process; we are all products of our past experiences.

1. Freud didn’t make an direct observations of the application of his ideas, but he held the idea that neurotic symptoms or dysfunctional behavior were manifestations of a person’s inner drivers and that these types of acting-out behavior can be seen as ‘the royal road to an understanding of the unconscious”.
2. The four streams of research from the Tavistock Institute are sociotechnical systems, industrial democracy, social systems as a defense against anxiety, social dreaming as a way to define meaning and organizational role analysis.
3. The Menninger Clinic applied the psychodynamic approach to the world of work through the work of Will Menninger. They held a national survey of mental health problems, and then offered weeklong seminars for executives from all parts of the country in order to give these leaders an understanding of why people do things the way they do.
4. Zaleznik contributed the idea that businesspeople focus too much on process and structure, and not enough on ideas and emotions. They suggested leaders should relate to followers in more intuitive ways. \
5. Larry Hirschorn applied clinical practice to describe organizational consulting interventions that included diagnostic methods and actions based on a clinical applied approach or exploring the organization systemically.
6. Fantasies, projections and identifications are psychoanalytic conceptualizations and they play themselves out in groups, and in the process of repression, suppression and idealization.
7. Inner theater is the stage filled with people who have influenced our experiences in life and relates to leadership because we are a product of our experiences.
8. Dependency is a subordinate thing controlled by another. Fight-flight is the autonomic response of the body when stressed or threatened. Pairing is a way people cope with anxiety, alienation or loneliness.
9. Social defense mechanisms are what people do when organizational anxieties are not properly managed. It relates to leadership because there are problems in groups and this is how some people may react when threatened.
10. Mirroring and idealizing are two types of transferential processes that are common in the workplace. This relates to leadership because people stop responding to the reality of a situation and allow their past hopes (where these two types develop) to govern their interactions.
11. When they feel threatened or are confronted with a superior force.
12. Freud’s definition of narcissism is behaviors that range from a normal self-interest to a pathological self-absorption and this applies to leadership because leaders can become self-centered.
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14. The strengths are (1) it provides a lens to the study of organizational dynamics beyond a purely rational structural approach, (2) it involves an in-depth and systemic investigation of a single person, group, event or community, and (3) it emphasizes the relationship between leader and follower.
15. The criticisms are (1) it comes from early work based on clinical observation, and(2) it does not lend itself to training in a conventional sense.