Research purpose: The aim is to provide an explanation to the lure behind interventions and to contribute to building a theory on plausible systems psychodynamic drivers and mechanisms of recurrent change interventions.

Motivation for the study: This study provides insights into social defences in ways that did not receive much attention previously; specifically how defence mechanisms act as drivers for new change and improvement interventions.

Research design, approach and method: A literature study, consisting of a literature review and a phenomenological analysis. The study was conducted from the systems psychodynamic approach.

Main findings: Improvement interventions often represent defences that serve to contain anxieties or maintain fantasies. Four specific themes emerged: interventions defend the perception of being in control, they maintain the fantasy that one is busy with worthy actions to overcome challenges, they are defences against boredom or contain anxieties about incompetence, and they maintain the fantasy of being heroic leaders.

Practical/managerial implications: The findings can assist leaders to understand their own defences in order to avoid embarking on non-essential interventions. This can free up much time, energy and effort to spend on other priorities, assisting organisations to achieve better results.

Contribution/value-add: The study refutes the notion that improvement interventions are always rational coping mechanisms and highlights the role of improvement interventions as defences to reduce anxiety, even though they may contribute little to organisational survival in real terms.

In this volatile organisational context, maintaining the status quo is often equated to business suicide (e.g., Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008; Linklater & Kellner, 2008). The mantra ‘change is the only constant’ became clichéd, notwithstanding any potential truth in it. To cope with an increasingly hostile environment, organisations have turned to a growing number of improvement interventions, such as changes in strategy, structure, policies, procedures, processes and culture, Total Quality Management (TQM), re-engineering, centralisation and decentralisation, benchmarking, downsizing, and many more (Cordery, 2004; Krantz, 2010; Perkmann & Spicer, 2008; Siegal et al., 1996). Implementing interventions became universally accepted as a business imperative – it is often not the case of whether the organisation will embark on them, but rather when. Many interventions are successful; many more are costly failures, only to be followed by yet another intervention (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004).

The cost of interventions is high. On the psychological front, periods of change are characterised by heightened emotional states and excessive anxiety (De Klerk, 2007). Changes are experienced traumatically with severe negative effects on the wellbeing, spirit, teamwork, performance, motivation and commitment levels(Abrahamson, 2004; De Klerk, 2007). Financial measures such as return on investment, return on equity and sales are negatively affected just by the announcement of layoffs (Ramaswamy & Fernandez, 1997; Sahdev, 2004). These figures do not even include tangible costs such as large severance packages.

Notwithstanding overwhelming consistency in the failure of improvement interventions and their cost, there seems to be an irrational appeal to leaders to initiate even more interventions (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). In one organisation that I am involved with, employees even developed an acronym that they express whenever a new intervention is announced: ‘B-O-H-I-C-A’ (bend over, here it comes again). Rational motivations for improvement interventions are not sufficient anymore; we need to gain a better understanding of the unconscious processes that drive the plethora of change interventions. The objective of this study is to provide insight into plausible drivers of the appeal for change interventions to leadership.

The terms of change and improvement interventions or initiatives are used interchangeably in the discussions. They refer to any specific and intentional attempts, initiated by organisational leadership, with the intent to inflict fairly rapid and significant improvement to the status quo, and which impact a large portion of the organisation (Vinger & Cilliers, 2006; Siegal et al, 1996).

Although rational motivations for the need of change interventions are abundant, there is a need for answers that go deeper into the unconscious and apparently irrational drivers of this phenomenon. As many drivers of change interventions may vary on psychodynamic phenomena, rationality can be a psychological obstacle in exploring how the influence of the unconscious on the unconscious mental forces of the mind may drive such activity (Krantz, 2010). Systems psychodynamics offers valuable perspectives to understand unconscious and apparently irrational behaviours (Gabriel & Carr, 2002; Hirschhorn & Gilmore, 1989).

Inevitably, anxiety plays some role in interventions which are implemented to counter business challenges. By studying the role of anxiety and its related and subsequent defence mechanisms, it is possible to explore the role of defensive structures in embarking on improvement interventions (Linklater & Kellner, 2008).

