Managing People Managers Can Drive Their Subordinates Mad - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

 Managing People

Managers Can Drive Their Subordinates Mad - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

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We are all familiar with and horrified by the stories that came out of Guyana about the Reverend Jim Jones and the mass suicide that occurred at Jonestown. After the dust had settled, everyone wanted to know how so many people could have believed in one person so completely that they would commit suicide to please him. It is a horrid but fascinating story. Perhaps one of the reasons it fascinates is that each of us is aware of a small portion of himself or herself that can go a little crazy because of another person. Execessive dependency on another is a state one usually grows out of, but when the dependency is mutual and reality seems to support it, breaking away may be impossible. In some business organizations, the conditions for unhealthy dependency needs to be gratified also can occur with disastrous effects for the parties involved and for the organizations. The author of this article describes the phenomenon called folie à deux—and how what we often term eccentric behavior patterns of people in organizations might be better understood in that context.

Managers, no less than other people, have personality quirks. Little things they do on occasion drive their subordinates “up the wall.” In the main, however, subordinates tolerate their manager’s quirks because for the most part the manager’s style is acceptable and for many subordinates it is much more than that. But what happens to subordinates when a manager seems to be all quirks, when there is no in-between?

As an administrator, J. Edgar Hoover struck many as an erratic autocrat, banishing agents to Siberian posts for the most whimsical reasons and terrorizing them with so many rules and regulations that adherance to all of them would have been an impossibility.1 Hoover viewed his directorship as infallible; subordinates soon learned that dissent equaled disloyalty. No whim of Hoover’s was considered too insignificant to be ignored. For example, nonobedience to participation in an antiobesity program was likely to incur his wrath, and rumor had it that chauffeurs had to avoid making left turns while driving him (apparently his car had once got struck by another car when he was making a left turn).

If it originated from Hoover, a trivial and unimportant order changed in meaning. Even if the directive was unclear, subordinates would have to take some form of calculated action and, it was said, should expect trouble if they did not take the directive seriously. Nurtured by the organizational participants, these directives often assumed a life of their own. Only appearances of and actual slavish obedience to the rules, and statistical accomplishments such as monetary value of fines, number of convictions, or apprehended fugitives counted. And problems arose if the figures did not increase each year.

Naturally, those agents who embraced the concept of the director’s omnipotence were more likely to succeed. To ensure compliance, inspectors would be sent out to field offices in search of violations (the breaking of some obscure rule or instruction). If a “contract was out” on the special agent in charge of the office, a “violation” would inevitably be found. Apparently, the inspector’s own future at the FBI was at stake if no violations were discovered because then, in turn, a contract might be issued on him. If one wanted to survive in the organization, participation in many of these absurdities was often unavoidable. Many of these bizarre activities seem to have been treated as quite normal aspects of organizational life and were carried out with great conviction.

While Hoover at the FBI, Hitler in the days before the collapse of the Third Reich, and, even more recently, Jim Jones at the mass suicide in Guyana are newsworthy examples of what leaders can do to their subordinates when they lose touch with reality, the effects of dependence also occur in less heralded tales.

The president of a faltering company in the apparel industry seemed increasingly unwilling to face the declining profit position of his company. Even two months before the banks eventually took control, the president held meetings during which nonexistent orders, the development of new revolutionary machinery, and the introduction of new innovative products were discussed. These new developments were supposed to turn the company around and dramatically change its position in the industry. The president ignored the dismal profit and loss picture, inefficiencies in production, and poor sales performance, attributing them to unfair industry practices by competitors, or even sabotage, and assured his managers that change was imminent and the company would be out of the red shortly.

Sadly enough, these glorious ideas were far removed from reality. While the president seemed to originate most of these fantasies, his close associates not only participated in them but also encouraged his irrational thoughts and actions. The rare subordinate who expressed his disbelief was looked on with contempt, found himself ostracized and threatened with dismissal. Among the small but increasingly isolated group of managers the belief persisted that everything was not lost. Miraculous developments were just around the corner. Only when the banks took control was the spell finally broken.

