Meeting God: When Organizational Members Come Face to Face with the Supreme Leader

Abstract

This paper focuses on a theme which features in numerous organizational stories, in which an "ordinary" member of of an organization comes face to face with the organization's top leader. This theme echoes not only the archetypical religious scene of meeting God as supreme judge, but also several well-known scenes in drama, opera, and literature. Through a psychoanalytic study of this theme, a set of primal phantasies projected by organizational members onto their leaders are explored. The paper also throws into sharp relief the underlying asymmetry of the relationship between leader and follower: while the follower may shake the leader's hand once, the leader will shake innumerable hands. The paper is based on a detailed interpretation of three narratives supplied by students, drawn from 6-month industrial placements (internships) which they undertook as part of their studies. In the first narrative, a student describes her encounter with the leader in almost religious terms as a liminal moment in her life; the student idealizes the leader who serves as a role model. In the second narrative, the student feels shunned by a leader who is inadequately briefed for his meeting with her; she proceeds to demonize the leader as well as the entire organization. In the third narrative, a student loses his faith in his departmental head, when he realizes that he is not truly independent bur merely follows directives from above. The three narratives are used to identify four core fantasies about the lader: (1) the leader as someone who cares for his/her followers; (2) the leader as someone accessible; (3) the leader as someone who is omnipotent and omniscient; and (4) the leader as someone who has a legitimate claim to lead others. Two groups of follower fantasies are then examined. The charismatic and the messianic. It is then suggested that the leader may be seen as a reincarnation of the primal mother, restoring the members' narcissism and rewarding them for who they are rather than for what they have achieved. Alternatively, the leader may be envisioned more closely to the Freudian image of father substitute, who rewards and punishes, arousing at once fear, loyalty, jealousy, and suspicion. It is suggested that the former is close to Kohut's account of charismatic leadership fantasy, while the latter is closer to his account of messianic leadership fantasy.

Keywords

leader follower fantasy charisma messianic identification idealization impostor psychoanalysis

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