Despite the explanatory power of the defence mechanism, which may perhaps be a defence mechanism in itself, it is a concept that has too frequently been ignored in organisational psychology (Cramer, 1998). In the systems psychodynamic perspective, the flight into structure has been explored as a defensive mechanism (e.g., Koortzen & Cilliers, 2002). However, psychoanalytic writers have generally regarded flight into activity as a by-product of defences against anxiety, rather than a defence mechanism in itself (Corradi, 2007).

One of the paradoxes of improvement initiatives is that they can actually prevent effective change as much as enable it (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Forinstance, increased busyness can be an obstacle to improvement (Fusil, Gobran & Koskimaa, 2010). Furthermore, people reach a threshold in dealing with stress, uncertainty and disorientation (Abrahamson, 2004; Marks, 2004). Less pain may yield more success in organisations that have repeatedly subjected employees to the pain and stress of initiatives (Marks, 2004). However, change without pain is unrealistic, the only way to avoid the pain is avoiding a non-essential intervention.

Susan Long wrote about perverse sins in organisations. Perverse is being defined as disposed to go counter to what ought to be done and holding on to what is wrong, even in the face of reality (Long, 2008). The obsession with change interventions, which do not deliver on expectations, appears to fit the definition of perversity. Armed with an improved theory on the drivers behind change interventions, organisations will be better prepared not to rush into unnecessary interventions and perverse activity. Avoiding non-essential interventions can free up much time, energy and effort to spend on other priorities.

The design also partly constitutes a contribution to theory building (Giorgi, 2010), not building a complete new theory, but expanding on existing theories through developing hypotheses to explore different explanations for the phenomenon being studied. As the purpose of theory is not to explain an entire phenomenon, but only aspects of it (Tsang & Ellsaesser, 2011), this research does not attempt to provide an exhaustive explanation of drivers for interventions. Rather, through the search for linkages between theoretical concepts in order to explore new explanations (Okhuysen & Bonardi, 2011), it aims to explain plausible ways that defensive structures contribute to the appeal of change interventions to leaders.

Industrial and organisational psychology represents an eclectic field that borrows knowledge from other foundational sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology and philosophy) and applied sciences (e.g., organisational behaviour, economics and management) (Oswick, Fleming & Hanlon, 2011). In developing a scientific theoretical contribution, I considered contributions from all these fields and applied different lenses to develop synergy, integration and virtual consensus (Klein, Tosi & Cannella, 1999; Okhuysen & Bonardi, 2011).

Data was gathered through an extensive literature search of scholarly databases.¹ These databases cover more than 9000 scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, dating back as far as 1940. By using various search words and phrases, I searched for data relevant to aspects of change improvement interventions, busyness and activity, systems psychodynamics and defence and coping mechanisms. Data analysis on the correct research methods included searches related to theory building, thematic analysis, phenomenological analysis and autoethno graphic research. Articles were downloaded and data was analysed for linkages and according to its potential for a strong theoretical contribution (Corley & Gioia, 2011). In other words, analysis focused on the richness and the degree to which data and linkages resulted in novel insights (Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007). For theory building, inductive reasoning from observations was combined with deductive reasoning from literature to end with a set of hypotheses to summarise the resulting theory (Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007).

The systems psychodynamic perspective provided a lens through which to explore and describe unconscious and irrational drivers of interventions (Giorgi,2008; Gould, Stapley & Stein, 2001). Although individuals initiate interventions, systems psychodynamics posits that the individual behaves as part of the system (Gabriel, 1999). This implies that the researcher should be interested in socially and systemically relevant behaviours rather than individual case studies or anecdotes (Giorgi, 2006). The researcher asks the question ‘what is usually happening’, and then describes the behaviour in the context of the theoretical framework – systems psychodynamics in this study.

The idea behind the data analysis was to extract cues whose existence is driven by plausibility rather than accuracy (Corley & Gioia, 2011). The approach was notto split between ‘good’ initiatives and ‘bad’ initiatives. The idea was not to suggest that interventions are intrinsically flawed or generally unnecessary and to be avoided. I rather departed from the cognition that any intervention generates activity and consumes time, energy and other resources, notwithstanding the good intentions, outcomes or consequences. If these resources are committed to an intervention, it means that they are no available other business priorities.