What is striking about both these anecdotes is the shift of what appear as delusions and unusual behavior patterns from the originator of these activities to one or more others who are closely associated with him or her. These associates not only take an active part but also frequently enhance and elaborate on these delusions. The delusions seem to escalate in intensity when the people involved try to solve problems concerned with an already deteriorating situation. They inevitably aggravate the situation, make it worse, and become correspondingly more and more reluctant to face external reality. Feeling most comfortable in their own chosen, closed environment, they do not welcome the opinion of outsiders, seeing them as threatening the status quo and disturbing their tunnel vision.

Also noticeable in these two examples is just how contagious the behavior of a senior executive can be, and how devastating its effect on his subordinates and his organization. In Hoover’s case, the reaction of his subordinates further encouraged him to continue in his dysfunctional behavior. Perhaps the particular mission of Hoover’s organization may have contributed to the fact that very few subordinates were willing to refuse to participate in some of these bizarre activities. Regardless, many conformed to his wishes and some may actually have believed in the appropriateness and importance of his actions. In the second example, again the process of mental contagion is central.

In psychiatric literature, mental contagion is a recurring theme. This particular process of influence, which usually goes together with some form of break with reality occurring among groups of individuals, is generally known as folie à deux—that is, shared madness. Although folie à deux as a way of interaction has been limited to seriously disturbed relationships between two people, a broader definition of this particular psychological process may be helpful in understanding the interactions between leaders and followers in organizations.

One may gain insight into what is frequently described as an “eccentric” leadership style if one studies emotionally charged superior-subordinate relationships characterized by some kind of impaired ability to see things realistically within the context of folie à deux. One may discover that this phenomenon, with various degrees of intensity, is a regular occurrence in organizations and can be considered one of the risks of leadership.

A senior executive should not underestimate the degree of influence he wields in his organization. Recognizing dependency—need for direction—as one of man’s most universal characteristics, a manager should be aware that many of his subordinates will sacrifice reality for its sake, participating in even irrational decisions without mustering a critical stand and challenging what is happening. (For a better understanding of how strong dependency needs are, see the accompanying insert.)

The Paradox of Dependency

Two French psychiatrists were the first to coin the term folie à deux. Other names given to this phenomenon have been ...

To preserve the dependency, both subordinates and superiors create closed communities, losing touch with the immediate reality of the organization’s environment to the detriment of organizational functioning. When the reality is not abandoned completely, however, this phenomenon is often difficult to recognize. But in view of its damaging consequences, even in a limited form, it deserves serious attention. I will explore this aspect of leadership, hoping to help managers diagnose and prevent the incidence of its potentially disastrous effects.

Dynamics of Folie à Deux

We have seen that folie à deux is marked by contagious irrational behavior patterns, but how does it occur in organizations?

Suppose a senior executive under the strain of leadership, trying to cope with often disconcerting imagery around power and control in addition to the general pressures of the business environment, gradually loses touch with the organization’s reality. Also this individual’s charismatic personality may once have attracted executives with highly ungratified dependency needs to the organization. Or it may have been the organizational climate itself which was conducive to a reawakening of these executives’ dependency needs.

Whatever the reason, during their association with the organization these managers may have become dependent on the senior executive. Although strong, these needs do not at first completely overpower all other behavior patterns. What changes dependency needs into folie à deux? When both senior executive and subordinates become dependent on each other in a situation which offers few outside sources of gratification, their complete commitment to each other can be taken as symptomatic.

At some point, triggered by an event usually associated with a depriving experience of the past, the senior executive may become preoccupied with some delusionary ideas (and this is not necessarily a conscious process), one of which being that his subordinates are taking unfair advantage of him. As a result, he develops a certain amount of hostility. But, at the same time, since the subordinates’ expressions of attachment finally fulfill his own dependency needs which have been ungratified for so long, he experiences guilt about this feeling of hostility.

