The Leaders We Need, And What Makes Us Follow

by Michael MacCoby

  Finding a meaningful purpose, a center to anchor changing identities and protean role taking can become a platform for the next stage.

  INTIMACY VERSUS ISOLATION

  The challenge for younger adults, from ages twenty to forty years, is to achieve an intimate, trusting relationship; to do this they have to be able to trust themselves as much as they trust the other person. This is not just a matter of faithfulness. Without a firm identity, intimacy is threatening: people can be taken over by an other, losing their identity as well as their freedom. However, to become a mature person, an essential task is to establish a loving relationship, overcome loneliness, and create a family.

  Ideally, a family supports the positive development of all its members, and by development I mean the increased capability to both determine and satisfy those needs that strengthen us—needs to know and understand, to create, and to love. In contrast, compulsive or addictive needs enslave us, making us dependent not only on drugs or sex but also on constant reassurance, protection, applause—whatever limits free choice. Achieving maturity means becoming more aware of our needs, able to reinforce those that are developmental and frustrate those that are addictive.30

  In the bureaucratic era, the goal of this stage was forming a unit for mutual care and success, with clearly differentiated male and female roles. The danger was that this intimate family might isolate itself, become a tribalistic haven, held together by narcissistic self-inflation (“We’re better than everyone else”).

  The interactive family at its best avoids this pitfall and builds a network that reaches beyond blood ties to connect with others who share its developmental values. But there are two kinds of pitfalls for Interactives. One is the inability to fully commit, to fully trust. Perhaps this is caused by lack of identity integration; however, a deeper cause may go back to early attachment issues. Detached, avoidant adults repress strong needs for mothering, but are driven into relationships and then repelled by infantile yearnings and behavior, either their own or the other person’s. This attraction and repulsion can cause superficial coupling and frequent break-ups.

  The second pitfall has to do with the pressure two careers put on a relationship. A major cause of divorce for Interactives is that women who are economically independent won’t stay in a bad relationship. In the past, their need for a breadwinner might have kept them from leaving. Not now. So if both partners are economically independent, mature understanding and compromise are urgently needed to sustain their relationship, especially when they both feel career pressures.

  Freud once described psychological health as lieben und arbeiten, to love and to work. This is a formula that fits any social character, but it seems to me essential for Interactive well-being. Interactives want to love their work and many of them need to work at love. As Erich Fromm wrote in The Art of Loving, there is little education or understanding about the kind of love that strengthens self and other and deepens trust.31 Relationships built on narcissistic love, the projection of one’s ideal onto the other, collapse when the mutual illusion fades, and then the prince and princess become frogs in each other’s eyes. It’s the difference between infatuation and agapé: deep knowledge and caring about what’s best for the other person. Trust is strengthened not only by affirmation but also by the kind of love that refuses to collude or ignore the danger when the other person strays from the path that both believe is best for his or her well-being.

  During this period, young people are also establishing themselves at work. In the bureaucratic era, the ideal was to move up corporate or government hierarchies, make partner in law or accounting firms, or establish a professional practice. Interactives still want status and power, but they are now more likely to view corporations and government as postgraduate training for more freewheeling careers. Like professional athletes, they see themselves as assets that can be bought but not owned by companies, and their commitment is to meaningful projects, not powerful organizations.

  GENERATIVITY VERSUS STAGNATION

  The next period is when, with the achievement of a productive role at work and sustainable intimate relationships, individuals face the challenge of bringing along the next generation, as parents, teachers, coaches, or institution builders who articulate and defend good values—possibly as the kind of leader we need.

  Erikson first thought this period lasted from about ages forty to sixtyfive, but that was when he was in his forties. In his eighties and still active, he realized that people can now stay generative for a longer time. However, the generative role was clearer in the bureaucratic era, especially for men who could move up the hierarchy and mentor promising younger men who in turn were attracted to them as father figures. The productive bureaucrat who identified with father figures took pride in being an expert who could teach the younger generation. Mentor and mentee enjoyed the transferential relationship and helped each other succeed. When women first took management roles, the ones able to create father-daughter relationships were best able to find mentors.