The aim of any research is to provide an objective understanding of the phenomenon being investigated (Parry, 2008). When researching a phenomenon that one has been exposed to personally, research inevitably includes some autoethnographic elements as interpretations are done through the subjective lens of the researcher(Parry & Boyle, 2009). My lens includes many years’ experience as line manager and as change specialist in large organisations. I thus write from a place of tension, understanding the rational need for large-scale interventions and how to manage change, whilst being subjective about their efficacy. It is from this perspective that I opted to write in the first person, acknowledging my autoethnographic position in the research (Parry & Boyle, 2009). Nevertheless, autoethnographic experienceadds value as it allows for insightful and rich perspectives (Parry, 2008). In the analyses, I focused on objective data through withholding my own assumed reality around change interventions (Giorgi, 2008, 2010).

The interpretation of the data resulted in themes, which were abstracted into different working hypotheses that seemed to best describe the explanations suggested by the data analysis (Terre Blanche, Durrheim & Painter, 2006). Only data that could provide insight into the research problem was included and presented in the discussions. In the discussion of the results, I first motivate how recurrent interventions can be manifestations of defence mechanisms. From this discussion, I develop a general working hypothesis, which in turn is further expanded through four detailed working hypotheses.

An organisation experiencing change often cannot offer sufficient containment of anxiety, leading to more anxiety and more change (Koortzen & Cilliers, 2002; VanEeden, 2010). In order to cope with discomfort, the organisation needs something or someone to contain the anxiety on its behalf (Menzies, 1993), a need that is often projected onto leadership (Krantz, 2001).

The primary way to differentiate defences from coping mechanisms is the unconscious or conscious nature of the particular mechanism involved. Defences are unconscious and automatic (unintentional) processes, while coping processes are conscious and purposeful (intentional) (Cramer, 1998, 2001, 2006; Newman, 2001). It is in the misconception that an intervention is a rational and purposeful choice against a threat (Haan, 1977), that the delusional defence of flight-into-activity lies (Menzies, 1993). While interventions such as changes to structures may facilitate work, they are actually defence mechanisms to manage anxiety that leave little sustainable benefits (Krantz, 2010).

Coping and defence are not to be differentiated by outcome measures such as healthy behaviours or pathology (Cramer, 1998). For both coping and defences, it is the quantity of use that determines the relation to pathology (Cramer, 1998; Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2001). The overuse of the same coping mechanisms across different situations, or habitual coping processes and automatic behaviours are signals of defensive behaviour rather than coping behaviours (Cramer, 1998; Kramer, 2010).The automatic and recurrent theme of new interventions is evidence of habitual behaviour and signals a shift from coping strategies to defences against anxiety.

Habitual behaviour also hints at symptoms of compulsiveness and obsessiveness, both characteristics of defence mechanisms (Cramer, 1998; Kramer, 2010).Obsessive-compulsive behaviour refers to a fixated and recurrent mental act that the person feels compelled to perform, driven by urges beyond the person’s ability to control (Stapley, 2006). Obsessive-compulsive behaviour almost always manifests in dysfunctional routines (Bowins, 2004). The continual cycle of improvement intervention is an indication of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, even of perverse activity. As Long (2008, p. 15) notes, ’perversion begets perversion. Abusive cyclesare hard to break. ’ It is in the almost obsessive-compulsive habit to rely on improvement interventions that apparent coping strategies take on the characteristics of pathological defence mechanisms.

Organisations can be a source of creativity and excitement especially for leaders, but they also generate anxiety. For instance, anxiety is created through the explicit demands and implicit expectations of leaders to be in control and to take the organisation to forever-higher performances, notwithstanding the realities in the environment (Koortzen & Cilliers, 2002). Being in control is a strong need, and being seen to be in control is an especially strong expectancy for leaders (Corradi, 2007;Long, 2010). The experience of not being in control can produce excessive feelings of powerlessness, helplessness and an ego threat (‘I cannot save the organisation!’). Taking action, such as starting an intervention is a critical ego defence to ward off anxieties associated with feelings of helplessness, powerlessness and vulnerability (Corradi, 2007). There seems to be excessive reliance by leadership on change interventions to gain control and interventions have become a metaphor for being in control (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004; Krantz, 2010).

A subset of this defence is engagement in frenetic, even senseless activity to enhance feelings of being in control. An instinctive defensive response to a crisis is topanic, with the need to do something, no matter what, just to feel you are doing something and to be seen to be doing something (Kotter, 2008; Rizq, 2002). When there is a challenge or a crisis, one often hears the call: ’Don’t just stand there – do something!’ (Linklater & Kellner, 2008, p. 167). Too often managers mistake activity and motion as real urgency and direction (Davenport & Prusak, 2000). On the contrary, anxiety-driven urgency manifests in frenetic, unproductive and perverseactivity (Kotter, 2008), little more than unproductive defences against the anxiety.

