Psychoanalysis and the phenomenon of leadership: identification, ego ideal and the limits of transposition to the organisational field

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of leadership from the standpoint of psychoanalytic theory, taking as its axis the formulation of Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), in which Freud describes the collective bond as an effect of placing one and the same object in the position of the ego ideal and of the reciprocal identification that follows from it. The argument reconstitutes the extension of Freudian theory from the clinical to the social field, examines the structure of the bond with the leading figure, and proposes three conceptual pairs — transference and countertransference, projection and introjection, idealisation and identification — as reading operators for the relations between those who direct and those who are directed in the world of work. It is argued that the contribution of psychoanalysis to this field does not consist in adding an emotional variable to the managerial repertoire, but in describing a dimension of the bond that administrative reason cannot reach. Finally, it is argued that leadership as a libidinal position and leadership as a management competence are distinct objects, subject to distinct criteria, and that confusing the two registers is the main obstacle to dialogue between psychoanalysis and organisation studies.