Background:

The question of the emotional difficulties in generational leadership transition in organizations is discussed here. In particular, when charismatic leaders have been at the head of organizations for a long time – especially if they were also the founders – the question of succession becomes very complicated and weighed down by emotional issues. A strong feeling of betrayal often hovers over the organization, as a whole and in the individual members, who absorb it and are infected by it, as though the previous bosses-fathers felt usurped by the new leaders-sons.  The older leaders are finding it hard to keep up with the rapidity of contemporary changes, and to leave power to the following generations with even greater difficulties. In this often strained transition of powers, old leaders inject heavy poisonous trails into the organization (Bryman, Collinson, Grint,  Jackson,  Uhl-Bien, 2011; Skipton, Lewis, Freedman,  Passmore, 2012; Kets De Vries, 2001; Kaes, 2012)

The research question can be defined as follows: 

The leadership of an organization is based on asymmetrical power (Western, 2013), which solicits the dimension of the oedipal transference (Freud). Therefore, what happens when no attention is paid in organizations to the emotional and group dynamics in the transition from one leader to another, or from one power group to another and from who is older to who is younger? The aggressive and destructive dynamics that are activated in the organization, understood now as an explicit and hidden ring of combat, can naturally evolve towards an unblocking and a positive transition or do they need someone to take on the role of  a ‘third party’ to break the vicious circle? What role can a consultant or training play on the group dynamics? (Vansina, Vansina-Cobbaert, 2008; Western, 2013, Perini, 2007; Kets de Vries,  Guillen,  Korotov , Florent-Treacy, 2010). What role can the education of the leaders and of the members of the organizations play? (Ulivieri Stiozzi, 2013)

A psychosocial case-study (Hollway, Jefferson, 2013), performed in a large provider of socio-educational services for adults and disabled people, is presented here. The previous leader, who had been the manager for about 25 years and was very controlling and authoritative,  was forced to leave through a stratagem by a new younger leader.

The objectives of the study:

were to observe the dynamics of the organization in the transition phase of the changeover of powers and  to identify the reasons for the blockage it was in. After a first phase of identifying some unsolved central issues, the objective focused on the observation of the role and evolution of the feelings of guilt in the organization for having dethroned the father-leader, and how these major guilt feelings blocked the functioning mechanisms of the organization.

The theoretical framework:

uses the psychoanalytical approach applied to individuals and  organizations (Kets de Vries, 2006; Western, 2013; Vansina, Vansina-Cobbaert, 2008), according to the model of Group Relations (Perini, 2008; Armstrong, 2014; Obholzer, Zagier Roberts, 1994) and Psychosocial Research (Hoggert, Clarke, 2009; Hollway, Jefferson, 2013), that manage psychoanalytical concepts and categories to illuminate core issues within the socio-educational, organizational and working processes and practices. These approaches are combined with those of Critical Socio-Pedagogy (Kincheloe, 2008; Fook, 2012) and Clinical Pedagogy (Massa, 1993; Riva, 2000 e 2004). Only an inter-disciplinary view, capable of reading the processes and different levels and the interrelationships between levels (Morin, 2008), can come close to a deep understanding.

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