Sometimes interventions and activity are the correct and essential ways to react to business challenges, offensive and proactive strategies to ensure sustainable success. After all, interventions have on average a statistical probability of between 10% and 30% to be successful and to deliver on the anticipated outcomes. However, activity has become a too easy tool to use for suppressing difficult emotions and as a defence mechanism against anxieties (Linklater & Kellner, 2008; Loosemore & Hughes, 2001).

What constitutes being out of control and helpless, or how people react to these feelings or in a crisis varies greatly for individuals (Corradi, 2007). For some, it could inhibit their capacity to take any action at all, even when it is necessary, others may perceive threats in the environment and then overreact (Khaleelee, 2009). Notbeing in control, combined with feelings of helplessness are particularly anxiety provoking experiences for leaders with obsessive characteristics (Gabriel, 1999).

Greenfeld (2005) notes that in Russian, the word for busyness is the same word as used for vanity. Busyness is a variation to the vanity of materialism, instead of wanting to accumulate money, we share a fantasy that it is possible and virtuous to be forever busy (O’Connor, 2008). The proverb: ‘Doing nothing is the cushion on which the devil lies’, even implies that by being busy, one avoids temptation to indulge in unworthy activities. The desire to being busy and addiction to activity is ever prevalent in everyday interactions, even in the way people greet. It is quite common for people to respond to the normal greeting of ’how are you?’ with a ’busy, thank you’ when implying they are well. This response seems to be a veiled boasting of one’s busyness, almost like Chaucer’s sergeant.

With virtue tied to busyness, we tend to split between action and non-action and action (as in change and improvement interventions) became idealised as the positive, the good and desired reaction to challenges. Action and intervention became to be seen as the metaphorical good breast, whereas not taking action is the bad breast, the dry breast that cannot feed the child, and therefore the undesired route to take (Cilliers & May, 2010). This perpetuates demand for new changes and interventions, notwithstanding the success or failure of previous interventions, for the absence of change is seen as a deficiency.

We are not only busy, but we are restless, our busyness is an expression of an inability to rest, rather than its cause (Greenfeld, 2005). Although it may appear to be irrational, busyness satisfies unconscious psychosocial needs. Maintaining the status quo is not the job of managers, change implies action and a manager is a doer (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). The role of the manager is to move the organisation forward and to make impossible things happen (Kerfoot, 2007). From a psychodynamic perspective, one could hypothesise that the primary task of leadership unconsciously became to represent activity (Cilliers & Koortzen, 2005).

In a busy and fast-paced world, lack of activity is interpreted as dysfunction and underutilised capacity (Carroll, Parker & Inkson, 2010). If a top manager is not busy, does not work excessive hours or keeps the organisation busy through new changes or interventions, then his or her contribution to success can be questioned (Sorge& Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Idleness becomes a sign of leadership incompetence, resulting in fears of being exposed as an imposter (Clance, 1985), producing intense anxieties in any senior leader. Any noticeable signs of idleness must thus be fended off at all cost.

The other extreme of excessive busyness is boredom (loss of tension and unpredictability, tired by dullness) (Carroll et al., 2010). Carroll et al. (2010) found that senior executives frequently feel bored, which they juxtapose with facing stimulating challenges. Participants in their study perceived boredom as antithetical to leadership, a disease for which the only cure is creating challenges for yourself. Alarmingly, senior managers seek and create change not only to advance the interests of their organisations, but also to quell their own restlessness and to evade boredom (Carroll et al., 2010). Bored managers may introduce unnecessary or even dysfunctional change for change’s sake, moving from initiative to initiative without necessarily advancing the organisation (Carroll et al., 2010).

