ABSTRACT
In the voluntary sector, where charities are expected to meet criteria of public good, over forty years we have seen managers metamorphose from coordinator (in small organizations) or general secretary (in larger organizations) to director (managing half a dozen people) and now chief executive. The post-dependent culture has seen the emergence of a quasi-fundamentalism in organizational life, with an emphasis on corporatism but without loyalty. The impact within organizations has been far-reaching, affecting the capacity of the individual to act with personal authority. From the 1980s, organizational consultants were selling mission statements like medieval mendicants in order to absolve organizational sins. People worked increasingly with fundamentalist intensity but without any real expectation of a relaxed and fulfilling future existence. Different members of the group—and different parts of an organization—will express different aspects of the unconscious processes as they affect the work task.