In spite of lingering resentment, therefore, the senior executive is extremely reluctant to give up his relationships with his subordinates. They may be among the few close relationships he has been able to establish. Consequently, to defend himself against his own emerging hostility toward his subordinates, he externalizes it and attributes the hostility to others.

The senior executive absolves the closely associated executives of responsibility for these feelings; it is “the others” who are to blame. This blame can take many forms, eventually encapsulating everything that may be going wrong with the company. The senior executive, who has been the originator of this process, now needs his subordinates to support his delusionary ideas and actions. He needs that support not only because the ideas are his defense against hostility but also because he may lose his feelings of closeness with his subordinates if he does not get it. There seems to be only one option—namely, to induce his subordinates to participate.

If a subordinate resists, the senior executive will become overtly hostile, including him in his vision of “the other camp”—the enemy. Naturally, the subordinate’s level of anxiety will rise. A double-bind situation develops for the subordinate; he will have to choose between the loss of gratification of his dependency needs and exposure to the wrath of the senior executive, on the one hand, and the loss of reality, on the other.

In many instances, the subordinate will solve this intrapsychic conflict by giving in to the psychological ultimatum, “identify with the aggressor.” He thus satisfies his own dependency needs and deflects the hostility of the senior executive. Separation from the person who started this process is viewed as much more of a direct, tangible loss than the loss of reality.

Identifying with the aggressor usually implies participating in his or her persecutory fantasies. The shared delusions are usually kept well within the realms of possibility and are based on actual past events or certain common expectations. Because the accusations contain a bit of reality, this process is difficult to discern. Through participation in these fantasies, the subordinates maintain their source of gratification, lower their anxiety and guilt level, and express their anger in a deflected form by directing it toward others. The process is mirrorlike; the actions of the initiator of the process become reflected in those of the subordinates and vice versa and can be viewed as the outcome of an effort to save the alliance from breaking up.

Now let us look at some of these dynamics in greater detail.

Getting trapped

In organizations, folie à deux can be one of the pitfalls of leadership. Often, however, this dimension of leadership is not seen for what it is, and contagious behavior patterns are more often than not accepted and rationalized as being merely side products of an eccentric or autocratic leadership style.

Take, for example, the behavior and actions of the first Henry Ford, who had been acclaimed not only a mechanical genius but also, after the announcement of the five-dollar day, as a philanthropist. Because of the darker sides of his actions, however, this image eventually changed. While the public merely ridiculed his escapades, for the employees of the Ford Motor Company the situation was not a laughing matter. His despotic one-man rule and his continuous search for enemies increasingly had repercussions in every function of the company. He began to view Wall Street bankers, labor unions, and Jews as his enemies, seeing each group as supposedly endangering his complete control over the company and obstructing him in his grandiose plans (e.g., the Peace ship mission, his idea to stop the First World War, or his senatorial campaign).

At one point there may have been an element of reality to some of Ford’s notions (i.e., the labor union movement), but over time what there was got lost. One can regard the relationship between the senior Henry Ford and his lieutenants Liebold, Sorensen, and, particularly, Bennett in the context of folie à deux. Using a system of intimidation, helped by a large number of Detroit underworld characters, Bennett spread terror in the organization, a process originally instigated by Henry Ford but perfected by Bennett and his henchmen.

Executives who did not participate in the idiosyncrasies of Henry Ford and his close associates were fired. The Model T, which carried the company to its original success, eventually became a burden. Regardless, reinforced in his behavior by his close subordinates, Henry Ford stuck to his original strategy of a cheap car for the masses, making even suggestions of modification taboo. Only in 1927, after the Model T had been in production for 19 years, and only after an incredible loss of market share to General Motors, was Henry Ford willing to make a model change.

This example illustrates how contagious a senior executive’s behavior can be and how originally functional behavior can become increasingly damaging to the organization and even bring the company close to bankruptcy. Henry Ford’s subordinates only encouraged his views, although it remains open to question which subordinates were only conforming and which were truly believing in their actions.