  The traditional bureaucracies allowed, even encouraged, middle managers to be mentors, both at work and in voluntary organizations. There was less pressure, more time for bonding. In contrast, in companies today, there is little time and even less energy for these forms of sociability. But even when there is time, the new social character is uneasy in the role of mentor or protective authority. Other than success, Interactives’ highest value is tolerance in terms of race, religion, and ideology. Their moral code: “Judge not that you be not judged.” And they’ve told me they don’t think they should have to defend organizational values they didn’t have a say in framing, saying, “Those are not my values and I’m not the police.” But on a team or task force, they aren’t tolerant about poor performance. One value everyone shares is results.

  The most generative of the Interactives may take leadership roles as facilitators or bridge-builders, preferably for a project. They want it to be clear they are adding value for others, not trying to dominate them. They don’t want to seem power hungry.

  Ultimately, both Bureaucratics and Interactives who fail the test of generativity stagnate. The bureaucrat becomes his narrow role, like a character in one of Franz Kafka’s novels or Max Weber’s “specialists without spirit.”32 Interactives never deepen their knowledge or commit themselves to others. They have nothing to teach and no one wants anything from them. Keep in mind that we all need to feel needed, and a person who feels needed by no one will feel like a total failure.

  And this is more than a personal failure. The more Interactives fail the test of generativity, the more our society suffers. We need generative leaders who defend the values that support a free, productive, and environmentally sustainable society. The well-being of the next generation depends on whether Interactives understand and accept the challenge of generativity.

  EGO INTEGRITY VERSUS DESPAIR

  Erikson first wrote about the final stage of life in his forties and revised it first in his eighties, and again finally before he died in his early nineties, when he wrote, “Lacking a culturally viable ideal of old age, our civilization does not really harbor a concept of the whole life.”33 He thought that elders in our society (now called seniors) are no longer seen as bearers of wisdom, but as embodiments of shame.

  But, writing this at age 73, I can testify that that’s not always the case. Erikson himself contradicted the statement by his continued generativity. Another example was W. Edwards Deming, the statistician who brought total quality management first to Japan and then to the United States; he was still teaching at age 90. At that time, he invited me to discuss leadership with him. We met periodically over a three-year period, and each time, he took notes (as did I); he was still learning. And John Gielgud, the great English director and actor, was still acting in films at age 95. Peter Drucker was active when he died at age 96. At age 93, his wife Doris is still running the company she started at age 80. Sidney Harman was running Harman International at age 88. Surely, these pe
ople had the luck of good genes, but I believe staying engaged kept them from the collapse common to old age that begins in the 80s.

  It’s too early to see how the Interactives will deal with old age. However, populations in the advanced economies are aging, and people who used to retire at age 65 or earlier may remain in the workforce up until and beyond age 70. In 2005 28 percent of retirement age adults, ages 65 to 69 were either still working or looking for work.34 Furthermore, companies are offering part-time projects to valuable employees this old and even older.35 And, of course, a number of people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s do volunteer work for charities and nonprofits, demonstrating that generativity doesn’t necessarily stop with retirement from paid work. Programs like Civic Ventures’ Experience Corps, which has placed eighteen hundred tutors and mentors to children, connect seniors with “good work” where they’re needed.

  This is all to the good. Research indicates that working during retirement together with exercise and diet can help us live longer and healthier. 36 And there’s evidence that retirement without active engagement can cause the despair Erikson wrote about. A study of retired people by psychologist Ken Dychtwald emphasizes the benefits for old people of “reinventing” their lives after retirement. He writes, “Having a vision for the future and planning for that vision are as important as money in achieving a fulfilling retirement.”37

  Erikson focused on how people might view themselves at the end of life. A sense of integrity means one has not betrayed one’s ideal self, or if so, has repented and found the path again. Despair means losing one’s way and, what is more devastating, any hope of regaining it. Those who have betrayed themselves live with self-disgust, and the rationalizations they devise don’t overcome their depression when they have lost their love of life.

  In contrast, a sense of integrity is gained by mature realism, understanding what has been possible to do, given one’s opportunities and abilities, always taking luck into account. This includes remaining engaged and generative as long as physically possible, concerned and hopeful about the future, related to what is alive and needs protection—especially children and the environment that sustains us—as opposed to resigning from the present and retreating into the past.

  The integrity of the bureaucrat meant playing his role with dignity and effectiveness, resisting illegitimate commands and corrupting pressures. After retirement, it meant continued learning, reading, traveling, and voluntary activities. For women, it meant providing care and emotional support while staying sharp in voluntary organizations and cultural activities.

