REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

18 REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

He would frequently be blamed for deserting, manipulating, or neglect-

ing the family. Death can be interpreted by a child as the ultimate form

of desertion or rejection — and a remote or absent father makes a poor

role model. It can leave the developing child, and later the adult, troubled

by a burdensome psychological inheritance centered on problems of

self - esteem, insecurity and lack of confi dence.

The absence, or remoteness, of the father image in the family is

often complemented by the mother assuming part of the father ’ s role. In

conversations with entrepreneurs, their mothers usually come across as

strong, decisive, controlling women who give the family some sense of

direction and cohesiveness.

Henry Deterding, the main fi gure behind Royal Dutch Shell, was

six years old when his father died. The father of Karl Benz, the entre-

preneur who laid the foundation of the Mercedes - Benz Corporation,

died when his son was one. John Johnson, who started the Johnson Pub-

lishing Company (which publishes magazines like Ebony and Jet , aimed

at African - Americans), experienced the death of his father when he was

13. Deterding, Benz, and Johnson experienced poverty or near - poverty
    in their youth. And so we can go on.
    These are only a few examples from an eclectic group. Themes of
    poverty, death and loneliness recur, indicating how many entrepreneurs
    had disrupted childhoods, and emphasizing the infl uence of psychologi-
    cal deprivation, although these factors do not explain everything in a
    complex picture. Many of the stories told by entrepreneurs skim the
    surface. Thus to get an even better understanding of the inner world of
    the entrepreneur a clinical case study may be illustrative.

CASE STUDY: THE ENTREPRENEUR ’ S STORY

The case study that follows looks in considerable detail at one particular

entrepreneur. First, however, in order to appreciate the context in which

it was made, I will make a few comments about the psychoanalytic

process.

The Psychoanalytic Process

Although the sample size in the other studies of managerial work has

been small, in no instance has it been limited to a sample of one, as in

the case I present here. The individual under investigation was not

studied for a few hours, a day, a week, or a month, however. He is