ABSTRACT
Current organizational structures and behaviour patterns are marked by a high degree of disturbance and signify that leaders, their teams, and institutions are caught in a cycle of endless transition. The effect of the repeated reconfiguration of teams, departmental structures, and leadership arrangements has produced symptoms of failed dependency and cumulative trauma. The absence of reliable structures, the piercing of holding environments, and the regular removal of authority figures causes organizations and their members to regress to more primitive forms of defence against their increasing sense of existential insecurity. The pressure to globalize, modernize, and change in order to prevent extinction has produced organizations where the fear of redundancy and marginalization, rather than the primary task, are uppermost in the minds of leaders and employees. It is not surprising that the attendant defences against the fear of not surviving are also visible in most teams. On stage and in role, leaders present a “false self”, and off stage, in a coaching session, for example, reveal their “true self” (Winnicott, 1986). Groups work in dependency or compliant mode in a public forum, and reveal 196their true feelings when they meet over coffee or have a gossip in the corridors. What has become obvious is that the tension between the private self in what social anthropologists call a “sacred” and private space, and the public self in a “profane” and unsafe place, has become unbearable. The role conflict causes increasing numbers of high performing leaders and team members to take refuge in the sick role.
