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If I were going to help a company become more psychologically sophisticated, here are a few of the many issues I’d focus on:

  1. Understand that abusive controlling leaders are usually secretly insecure and weak. If you don’t perceive this contradiction, your way of dealing with them may be ineffective.
  1. Jealousy and envy are to be expected in hierarchical organizations. They are raw expressions of more basic desires. You may have to be patient with these symptoms. Don’t just try to get rid of them but help them ripen into more positive energies.
  1. A person in authority may not deal with their position well because of bad experiences in the family and in childhood. You may need some empathic, deep discussions before you can work out solutions with them.
  1. People tend to develop hostile feelings toward each other when they don’t have opportunities to really get acquainted. It’s too easy then to direct stray negative fantasies at fellow workers.
  1. Conviviality can give the soul the security and deep satisfaction it craves. Gatherings where people can truly enjoy one another and daily breaks in a convivial atmosphere could help, not hurt, productivity.
  1. Being critical and vocal about fellow workers may stem from insecurity, an overwhelming need to keep the job, or habits learned at home. A few lessons in dealing with insecurity would go a long way.
  1. A business can’t provide deep therapy for all its workers, but it can create a work environment that is not emotionally toxic. A sensitive style of leadership especially can help create real community, which can tone down the negativity.
  1. Therapy always begins with listening. Any business could create a structure in which just listening to workers’ issues could help with morale.
  1. The physical environment can also soothe the soul: fresh air, plants and trees, water, a place to walk, a comfortable workstation, well-selected colors. Therapy often involves physical details; it is not just a mental activity.
  1. Images affect the soul deeply. You can devote attention to the art images in the workplace or to any aspect of the place seen as an image. How do you feel in a medical center, waiting for your doctor, in a small room with no windows and perhaps plastic images of blocked arteries or diseased organs? Even a small degree of awareness could make the image environment supportive rather than destructive.
MooreSoul therapy
p.176-178

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When bosses become controlling and abusive, they put everyone into a fixed mindset. This means that instead of learning, growing, and moving the company forward, everyone starts worrying about being judged. It starts with the bosses’ worry about being judged, but it winds up being everybody’s fear about being judged. It’s hard for courage and innovation to survive a companywide fixed mindset.

DweckMindset
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There are two major errors with that line of thinking. The first is overestimating what you, the manager, are capable of. Yes, it may be within your power to solve a wide variety of issues, but as a single individual, you can’t solve that many of them. The best work comes from those who have the time to live and breathe a problem fully, who can dedicate themselves to finding the best solution.

The second error is assuming that nobody wants to take on hard problems. In fact, the most talented employees aren’t looking for special treatment or “easy” projects. They want to be challenged. There is no greater sign of trust than handing your report an intricately tangled knot that you believe she can pull apart, even if you’re not sure how.

ZhuoThe Making of a Manager
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I was fortunate to be assigned a seat next to Bill George, author of Discover Your True North and a professor at the Harvard Business School. During our dinner conversation, he told me something surprising about his experiences working closely with many Fortune 500 CEOs and high-level executives. He noticed that leaders needed to get in touch with their own deep sense of pain, vulnerability, and humility, and occasionally a deep sense of shame, in order to shift from being good leaders to becoming great leaders. At times, this was simply acknowledging the pain of being human, or the pain of feeling like they had let others down, which they had covered up, as many of us do. Other times it was the pain from difficult, imperfect childhoods, failed relationships, or traumatic events. Feeling this pain helped these executives glimpse how much more was possible by freeing up energy and

feelings that were being held close, which allowed them to be more authentic and caring leaders.

LesserSeven Practices of a Mindful Leader
p.105-106

Of course you don’t want to confuse this capacity with professional therapy, but you can offer your care and help with some sophistication and intelligence. It would make sense to have a professional therapist visit a company and teach managers and maybe all employees how to talk to each other effectively. It is not only true that some things have to be taught but also that many things we assume don’t have to be taught do. We need some instruction on how to speak to each other in ways that help rather than hurt.

MooreSoul Therapy
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Therapy does not have to take the form of conversation. It may involve painting a house, building good transportation, inviting fresh and useful businesses to a region. In the little New England town where I live there is a small group of businesspeople who are concerned about the future of the region and do everything they can to provide attractive buildings and a good economy for all. They work hard to keep the international chain stores at a distance from the town center, so that they don’t quash local initiatives. They bury cables and raise money for improvements. They keep up the beautiful old buildings and demand strict codes for new ones. They are the town’s therapists, and they take their calling seriously. I talk to these people, who have skills that I lack. I encourage them and try to give them some philosophical underpinning for their good work. I’m their therapist.

MooreSoul Therapy
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