Leadership in Context

ABSTRACT

My studies of leadership build on the work of Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, and Erik Erikson. Those psychoanalysts described leaders of large groups, their personalities and relations with their followers. In my studies of leaders and experience with them, I have found that leadership is a relationship in a particular context. There are different kinds of leaders, and someone can be a leader in one context, but not in another. Furthermore, different leadership roles and different cultures call for different personality types and leadership behavior. People follow leaders for different reasons, and leaders can influence why and how they are followed. While Freud, Fromm, and Erikson only described male leaders, women are increasingly filling leadership roles, sometimes more effectively than men.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership
• relationships
• context
• culture
• personality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ See Paul Elovitz’s article in this issue where he analyzes the development of Trump’s and Biden’s personalities.

² That questionnaire and description of the types can be found in my book, Narcissistic Leaders (Maccoby, 2007b). A factor analysis showed that the types are statistically valid (Maccoby, 2007b). Tim Scudder’s essay also reports on the validity of Freud’s types and their variations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Maccoby

Michael Maccoby, Ph.D., is President of The Maccoby Group, PC.