Fantasy of leader-follower: A Lacanian approach to leader and follower identity construction

Leadership studies in management science and most of the social sciences are studied within the social bond that Lacan calls university discourse, through the assumption of a self-identical and objective self. In the scientific world, leadership does not have an Archimedes principle in the buoyancy of water is confirmed. While the leader is described as an active, sufficient, and impressive identity throughout the leadership studies, the follower seems described as passive, inadequate, and, in need of management. In the 20-year-long seminars of Lacan, the concepts of subject and unconscious are discussed as an effect of language and the system of signifiers. Lacanian theory provides a tool that can help in understanding the meaninglessness and formal function of leadership as a signifier. In this study, the Lacanian subject has been described in detail, the place of the subject on discourse has been explained, and the effect of signifiers have shown with film analysis. Thus, the fragile structure of the leadership identity, and disrupted sense of the subject as represented in such identity is indirectly tried to be described.