  The despairing bureaucrat was like Tolstoy’s Ivan Illich, who realizes only on his deathbed that he has never stood up for what he thought was right, never really been himself, only what others expected him to be. Tolstoy wrote:

  His mental sufferings were due to the fact that that night, as he looked at Gerásim’s sleepy, good natured face with its prominent cheek-bones, the question suddenly occurred to him: “What if my whole life has really been wrong?”

  It occurred to him that what appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family , and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend.

  “But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and it is impossible to rectify it—what then?”

  Perhaps the despairing interactive character will be more like Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, who confuses self-indulgence with self-actualization and self-marketing with intimacy, and ends up alone and burned out. Acting out all his greedy impulses, Peer Gynt mistakenly believes he’s being true to himself. In the end, “the button-maker” who comes for his soul tells Peer Gynt that he has no self. By never committing himself to anyone or anything and never responding with his heart, Peer Gynt has become a blank. His expressions of love and sorrow were never felt; his heart has never developed.

  Maintaining integrity in the market-dominated world calls for principled pragmatism—continually testing one’s views and values in terms of results. For those who have been engaged in the complex market world, it means living with contradictions and uncertainty without losing hope. This requires a faith that gives meaning to creative engagement with one’s community, which in the interactive age may include people throughout the world who share a common purpose: to protect the environment, keep destructive extremists in check, and work to improve the quality of life for all.

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  1 Michael Maccoby, “Toward a Science of Social Character,” International Forum of Psychoanalysis 11 (2002): 33–44.

  2 Charles Heckscher and Paul S. Adler, eds., The Firm as Collaborative Community:The Reconstruction of Trust in the Knowledge Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  3 Michael Maccoby, “Why People Follow the Leader: The Power of Transference,” Harvard Business Review, September 2004, 76–88.

  Preface

  1 John W. Gardner, On Leadership (New York: The Free Press, 1990).

  2 For example, John P. Kotter, “What Leaders Really Do,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 1990, 103–112.

  3 James McGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).

  4 Knowledge worker is a term coined by Peter Drucker in 1959 as a person who works primarily with information or someone who uses or develops knowledge in the workplace.

  Chapter 1

  1 Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Crown, 2004).

  2 For example, a survey by the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago conducted between August 2004 and January 2005 found only 22 percent of the public expressed a “great deal of confidence” in the executive branch of the federal government, 29 percent in banks and financial institutions and 25 percent in leaders of organized religion. Reported in the New York Times Magazine, December 11, 2005, 25. In the United Kingdom, less than 20 percent of the public expressed either “a fair amount” or “a great deal” of trust in the heads of large companies and even less in labor government ministers and senior civil servants (“Trust Me, I’m a Judge,” The Economist, U.S. edition, May 5, 2007, 71).

  3 The socio-psychoanalytic concept of social character was conceived by Erich Fromm (1900–1980). Fromm saw personality as the human equivalent of animal instinct. Another way of putting it is that personality shapes our instincts. To some extent, this is true of other mammals. But it is even more so for us humans, with our larger brains, longer period of dependency, and greater need for learning. If humans had to decide each action, we’d be overwhelmed by the choices. Personality structures our attitudes to work and how we relate to others, what we find most satisfying and dissatisfying and what we expect from others in our culture. While part of our personality is genetically determined, particularly temperament, character can be considered the part that is learned. The social character is that learned part of our personality we share with others in our culture or subculture.

  4 Bureau of Labor Statistics report: Employment Status of Parents by Age of Youngest Child and Family Type, 2003–2004 Annual Averages, Table 4, “Families with own children, father employed, not mother (married-couple families): 7,867, Families maintained by women: 8,161 (numbers in thousands).

  5 Erich Fromm and Michael Maccoby, Social Character in a Mexican Village (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970; reprinted with new introduction by Michael Maccoby [New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996]).

 
; 6 Of the fifty most generous philanthropists in 2005, fifteen, including these innovators, support new schools. BusinessWeek, November 28, 2005, 61.

  7 Sigmund Freud, The Dynamics of Transference, vol. XII, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: The Hogarth Press, 1958), 97–109 (orig. pub. 1912); Michael Maccoby, “Why People Follow the Leader: The Power of Transference,” Harvard Business Review, September 2004, 76–85.

  8 In The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958), Edward Banfield describes similar dynamics in Southern Italian peasant families.

  9 Michael Maccoby, The Leader: A New Face for American Management (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981).