Trump as Group Leader

What may explain Trump’s powerful appeal to a segment of America’s population? What leadership characteristics or practices does Trump use to foster his appeal to his base followers?

In a recent paper, two practicing psychoanalysts, Marie Rudden and Stephanie Brandt, use social psychological literature on group formation and group functioning and their psychoanalyst experiences to try to answer these questions. Some of the literature they reference may be familiar to leadership students, faculty, and practitioners. For example, through my teaching about teams in the SL program, I reviewed material on teams and groups by William Bion. However, other scholars mentioned, such as Melanie Klein, P.… Read the rest