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nderstanding how an organization works is not enough. To be truly effective, a leader must understand the unconscious motivations of people around them.

Tim had always been on the fast-track. An Ivy League graduate, he joined one of the premier consulting firms as an associate, went on to take an MBA at INSEAD, graduated top of his class and was recruited by a pharmaceutical firm where he rose quickly through the ranks, joining the executive team in record time.

Just eight years after joining the company he was appointed CEO. That was when things started to fall apart. Colleagues soon noticed that Tim seemed oddly reluctant to make important decisions. He put off big projects and spent an inordinate amount of time on minor problems. In the meantime, his behavior became increasingly worrisome. Although the board cut Tim some slack his shortcomings became too obvious to ignore and after turning up to important meetings visibly drunk he was dismissed.

Tim functioned well as long as he wasn'€™t in the number-one position. The moment he was placed in the spotlight, he became highly vulnerable and his effectiveness diminished as he succumbed to self-destructive behaviors. He became a master in '€˜snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory'€™, shooting himself repeatedly in the foot. One of the reasons for behaving in such a manner seemed to be that he had unconscious feelings of guilt about his success and the '€˜irrational'€™ idea that his being too successful would raise the envy of his father who had repeatedly failed at business.

This fear of success is a fairly common condition and one that can be overcome if appropriate coaching is provided before and during the initial tenure. Understanding why Tim acted as he did could have given the board greater insight into how to deal with the situation.

Tim may be an extreme example, but we are all complex, unique and often paradoxical beings. Our everyday lives '€“ including our business life '€“ consist of webs of constantly shifting and irrational forces that underlie '€˜rational'€™ behavior and choices. It'€™s only through recognizing this that we can begin to understand and address not just our own responses to different situations but the reactions of people around us.

Effective leaders are those who meet the needs of their followers; pay careful attention to group processes; are able to calm anxieties and arouse hopes and know how to liberate and inspire people to positive action. To create or manage an effective organization we need to understand the complexity of why leaders and followers act the way they do and accept that people are not one dimensional entities but intricate beings with rich and myriad motivational drivers and decision-making patterns.

The '€œinner theater'€

As noted in my working paper Psychodynamic Approach, (based on observational studies of real leaders, mostly at the strategic apex of their organizations) I have observed that individuals'€™ attitudes and interactions with others are the result of a complex confluence of their '€˜inner theatre'€™, influenced by memories of their relationships with authority figures early in life, significant life experiences, examples set by other executives, and formal leadership training.

Depending on their developmental experiences (taking another example illustrating the power of psychodynamic forces), leaders make conscious but also unconscious choices about the roles they can play most effectively in an organizational setting. They internalize specific archetypical configurations which reflect this.

The lack of fit between a leader'€™s archetypical role and the context in which he or she operates is a major cause of team and organizational dysfunctionality and executive failure. The eight archetypes I have found to be most prominent are:
The strategist: leadership as a game of chess. These people are good at dealing with developments in the organization'€™s environment. They provide vision, strategic direction and outside-the-box thinking to create new organizational forms and generate future growth.
The change-catalyst: leadership as a turnaround activity. These executives love messy situations. They are masters at re-engineering and creating new organizational '€˜'€˜blueprints'€™'€™.
The transactor: leadership as deal making. These executives are great dealmakers. Skilled at identifying and tackling new opportunities, they thrive on negotiations.
The builder: leadership as an entrepreneurial activity. These executives dream of creating something and have the talent and determination to make their dream come true.
The innovator: leadership as creative idea generation. These people are focused on the new. They possess a great capacity to solve extremely difficult problems.
The processor: leadership as an exercise in efficiency. These executives like organizations to be smoothly running, well-oiled machines. They are very effective at setting up the structures and systems needed to support an organization'€™s objectives.
The coach: leadership as a form of people development. These executives know how to get the best out of people, thus creating high performance cultures.
The communicator: leadership as stage management. These executives are great influencers, and have a considerable impact on their surroundings.

Working out the type of leader you are and what kind of people you have on your team can work wonders for a team'€™s effectiveness. It helps in recognizing how you and your colleagues can each make their best contributions. Designing an effective executive role constellation will in turn create a culture of mutual support and trust, reduce team stress and conflict, and make for more creative problem solving. Thus by using the psychodynamic approach, paying attention to the underlying drivers of interpersonal, group, and organizational cultural dynamics, individuals, teams, and organizations will benefit greatly. (Manfred Kets De Vries)