By: Susan Hicks
You may be faced with power struggles any day and at any time with those who work under you. There is always one person who ‘bucks the system’ or doesn’t seem to want to stay ‘in-check’ with the team or with the leader’s position, power, authority, or ability to influence others toward meeting management goals. We could refer to modernist conflict resolution techniques but what if they don’t always work. Is it possible to look back to the Psychodynamic Theory for help? This is a real-life example of why we should not completely discredit the theory in modern workforce issues.
The scene 6 months ago….
Mary, a middle-management employee in a large company, provides direction for the other offices under which she is responsible. Rena works beside Mary providing support under Mary’s leadership. Mary is in her mid-40’s with less than 10 years with the company while Rena is in her early-50’s with almost 20 years with the company. Mary is a firm, fair, and consistent leader with great responsibility and Rena is a narcissist who rejects being told what to do from someone who is less senior, younger, and who is perceived to be just as stubborn as herself. Power struggles ensue when Mary has to direct Rena to do something vitally needed in the company.
Mary has power given by to her by the company while Rena also has power as she can decide to willfully follow and complete the task with amazing efficiency and accurateness or with lethargy and with no enthusiasm to detail. How does Mary influence Rena to work mutually with her toward management goals and elicit the necessary enthusiasm toward efficiency and precision needed in the organization?
Mary resorted to Conflict Resolution as she attempted to cultivate a collaborative attitude under differentiation that “airs differences” in order to open the lines of communication in order to see differences as “natural and helpful” (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2009). The problem was that differentiation (airing of differences) never led to integration (resolution) because Rena epitomizes a narcissist who took great pride in her own accomplishments aside from that of the group. She had her own concept of her job duties and how she related those duties within the company apart from that relationship with Mary. Rena did not see Mary’s attempt to recognize their difference as helpful, rather she felt it as a personal attack on Rena’s lower ranking position. Mary couldn’t understand how someone could be so defiant and unreasonable so she turned to Psychodynamic Theory.
The Psychodynamic approach focuses on the relationship between the leader and the follower and cannot be taught in a traditional sense (Northouse, 2013). Mary looked at her own leadership personality under the theory but since the theory also looks at the relationship of the leader in congruence with the follower, she looked at Rena. It was found that Mary needed to not get into these power struggles with Rena on an ego level. She needed to relax her power in order for Rena to fulfill her needs yet allow them to flex their power in a way that promotes the collectivity of their knowledge. They needed not to compete. Mary also found through this backward-looking theoretical approach and by being inquisitive, that Rena grew up in an unstable environment with dominating narcissistic parents. She really had a low self-esteem which she overcompensated with her narcissistic behavior. Rena constantly had to tell others of her accomplishments because she was never given praise as a child. Her failure to work within a team framework was her rejection of group congruency that stemmed from the delusions of persecution she experienced from watching her parents fight. She projected to others what she learned as a child. With this information in hand provided by the Psychodynamic Approach, Mary also took another look at the Big Five Personality Factors of leadership. She found that Agreeableness, the “tendency to be accepting…and nurturing” was a part of her personality that she lacked (Northouse, 2013). Although this factor may be considered weakly associated with leadership, this led Mary to developing the leadership trait most valued by her associates.
Today…
We should not only look to those leadership traits and skills that allow us to aspire to, hire, train, and develop leaders to work within an organizational structure. We need to look outside the box toward Psychodynamic Theory in leadership conflict situations, in order to provide us additionally useful tools in which we can see alternative ways in dealing with leadership situations. These tools may be based in a form of psychology that may not be seen as relevant to the organizational needs of today or one that provide us a way of assessing our leaders for their qualities or traits, however, the awareness and acceptance of its existence by leaders can provide a missing link to understanding relational influence necessary in our modern leadership roles.
From the insight of Psychodynamic Theory, Mary and Rena work closely together today in fulfilling the needs of the company with Mary’s instruction and with Rena’s willingness to help. Mary found that her best asset is to be empathetic to Rena’s upbringing and now accepts Rena for how she became who she is. Mary now appreciates the productivity and input that Rena adds to everyday tasks. Mary constantly praises Rena for efficiency and accuracy (fulfilling Rena’s need for accomplishment recognition in which she take great pride) but yet also allows Rena to identify personal vision as being congruent to the visions of the company. Mary is now a highly productive and respected employee of management. Rena is a model employee and considers Mary now to be her leader, her mentor, and most remarkably…her friend.
References:
Folger, J.P., Poole, M.S., & Stutman, R.K. (2009). Working Through Conflict: Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations. (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.
Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Susan,
While reading your blog about Mary and Rena, I could not help but think back on the transactional analysis (TA) model discussed in our lesson. Based on the three ego states that Eric Berne recognized, an individual typically falls into one of three categories – parent, adult, or child (Northouse, Pg. 322). Under the TA approach, each state reflects how one acts and behaves, but the ego state is not definitive – we move in and out of each state depending on our interactions (Redmond, 2013).
