“ I went back looking at one of the qualities of leadership we need particularly now during a pandemic, I went back to Thucydides and Athens and I found Pericles’ funeral narration made during the destructive pandemic that hit Athens. ”
Michael Maccoby Ph.D
Washington, DC
Episode Description:
Dr. Steven Rolfe welcomes Dr. Michael Maccoby. Dr Maccoby is a psychoanalyst and anthropologist globally recognized as an expert on leadership for his research, writing, and projects to improve organizations and work. He has authored or co-authored fourteen books and consulted to companies, governments, the World Bank, unions, research and development centers and laboratories, universities, and orphanages and taught in 36 countries. Dr. Maccoby has taught leadership at Oxford and directed the Program on Technology, Public Policy, and Human Development at the Kennedy School from 1970-90. In 2008 he received the Swedish honor of Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star for his work in Sweden and, in 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington School of Psychiatry.
Key Takeaways:
[4:21] Dr. Maccoby talks about how he first became interested in psychoanalysis.
[9:21] Dr. Maccoby was in analysis with Eric Fromm for 8 years while working with him.
[10:56] Dr. Maccoby talks about his work with organizations early in his career.
[11:55] Humanizing the workplace.
[14:10] The beginning of Dr. Maccoby’s studies in leadership.
[14:33] Dr. Maccoby shares how Eric Fromm influenced his career.
[17:43] Dr. Maccoby talks about his book. Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. and the reaction it caused in Donald Trump.
[18:03] The productive and destructive aspects of narcissism.
[20:22] Dr. Maccoby updated Fromm’s personality types with his own set of ideas.
[23:48] Dr. Maccoby talks about Donald Trump’s personality type as a Marketing Personality.
[25:50] Dr. Maccoby shares what motivated him to write Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump: Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust.
[27:56] The kind of president the USA needs: Pericles’ principles for a leader applied to America’s greatest presidents.
[31:03] The role of aggression in the marketing personality type.
[33:45] The transition between the clinical work and consulting
Mentioned in This Episode
IPA Off the Couch – www.ipaoffthecouch.org
Recommended Readings
Maccoby, Michael. The Gamesman: The New Corporate Leaders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.
Maccoby, Michael. Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
Maccoby, Michael. The Leaders We Need: And What Makes Us Follow. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
Maccoby, Michael and Clifford L. Norman, Jane Norman, and Richard Margolies. Transforming Health Care Leadership: A Systems Guide to Improve Patient Care, Decrease Costs, and Improve Population Health. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 2013.
Maccoby, Michael. Strategic Intelligence: Conceptual Tools for Leading Change. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Maccoby Michael and Ken Fuchsman, editors. Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump: Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust. Routledge, 2020.
Dear Dr. Rolfe,
Thank you so much for this inspiring prodcast.
I am learning alot and enjoying what I have been listining to … especially Dr. Michael Maccoby’ interview. would you kindly passe my regards and to him.
I really appreciate your effort.
sincerely yours,
Sultan AlOwidha, PhD
Professor of Psychology
Consultant Psychotherapist,
King Saud University
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Mr Maccoby had some very tragically wrong ideas about narcissists. He did not spend time looking at the medical outcomes of those exposed to narcissists. The neurological, epidemiological, and psychiatric communities through research by bessel van der kolk, Ruth lanius , james fallon etc reveals that narcissists physically cause irreparable harm to others exposed to their cruelty. This shows up in mri scans of hippocampus volumes in the brain scans of their abused children, and in workplaces employees suffer from anxiety, depression, dissociation, ptsd as is consistent with prior studies and advice about the golden child scapegoat child dynamic of bullying inherent in narcissistic familial systems. Maccoby could legally be tried for crimes against humanity by recommending that these people be put in charge of anyone. We know that the telemeres of dna strands alter in response to this cruelty resulting in early death ..Maccoby is already dead in person, it’s time his ideas which were wrong headed are put to rest. Narcissists are bad for other people in every context. They will abuse power if given it as they are pathologically brainwashed by their upbringing to bully and pathologically lie. We need to correct the ideas of maccoby and Isolate these people keeping them away from control or power in any context. Not to do so is inhumane.