Post-Modern Leader-Follower Relationship in the Psychoanalysis Perspectives

A critical examination on prevalent leadership models is vital in the leadership research. In this area, the development of psychoanalytic school represented by Lacanian provides a unique perspective for the research of the critical examination on leadership. With wide explanatory power and a potential for thinking about leadership practice in structural ways, psychoanalytic contributions to the study of leadership are widely explored in prolific English publications. Under the inspiration of some of the innovative findings in these literatures, this article advances the field of research by organizing certain features of leader-follower relationships within a continuous yet different psychoanalytic frame of thoughts, starting from Freud to the complexity of Lacanian conceptualization. By engaging the range of these psychoanalysis variations, this article re-questions the self-assumption in the mainstream leadership theory and contests a more profound comprehension of leadership informed by the Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as a paradigm for bringing more subtle aspects of leadership into discussions.