Projection plays a major role in this defence. Projection happens when a part of the system projects its own dependencies, fantasies or anxieties onto another part of the system (Cilliers, 2003; Stapley, 2006). For instance, group members project their anxieties and dependencies onto leadership to become heroic and omnipotent figures, a fantasy of a proverbial messiah who is able to rescue the organisation from any threats (Gabriel, 1999; Gould, 2010; Long, 2010). Through identifying with projected fantasies, leaders become containers of anxiety and victims to the pressure for performance (Koortzen & Cilliers, 2002). To be a hero or maintain the fantasy of being a heroic rescuer, one needs a heroic feat – a virtual monument or conquest to be remembered by. In the organisational context, what better monument could there be than successfully launching and completing a grandiose project, which can live in the memory of the organisation as your heroic crusade that rescued the organisation from the threats it was facing?

Projection and projective identification can be on and within abstract constructs (Cilliers & May, 2010). For instance, change interventions and activity have been depicted as the good and right remedy to rescue organisations in difficult times, whereas inactivity and non-grandiose tasks have been depicted to be the bad object and not diligent. The realistic view of what is good and bad becomes distorted or invisible. This is in line with the splitting between change and action being good and industrious, versus not taking action being regarded as bad and unproductive.

Defending the fantasy of the heroic leader manifests in different ways for different individuals. For instance, leaders with narcissistic characteristics could be especially prone to fantasies to become the heroic rescuer and messianic leader, or to identify with such projections (Gabriel, 1999; Khaleelee, 2009). Another factor is the ways competition or rivalry between leaders may arouse such defences (Koortzen & Mauer, 2005). Managers who operate predominately from a paranoid-schizoid frame are especially grandiose in their aims, unrealistic in their expectations and ultimately ineffectual in their efforts (Krantz, 2001). One can speculate that these managers will be more inclined to initiate change interventions as defence mechanisms. Although some competition between managers is healthy, competition can spiral into attempts to outshine each other with grandiose acts of heroism. Competing leaders initiate and take on unnecessary new projects in their strive for admiration (Koortzen & Mauer, 2005; Long, 2010).

Change interventions itself became a prestigious activity (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Managers of change interventions are seen as inspirational corporate heroes who turn things around through grandiose projects (Krantz, 2001). This perception was formed, not necessarily based on substantiated successes. Rather, it is largely manipulated by a change management industry and management best-sellers, myths that are formed about their skills, their actions and the programmes they design, even if such myths are hopelessly romantic or woefully exaggerated (Griffith, 2002).

Large-scale improvement interventions can be started by leaders as defensive structures to contain feelings of anxiety, helplessness and powerlessness. Frenetic activity provides a false sense of control. Clearly, busyness became a badge of honour in the modern organisation and leaders mobilise defence mechanisms to fend off any signals that may leave perceptions that they are not busy enough or do not create enough busyness. Could the problem be that we are committed to busyness, but not to deep change, innovation and effectiveness? Kerfoot (2007) rightfully questions whether we came to worship at the altar of busyness to the point that the effectiveness and efficiency of what we do is impaired?

If busyness is the badge of honour, not being busy is a signal of incompetence, which is an intolerable idea for those in leadership positions. Initiating improvement interventions can be a defence mechanism to fend off signs of boredom and anxieties about any possible signs of incompetence or being unqualified for a senior leadership position. If leaders’ response to fears of boredom is to seek challenges by propelling organisations into continuous cycles of change, organisational life will continue to be characterized by disruptive change with sweeping and superficial novelty (Carroll et al., 2010). Being a heroic change agent is a narcissistic fantasy to rescue the organisation from failure and drives many change interventions. This defensive structure seeks to maintain the fantasy of being a messianic leader, one who will forever create a successful organisation (Gould, 2010; Long, 2010).

It is paradoxical, but improvement initiatives can actually prevent effective change as much as enable it. An enemy to improvement is the availability of time – excessive busyness does not allow time to think properly or spend quality time on high priority tasks (Fusil et al., 2010). Leaders need to become aware of what their systems are projecting onto them, how they take in the projections, their valences and the resultant implications. Organisations that lack reflective space are oblivious to the implications of their busyness. The organisation may appear to be responsive, but in fact is acting in a repetitive way without thought or reflection (Bain, 1998). In the heroic crusades, energies are often diverted into dysfunctional interventions, away from capitalising on the strengths inherent in the organisation (Griffith, 2002).

