Abstract

This article is a transcription of the Solenne Atto Accademico organized by the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University in March 2009, in which Otto F. Kernberg M.D. presented a summary of his views on leadership, based on general theory of the administration of organizations and his own particular interest in how individual psychology and group psychology are interrelated, from the point of view of psychoanalytic theory. Following some remarks authority and authoritarianism, the article analyses the functions which an institutional leader is expected to carry out, and the personal qualities which are required if one is to meet these expectations. Attention is also given to the analysis of organizational failure and to some of the particularities of religious organizations