Six months ago, you defined Mary as a “firm, fair, and consistent leader with great responsibility”. These tendencies lead me to believe she may be typically in an adult ego state. Whereas, Rena the “narcissist who rejects being told what to do from someone who is less senior, younger” may have been relating to Mary in a child ego state. Under the TA model, this would be considered a crossed transaction that does not work well in the leader-follower dynamic (Northouse, Pg. 325).
Fortunately, Mary made the necessary change to resolve the conflict. She learned that Rena reacted in an ego state she learned through her interactions with her parents. Rena’s narcissistic tendencies were just a disguise to hide her low self-esteem. By taking on a more nurturing role, Mary transitioned her adult ego state into a parent ego state – one that is more compatible with the child ego state. Thus, Mary created a complementary transaction (Northouse, Pg. 325).
Like you stated, the psychodynamic approach is a “useful tool”. If Mary had not taken a step back to learn more about her personality and Rena’s personality, they would have been stuck in an unproductive and unhealthy working relationship. In this lesson, we learned a leader who understands her style (in this case Mary) will be more effective (Redmond, 2013). However, through TA, Mary gained a better understanding of Rena; therefore, creating a more effective team. Although the psychodynamic approach does not provide a guide towards leadership, it allows leaders to understand their own personality, so they can better react and make the appropriate changes to produce more effective working relationships.
Thanks,
Cindy
References:
Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Redmond, B. (2013). Psych485: leadership in work settings. Retrieved from
https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych485/001/content/03_lesson/printlesson.html
Megan,
Thank you for that insightful reply.
The aspect of the Psychodynamic Approach that differs from other theories such as the Trait or Skills approach is that it is not looking for change in the respect that we are trying to assess those qualities that we lack and promote training and development to make us better leaders. They are more “how to” theories. The Psychodynamic Approach is a backward-looking assessment of personalities and helps us to understand others as the “why do” they respond to leadership (or follower) actions in the way that they do so that we can promote collective unity in the relational influences that become the leadership power teeter-totter.
As you saw, Mary and Rena both had power that they exercised for different reasons. Mary didn’t change Rena, rather she gained acceptance and insight on how to deal with her and promote qualities that would benefit the company. Your coworker has power to talk and write emails – maybe because she has not been caught or reprimanded for it. She has power to make you feel like you are bothering her – because you respond in that way which increases her power. She has power to make people leave – because they do and that also increases her feel of power. Narcissists pride themselves on their accomplishments even if they are somewhat twisted (getting others to leave) because that is something they can hold on to. She prides herself on these things as her power and when management tells her that she make a mistake, it probably gets worse for a while.
Put yourself in your coworker’s shoes. Is her writing personal emails and talking because she has stressors either at work or home that she needs to keep someone close to vent her frustrations? Maybe she has trust issues that she feels she can’t trust people for some reason stemming from early childhood experiences. Gather information (if you can) from her past. I would suggest trying to talk to her. Befriend her even if everyone else can’t stand her. Everyone has good qualities and after she gets past the point where she doesn’t think you are trying to manipulate her (like Rena’s delusions of persecution), she may start telling you secrets about herself that you don’t share to others. A bond may result in a form of Freud’s ‘talking therapies’ whereas you can start to gain an understanding of why she behaves that way that she does and in how this “results not only from observable actions and responses, but also from the emotional residue of prior experiences” (Northouse, 2013). You may find that even if you are the only one, there may be aspects about her that you really like. Therefore you are not changing her, but rather changing the dynamics of your relationship. This is how Mary changed her relationship with Rena and now why Rena considers Mary her friend.
Good luck,
Susan
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Working with someone who is a narcissist is a difficult task. After reading your blog, I can definitely relate to Mary. I work with someone who is just like Rena. My coworker is a lead person who is very narcissistic. She has been with the company for 20 years and thinks that she is superior then everyone. The worst part is that she does the least amount of work because she passes her work off onto everyone else. She is constantly talking and writing personal emails throughout the day. When a manager tries to tell her that she made a mistake she gets very defensive. She also makes you feel like you are bothering her when you ask her for help. Since Mary used the psychodynamic approach, it made her think about Rena’s past environment (Northouse, 2013). The psychodynamic approach also helped Mary become aware of Rena’s personality characteristics (Northouse, 2013). Once Mary understood Rena’s past she learned how to respond to her. Mary did the right thing by expressing her gratitude towards Rena. Employees will work better when they feel appreciated. Unlike Mary, I do not think that my coworker is every going to change. Throughout the years, I have seen people leave because of my coworker. Unfortunately, I think that I will be leaving as well because my coworker is not going to change how she treats people.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications