ABSTRACT
Managing ‘organizational mess’ and leading an organization out of trouble is a complex and difficult process with many pitfalls and tense moments to be held and contained. In this paper I unpack a particular incident using group analytic and Kleinian psychoanalytic theory. I highlight the importance of taking seriously other peoples’ negative views of the leader as a narcissist and putting words to the fears associated with this. Also, I emphasize the importance of not underestimating the counter-transference pressures of these negative emotional particles in the context of legal and financial reality. I comment on the catastrophic internal world reaction of negative events on individuals in an organization and use Hopper’s concepts of massification and incohesion to understand this process. Recovery from a ‘mess’ to a well connected and linking organization can only occur when serious attention is paid to the invisible and underlying primitive mind of this large group through maintaining the importance of the matrix and putting words to difficult and disturbing organizational experiences.