A more contemporary example involves the behavior of a manager of an isolated plant in a mining community who had developed the belief that the head office wanted to close down the production facility. The recent introduction by the head office of a new factory control system started him in his belief, and regular visits by head office staff to implement the new control system only reinforced these ideas, which he communicated to his subordinates and which were widely accepted. Although the production figures were more than adequate, a collusion began to develop among plant personnel. Eventually the plant manager and his subordinates began to falsify information to show the plant in an even more favorable light. Only a spot check by the internal auditor of the head office brought these malpractices to light.

In many of these instances, however, a major question remains. How much of the behavior of the subordinates can be accurately described in the context of folie à deux, and how much is mere compliance to the eccentric leadership style of a senior executive? The latter situation is illustrated by this example:

The division head of a company in the machinery equipment industry would habitually mention the advanced product technology used in his plants to each visitor of the company and at talks at trade association meetings. On promotion trips abroad, he was always trying to obtain license arrangements for his technology. And occasionally he would be successful. But, in spite of the fact that the company was turning out a high-quality product, there was nothing unique about the technology. As a matter of fact, most competitors were using comparable or even more advanced technological processes. Although most of his subordinates were aware of the actual state of affairs, they were unwilling to confront the division head with the facts. Compliance seemed easier than confrontation.

It is worth noting that mere compliance, if continued long enough, can evolve into stronger alliances, possibly resulting in active participation in these irrational actions. These examples also emphasize some of the characteristics of folie à deux; for example, the relative isolation of the actors, their closeness, the existence of a dominant partner, and the emergence of delusionary ideas.

The search for scapegoats

Interaction that contains elements of folie à deux can contribute to collusion among subgroups that fosters and maintains organizational myths and fantasies often only remotely related to the reality of the situation. In these instances, for some cliques, the organization’s overall objectives and strategies become of lesser interest than tactical considerations. As concern for the maintenance of various irrational notions consumes more energy, there is less congruence between specific actions and available information.

It appears as if the members of these groups live in a polarized world that no longer includes compromise or the acceptance of differences. Everyone is pressured to choose sides. It is also a world where one continuously has to be on one’s guard against being singled out as a target for unfriendly actions. In such an organization, scapegoating becomes a predominant activity directed not only toward individuals within the organization but also toward such groups as the government, labor unions, competitors, suppliers, customers, or consumer organizations. What may have been a well-thought-out program may become distorted. For instance, alertness to the environment, which at one time may have been an organizational strength, can turn into a watch for imminent attack—a caricature of its original purpose.

Because of structural arrangements, subgroups frequently overlap with departments or other units. When this happens, people jealously guard areas of responsibility; territorialism prevails. The determination of boundaries between departments can lead to disputes. Seeking or accepting help from other groups may be considered a weakness or even a betrayal.

For example, in a large electronics company a vice president of production development began to imagine that two of his colleagues, a vice president or R&D and a vice president of manufacturing, wanted to get rid of him. He perceived that his two colleagues were trying to reorganize his department out of existence and incorporate it into their own functional areas. At every available opportunity, he communicated this concern to his subordinates and expected them to confirm his own suspicions. Disagreement was not tolerated; resistance resulted in either dismissal or transfer to another department. Gradually, many of his executives began to believe in his statements and to develop a siege mentality which led to a strong sense of group cohesion.

Relationships between this group and members of other departments became strained. What were once minor interdepartmental skirmishes deteriorated into open warfare. Committee meetings with members of other departments became public accusation sessions about the withholding of information, inaccurate data, and intrusion into each others’ territory. In addition, because of his recurring complaints about poor quality of delivered material and late deliveries, the vice president’s contacts with some of his suppliers deteriorated. (A subsequent examination by a new vice president found that most of these accusations were unwarranted.)