With increasing business challenges, proper management of anxiety, became a central task in organisations (Koortzen & Cilliers, 2002; Krantz, 2010). Organisations need to become more astute to mobilise coping mechanisms and to rely less on defensive structures to deal successfully with business challenges. The problem with relying too strongly on defences is that they may be effective in reducing anxiety, but the overuse of defences stifles processes critical to organisational success (Menzies, 1993; Zmud, 1999). Organisational defences immerse leaders in delusions in which they pursue fanciful projects, while disregarding real problems and opportunities of the business (Krantz, 2010; Menzies, 1960). Even though organisational changes are often ineffective or counter-productive, they are followed toohabitually by yet another intervention and even more anxieties (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). The organisation then finds itself at the centre of a vicious circle of continual interventions and excessive busyness (Gabriel & Carr, 2002).

Change interventions became so central to the management paradigm that its existence is merely accepted rather than being challenged. Change management has become more than a mere discipline, it now resembles the characteristics of a fad with the ingredients of a mystique movement, driven by a whole industry of change consultants and writers (Sorge & Van Witteloostuijn, 2004). Organisations therefore need new ways of thinking and operating to deal effectively with the demands and anxieties from the competitive business world. By understanding how defence mechanisms parade as coping mechanisms, leaders can become aware of the risk of initiating more improvement interventions. It can be concluded that if change and improvement interventions generate busyness without accompanying improvements, it is a waste of time and energy and just senseless busyness – a lively, yet meaningless activity (Greenfeld, 2005).

Change interventions are not always good and may even be prohibiting real change in organisations. Organisations may be able to achieve better results by less activity. Leaders should therefore carefully contemplate the best strategies against business challenges and be cautious against embarking on new change and improvement interventions that parade as coping strategies. We need leaders who are prepared to suspend the frenetic pace of new interventions, leaders with the courage to confront boredom with reflection rather than fantasised heroic actions (Perkmann & Spicer, 2008). Far too frequently, acting is a substitute for thinking – a refusal to reflect on why we are doing what we are doing.

We all know the fable of the emperor’s new clothes – the naked emperor with the delusion of wearing an exquisite gown, until a boy called the truth. Perhaps it is time for someone to call the truth that the proverbial change emperor has no clothes – change interventions are parading themselves in front of scholars and practitioners in little more than a wig and some cheery make-up (Cordery, 2004). Do the change-fatigued organisations really need all their interventions; do they really need to be as busy as they are? It does not appear to be so. In the organisational context, one could perhaps rephrase Chaucer’s phrase to: ‘Though there was nowhere one so busy as he, he was less busy than he ought to be.’

Due to the unconscious nature of defence mechanisms, their functioning is open to different interpretations and specific postulations about them are thus subject to criticism. The working hypotheses presented in this article represent a search for meaning and plausible explanations, not truth (Hansen, 2006). The working hypotheses are to be read as reasonable explanations of the phenomenon, not a prediction about what will happen in all circumstances (Boyle & Parry, 2007). The value of the explanations and working hypotheses of this study lies in their practical meaning and plausibility, rather than in being universal truths (Parry, 2008). It challenges existing thinking beyond the obvious and the rational, articulates new insights and improves understanding of drivers of interventions in organisations by offering unique points of view. It is finally the responsibility of the individual reader to make up her or his mind about potential predictive validity.

The subjective lens of the researcher in any study with regards to observations and interpretations is one of the limitations to this study (Parry & Boyle, 2009).Another limitation is the fact that no theory can include all the causes to explain a phenomenon, a theory only explains certain aspects of a phenomenon (Tsang & Ellsaesser, 2011). This study does not explore or attempt to explain all the causes or drivers of continual change interventions. For instance, reasons for failure of interventions were not explored, neither how such failures could be related to the reasons for which they were initiated. It does not explore the contributions to this phenomenon by other accomplices, such as change managers, consultants and esteemed writers. The study only explores the attraction of interventions to leaders from the systems psychodynamics perspective. This does not refute, nor deny the existence of rational and conscious drivers of the phenomenon, but it does not include or cater for offering such explanations.

I opted for a provocative tone and somewhat controversial perspective in the anticipation that it will stimulate a debate and more research towards finding creative alternatives for the stubborn problems surrounding change and improvement interventions. It is hoped that the hypotheses in this study would be followed by empirical studies to analyse actual leaders and their respective change interventions and to explore the drivers that lead to those interventions. As the drivers of interventions are often unconscious – defences are by nature unconscious – it is preferable to conduct such studies also from a system psychodynamic paradigm, rather than approaching it from the rational perspective.

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