The exercise of leadership, whether in
governance, business, or religious institutions, is complex and risky because
of the complexity of the following: the context, the self of the leader, and
the relationship of leaders and followers (Karel San Juan, 2009).
A major aspect of the complexity of the
self is the influence of unconscious desires, which though integral to the
personality of every human agent, will rarely bear direct influence on the
person’s behavior in everyday routines.
Unconscious desires may directly influence behavior in critical
situations, which are circumstances or “situations that threaten or destroy the
certitudes of institutionalized routines” (Anthony Giddens, Constitution of Society).
Unconscious desires constitute much, but
not all, of the unacknowledged conditions of interaction, including the
everyday routine. These desires are
fundamentally infantile organic wants.
Through the socialization process initiated by the parents or guardians,
most infants learn to relate these wants to the expectations of others and
thereby learn to “manage” these wants.
Giddens writes:
“Given that the modes of management of
organic wants represent the first, and in an important sense the most
all-embracing accommodation which the child makes to the world, it seems
legitimate to suppose that a “basic security system” – that is, a primitive
level of management of tensions rooted in organic needs – remains central to
later personality development; and given that these processes occur first
before the child acquires the linguistic skills necessary to monitor its
learning consciously…
“they lie ‘below’ the threshold of those
aspects of conduct that, learned later and in conjunction with the reflexive
monitoring of such learning, are easily verbalized – thus ‘made conscious’ – by
the older child or adult.” (Giddens, New
Rules)
In a critical situation, the unconscious
of a leader or a major participant can contribute directly to the production of
unintended consequences of action. An
example is the case of somebody who is depressed because of the loss of a
beloved person either by death or estrangement.
If the depression becomes protracted, the agent or leader can become more
withdrawn or more demanding in his/her dealings with others (Giddens, Studies in Social and Political Theory).
Further withdrawal or increased
hostility represents an indirect and disorientated appeal for attention, love
or forgiveness; this ambivalent behavior, however, can produce an effect that
the depressed agent or leader does not really want: followers, relatives, acquaintances,
or the estranged beloved might avoid the depressed person increasingly. A continuing deterioration of their interaction
increases the possibility of suicidal behavior on the part of the depressed.
The ambivalent behavior of the depressed
agent is sustained by ambivalent memory-flashes about the beloved. Facts and fancies of instances of having been
snubbed, neglected, or offended by the beloved are recalled, which bring
hostile feelings, which then are repressed.
These repressed feelings evoke the deep foreboding that one has actually
been abandoned by the absent beloved.
The depressed agent carries a
self-absorbing sense of guilt which twists the hostile feelings about the beloved
into a pervading hostility to the self.
This shadowy hostility is self-punitive, punitive toward others, or
both. Thus, the agent becomes withdrawn,
and can become hostile even toward friends.
The foreboding that one has been
abandoned is influenced directly by infantile memory-flashes of those instances
when the infant sensed that the nurturing object was absent. In those moments, the infant feared that the
absence was permanent and that the nurturer or guardian had abandoned it.
Good socialization or child-rearing accustoms
an infant not only to the temporary absences of a guardian but also to the
deferments of some organic pleasures to later moments. The well-socialized child has learned that,
first, a period of absence does not necessarily mean abandonment, and second, a
deferment of pleasure can anticipate or bring more satisfaction.
Every well-socialized person, however,
still retains unconscious, and thus non-reflexive and non-discursive, infantile
pleasures and fears in the deepest recesses of the personality. In a critical situation, these unacknowledged
pleasures and fears can condition directly the action of a person.
Another example of how unconscious
conditions can contribute to the production of unintended consequences is the
case of an infantry company whose esprit de corps revolves on their devotion to
the captain or commander. In a critical
situation like a battle, a strong-willed and admired captain can keep a company
united and co-operative no matter how bad the battle is becoming.
In the minds of many of these
infantrymen, the figure of their captain is colored by childhood feelings about
their fathers or guardians. Encouraged
by emotive flashes of the charmed and contented dependence of childhood, they can
immediately submit to the difficult tactical decisions of their captain. Yet the more fervent their devotion to the
captain, the stronger is the possibility that his sudden death in battle will
trigger infantile panic and even desertion among his infantrymen.
Reflexive agency has boundaries: the
unconscious and the unacknowledged conditions and the unintended consequences
of action and interaction. Leaders and their
followers do make history, but especially in critical situations, the influence
of the unconscious becomes strong and less indirect. In such situations, what may appear already
to be the most logical option may not likely be the option most existentially
attractive to the leader(s). To accept
the existence of the unconscious implies that, in critical situations,
observers and analysts have to be wary of overconfidence in the human capacity for
critical reason and rational action.
