Leadership is a Matter of Life and Death The Psychodynamics of Eros and Thanatos Working in Organisations

Self-fulfilling prophecies, resistance to change, curtailed collaboration, crying, trying to kill the competition, blaming, bullying, depression, sexual harassment, yelling and desk pounding, gossip, politics, theft, illicit love affairs, stress, murders and suicides. These workplace behaviours are manifestations of a class of instincts that prick the unconscious to have us behave in ways that are destructive to ourselves and to others. Leadership Is a Matter of Life and Death is a historical and investigative trek into one of the most controversial theories of destructive human behaviour - that of Thanatos, the death instinct. Carr and Lapp explore the psychodynamics of Thanatos as well as its partner, Eros, the life instinct, in leader and follower interrelationships. In analysing a number of workplace vignettes and providing fresh insights, they bring life to the theories of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Sabina Spielrein, Herbert Marcuse, C. Fred Alford and Thomas Ogden on Eros and Thanatos, the two classes of instincts that make leadership and followership at work, matters of life and death. Book jacket.

Adrian N. Carr is Principal Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydney, Australia Cheryl A. Lapp is President and Principal Consultant for Labyrinth Consulting

Contemplating Death * The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein * Expanding on the Death Instinct: Sabina Spielrein and Destructive Reconstruction * Moving Graveyards: Herbert Marcuse and the Death Instinct * The Death Instinct and the Group Context: C. Fred Alford * Managing Death in Organizational Life * Conclusions Contemplating Death * The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein * Expanding on the Death Instinct: Sabina Spielrein and Destructive Reconstruction * Moving Graveyards: Herbert Marcuse and the Death Instinct * The Death Instinct and the Group Context: C. Fred Alford * Managing Death in Organizational Life * Conclusions