Eventually, managers of other departments began to avoid contact with product development people, thereby confirming their suspicions. Over time, the rest of the company built up a number of separate, fairly informal information systems to avoid any dealings with the product development group. Finally, after the product development group made a number of budgetary mistakes because of distorted information, the president transferred the vice president and reorganized the department.

In this example one can see how excessive rivalry and suspicion can lead people to adopt a narrow perspective of organizational priorities and become defensive and controlling. Without integrating mechanisms to counterbalance their effect, these attitudes can fractionate an organization. Understandably, organizational participants will take refuge in policies and procedures, collusive activities, and other forms of organizational gamesmanship. Cooperation will disappear and priorities will become distorted.

Where elements of folie à deux seep into organizations, conflict becomes stifling, creativity is discouraged, and distrust becomes the prevailing attitude. Instead of taking realistic action, managers react to emergencies by withdrawing or scapegoating. Fear will be the undercurrent of the overall organizational climate. As ends and means become indistinguishable, the organization will drift along, losing touch with originally defined corporate goals and strategies.

Entrepreneurial Dangers

Because of the great intensity and closeness that develop in small isolated groups, entrepreneurial ventures tend to be particularly susceptible to folie à deux behavior patterns. In many instances the venture begins because the entrepreneur tries to overcome his or her feelings of dependency, helplessness, and rejection by adopting an opposite posture, a financial and psychological risk-taking style. In addition, the entrepreneur may have a strong need for achievement, control, and power, as well as an intense concern for autonomy.2

The relationship between entrepreneur and enterprise is usually an involved and conflict-ridden one in which the company has great emotional significance for the individual. Frequently, this type of attachment may lead to growth and succession crises, episodes aggravated by developments of a folie à deux nature, as the following example shows:

The president and founder of a medium-size electronics company often expressed concern about the need for more professional management in his company. He liked to state that the entrepreneurial phase had been passed and that the time had come to make organizational changes, prepare to go public, and plan for succession. To that end, he became personally involved in the recruitment of MBAs at various business schools. His charismatic appeal and his strong advocacy of professional management attracted a great number of MBAs. The MBA influx was balanced, however, by a steady exodus of many of the same MBAs who soon realized the difficulties in conforming to the president’s demands.

Under the guise of being “a happy family,” the founder felt he could intrude into the private family affairs of his subordinates. What he presented as the great deal of responsibility that he would delegate to the newcomers turned out to be poorly defined assignments without much authority, which frequently led to failure. A person’s career advancement depended on his or her closeness to the president, compliance with his wishes, and willingness to participate in often irrational behavior patterns. Exile to various obscure sales offices became the price of resistance. Eventually, the company had to pay a toll for this leadership, but the president blamed the steady drop in sales and profits on government intervention, union activities, and sabotage by a number of singled out employees.

Hoarding of information, playing of favorites, inconsistent handling of company policies, and, generally, creating ambiguous situations constitute a common phenomenon in entrepreneurial companies. Because the company’s survival does depend on the entrepreneur, many subordinates are easily drawn into supporting him even when what he does may be irrational. Those unwilling to participate leave, while conformers and ones susceptible to folie à deux relationships remain.

This phenomenon may explain why in so many entrepreneurial companies a strong layer of capable middle managers is missing. In situations of folie à deux-like behavior, those who remain will spend a great part of their energies on political infighting and supporting the irrational behavior and beliefs of the entrepreneur. These activities can become even more intense if members of the entrepreneur’s family are employed in the company so that family and organizational dynamics become closely intertwined.

Management of Folie à Deux

Assuming a folie à deux pattern occurs in an organization, what can be done to cope with it? How can managers prevent getting stuck in this peculiar circular process? How can they recognize the symptoms?

Before outlining the steps managers can take, I want to stress that some aspects of what might look like folie à deux are not always organizationally undesirable. As I indicated earlier, in the initial phases interpersonal processes that could lead to folie à deux may be a source of strength contributing to team building, commitment to goals and strategies, or even the establishment of effective environmental scanning mechanisms. Unfortunately, in the long run, interpersonal relationships that in extreme form typify folie à deux may become a danger to the organization’s operations and even its survival.

