Customer Reviews

Ideology, Conflict, and Leadership in Groups and Organizations

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Dr. Kernberg has looked deep into the psyche and what he finds is frightening.

Despite his difficult (at times willfully so, it seems) prose, he is worth heeding. For anyone who has seen an organization or corporation mysteriously fail, but who has felt that there is an unnamed and elusive logic to its fall, would do well to read this book. Where others see mystery, Kernberg names names. He locates dynamics at work in individuals and organizations and details their impact on the life of said groups. He doesn't provide magical answers but his theories are useful because, once one gets beyond the pessimism and the difficulty of the ideas, they seem, frankly, correct, in a gut-instinct way.

Everyone has a complex relation to their leaders, and Kernbeg explains the give-and-take of such strange intuitive feelings, the traces of which haunt all institutions. Particularly charming is Kernberg's insistence that a "slight paranoia" is a healthy attitude in a leader, to fight off envious attacks. An analyst and the head of the IPA, he knows whereof he speaks.