The first steps in the containment of folie à deux are recognizing those individual and organizational symptoms.

1. Check out your managers. Managers likely to initiate this type of behavior usually show specific personality characteristics. For example, they may appear to possess a lot of personal charm and seductiveness, qualities that may have been originally responsible for their personal attractiveness. A closer look, however, will reveal that this behavior is often a cover-up for attitudes of conceit, arrogance, demonstrative self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. Individuals prone to folie à deux find it extremely difficult to alter their concepts and ideas; their actions often contain a rigid quality.

Because of his need to dominate and control other people, this type of executive usually stands out. He will deeply resent any form or use of authority by others. He seems to be continually on his guard, prepared to fight suspected, often imagined, dangers. Hyperalertness, hypersensitivity, and suspiciousness of others tend to become ways of life. Frequently, he is preoccupied with people’s hidden motives and searches for confirmation of his suspicions. He evinces a great concern about details, amplifying and elaborating on them. Not surprisingly, the creation and maintenance of a state of interpersonal tension in the organization will be one of the effects of such behavior.

Such an executive will easily feel slighted, wronged, or ignored. Lack of trust and confidence in others can make him extremely self-conscious, seclusive, reserved, and moody. Frequently, there is querulousness, insensitivity, and a lack of consideration of others. Dramatic mood swings can be observed. If an attitude of friendliness and companionship temporarily prevails, such behavior will be quickly shattered by the slightest provocation, after which the full force of hate, mistrust, and rage may break loose. A sense of playfulness and humor seems to be lacking.

When behavior of a folie à deux nature starts to spread, the influenced persons may show similar behavior patterns, but in most instances not of such an intensive nature. For all the participants in this form of mental contagion, a key problem remains the existence of highly ungratified dependency needs. It is exactly those needs that the instigators of this process fulfill. By being directive, self-assured, and willing to take complete control, these executives attract those followers who need to be treated this way.

2. Look at their organizations. The danger signals of folie à deux can also be detected by looking at possible peculiarities of the organization’s culture and ways of operation. One symptom is unusual selection and promotion procedures that largely reflect a senior executive’s idiosyncrasies rather than a concern for a candidate’s overall managerial capabilities. Strange, selective, and unsystematic decision-making patterns, erratic information systems, and excessive control and extreme secrecy can also often be taken as danger signs.

Other indications may be a department’s preoccupation with details at the cost of overall company effectiveness, and excessive manifestation of various stress symptoms in the organization, such as a large turnover of executives and a high degree of absenteeism. One can also view frequent changes in organizational goals, and existence of grandiose, unrealistic plans, and insistence on supposed conspiracies, or the actual creation of the latter, as other signs.

Whatever the exact nature of the disturbing behavior pattern or process one notices, one should keep folie à deux processes in mind as a possible cause. Once symptoms are recognized, managers need to take corrective action, as well as to design systems and procedures that will counteract folie à deux:

1. Establish a trusting relationship. When folie à deux is in full swing the manager involved is beyond helping himself. For the person who started this process, the route back to reality is particularly difficult. A disposition toward delusional thinking can be difficult to overcome. Appeal to the manager’s logic and reality does not help; on the contrary, it might evoke uncompromising, hostile, and aggressive reactions. Rather, in these instances, one has to establish some degree of trust and closeness with the affected manager to make him willing to entertain the possibility that his assumptions of the organizational environment are invalid.

This change in attitudes is not going to be arrived at easily, but without a change it will not be possible for an affected manager to make a realistic self-appraisal of inner strengths and weaknesses. Substituting reality for fantasies is likely to be a slow and difficult process involving reintegration and adjustment of many deeply ingrained behavior patterns. Because of the intensity of the delusions, in many instances these persons may need professional guidance.

The outlook for the affected followers is more positive and usually less dramatic. Frequently, merely the removal of the closeness with the affected senior executive will be sufficient to break the magic spell. Some form of disorientation may occur at the beginning, but proper guidance by other nonaffected executives will soon help to bring the managers back into more normal, reality-oriented behavior patterns.

2. Monitor your own susceptibilities. One way to make the occurrence of this behavior less likely is to be aware of your own susceptibility to it. Most people are to some extent vulnerable. We like to be taken care of at times and do not seriously object when others make decisions for us. It is sometimes easy to relax and not be responsible, to have someone to follow, to guide our behavior. Moreover, an activity such as scapegoating has its attractive sides; blaming others for things you may be afraid of but tempted to do yourself creates not only a sense of moral righteousness but also a sense of satisfaction about your own behavior. Furthermore, as long as the interpersonal interactions retain a firm base in reality, these behavior patterns are not disturbing or dangerous. Unfortunately, the slide into irrational action is easy.

To prevent yourself from entering into a folie à deux pattern you should periodically take a critical appraisal of your own values, actions, and interpersonal relationships. Because it is hard to recognize your own possible “blind spots” and irrational behavior patterns, you might consider getting help in this appraisal process from outside the organization. Also a certain amount of courage is needed to face these confrontations with yourself.

Nonetheless, the executives with the willingness to test and reevaluate reality will be the ones who in the end possess real freedom of choice, acting out of a sense of inner security. Ability for self-examination enhances a person’s identity, fosters adaptation to change, and limits susceptibility to controlling influence. Because these qualities form the basis for mature working relationships, mutual reality-oriented problem solving, and a healthy organizational climate, they deter episodes of folie à deux.

3. Solicit the help of interested parties. Awareness of the occurrence of folie à deux is of limited help when the instigator is a powerful senior executive who happens to be a major shareholder. Occasionally, however, in such instances, the support of a countervailing power such as the government or a union may be necessary to guide the organization away from possible self-destructive adventures. Naturally, other possible interested parties who could blow the whistle are customers, suppliers, and bankers.

The situation becomes somewhat less problematic when the chief executive officer is not a major shareholder since the board of directors and the shareholders can play a more active monitoring role. One of their responsibilities will be to watch for possible danger signs. Naturally, the possibility always exists that board members will be drawn into the delusionary activities of a senior executive. Such an event is, of course, less likely to happen with a board of outside directors.

Regardless, because boards traditionally follow the directives of the CEO, the possibility of folie à deux indicates how important the selection of board members is. Important criteria in this selection process will be independence, a sense of identity, diversity of background, and reality orientation which can neutralize a folie à deux process.

4. Reorient the work climate and structure. Organizational solutions to folie à deux become more feasible when the instigator is not a senior executive officer. Then confrontation, transfer, or, in serious cases, dismissal will be sufficient to stop the process. Also important, however, are the systems and procedures in an organization. For instance, reward systems that promote irrational behavior also give it implicit approval. Thus it is crucial to foster a healthy climate where irrational processes cannot take root.

Supporting individual responsibility and independence of mind in the organization, as well as selecting and promoting managers who behave accordingly, can be a buffer against folie à deux. An organizational culture of mutual collaboration, delegation, open conflict resolution, and respect for individuality will expose a process of mental contagion before it can spread. Such organizational patterns will lessen dependency needs and force conflict into the open, thus counteracting the incidence of vicious circles in interpersonal behavior.

Objective information systems can also assist managers to focus on reality, as can using many different sources for information gathering and processing. Interdepartmental committees and formal control systems can fulfill a similar function.

Contemporary pressures toward participative management, or work democratization, are other ways of preventing, or at least limiting, the emergence or proliferation of folie à deux. These structural changes can reduce the power of senior executives and restrict the advantage they may take of their subordinates’ dependency needs.

1.“The Truth about Hoover,” Time, December 22, 1975.

2. See my article, “The Entrepreneurial Personality: A Person at the Crossroads,” Journal of Management Studies, 1977, 14(1), 34.

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