Relationships between bosses and employees are often fraught with tensions and misunderstandings, and not only because of the intrinsic power imbalance.

Workers expect their managers to be empathetic, while having the authority to lead and look after the staff’s interests. Team leaders, on the other hand, expect underlings to be self-motivated while doing what is asked.

To add to the complexity, we all have hidden motivations we bring to the workplace as we unconsciously seek to resolve early conflicts with authority figures in childhood through our relationship with managers.

So how can leaders find the right balance between exerting enough authority to help people feel well led, while allowing enough autonomy to obtain the best from people? Understanding the basic dynamics between those in authority and their employees is a start.

We all carry an internal authority figure — someone we relied on in early life, usually our parents, and then project these on to unsuspecting figures at work. Our current experience of dependency evokes feelings of the original one. The imagined is then combined with the real, to create a reality of sorts that can at best boost one’s career and the success of one’s company, but at worst can undermine both if situations are misinterpreted and confused with the past.

Mark C Crowley, author of Lead From the Heart, was in his thirties when he was confronted by a critical and erratic boss who evoked painful memories of his abusive father. Although Crowley was doing precisely what was asked of him, his boss criticised him endlessly. He says: “The charge was profoundly painful. I was re-experiencing the same ‘what the hell is going on here?’ [as with his father]. When your father finds fault with you, and says so in malicious ways, it directly affects your heart and soul. Many days, I would go to work with tears in my eyes.”

Crowley found that his colleagues found the boss just as volatile as he did but none had experienced the same emotional charge. “If you didn’t have my upbringing and you were working for an unpredictable person you might say, ‘that’s just how it is’, right? I was simply unable to do that. I suddenly faced the father I [had] felt I was entirely free of.”

A common tendency among workers is to believe that leaders are omniscient. It relieves our dread of uncertainty and catastrophe. It makes us feel protected, fortunate and optimistic. Being close to them makes us feel great by association.

Yet such idealisation distorts what a leader is actually capable of. Their failings, or even misconduct, can be conveniently ignored. It can be a mutual dance with distortions on both sides — a leader’s demand for excessive admiration, and followers who have an unreasonable need to see people with power over them as perfect.

As children, seeing our parents as perfect helps to cushion us against life’s blows. As we mature, however, we need to face reality, acknowledge that everyone is imperfect — and take responsibility for ourselves.

But for those who experienced neglect, chaos or abuse in their early years, shedding these fantasies exposes the truth that their parents have harmed them. The unconscious holds repressed memories of the actual parent, while the imagined “perfect” one is projected on to the boss.

Ironically, the idealised leader can have similar psychological injuries from early neglect and/or abuse. Both worker and boss attempt to distance themselves from painful memories differently — one by believing they are perfectly protected and the other by ensuring a continuous flow of admiration towards them.

Those who experienced only fleeting love in their early years are often left craving more. The desire to capture the boss’s attention in order to attain that lost love can be compelling. And, more worryingly, it can make one an easy target for a narcissistic boss who will make you feel special — as long as you follow their every whim.

Paradoxically, having loving parents can sometimes leave one longing for more. One woman working in a London hedge fund was disappointed to discover that no boss would be as interested in her success as her mother had been. The woman’s craving for her boss’s validation was all-consuming, but ultimately she saw that it was infantilising.

“You want it so much that you become too rigid,” she says. “It prevents me thinking that I should go for something else, rather than pleasing my boss.”

This woman’s parents were from eastern Europe and survived extreme economic hardship during the communist era. They stressed the value of becoming financially secure. The mother structured her daughter’s time and ensured she was successful in school. As a result, the woman came to rely on praise from her family as an expression of love.

“There was pride in how my parents spoke about me to their acquaintances and our relatives. It [then] became exceptionally important for me to have my boss’s approval, that they see me as their right hand. I feel intense professional jealousy towards other people occupying the second-in-command position.”

Understanding how she attempts to recapture her mother’s love through her boss, and inhibiting her tendency to please, has helped this woman move forward.

With the balance of authority tilting away from managers to employees post-Covid, some managers I see in my practice have expressed their confusion about how to assert their authority.

One important aspect of leadership is managing people’s anxieties — too much control and people feel infantilised, but if you do not project enough authority, they become anxious.

So how should bosses respond to the longings, fears and fantasies that employees project on to them?

Manfred Kets de Vries, a psychoanalyst and Insead business school professor, agrees that leaders can become emotional dumping grounds for people’s unresolved feelings towards their parents, both positive and negative, and often flipping between both. He suggests bosses should listen with empathy to staff, and avoid knee-jerk reactions if they think they are being maligned.

He says: “If you strongly believe in something, keep saying it — repetition is important. Even when things are bad, it is important to see some light in the tunnel.”

Leaders need to remember how special they can be to people and that what they say sticks.

As for employees who struggle with confused feelings towards authority, perhaps the best advice is to remember that at work, you want a good boss, not a good parent.

We too often fail to manage job endings well. The consequences not only affect the person leaving, but can also harm staff remaining — and the company itself. A client in my psychotherapy practice, for example, could only recall two retirement parties in his 30-year career in banking. “Everybody else either said ‘f**k you’ on the way out the door, or they got fired.”

Departures are uncomfortable and can evoke painful feelings of loss and even grief. Yet while organisations encourage feelings that boost productivity, such as optimism and enthusiasm, they often ignore those which may appear, wrongly, not to produce anything. They may wonder, ‘What is the point?’ and instead choose to bypass the event.

And some individuals, in turn, shy away from endings for fear of embarrassment or being overwhelmed with emotion.

Endings and beginnings, however, are inextricably linked for people — a good ending allows a good beginning. It provides a place to process what was, and prepare for what is to come; to pause and reflect on accomplishments, opportunities taken and missed, relationships forged and broken and, importantly, an opportunity to say goodbye.

A departure also offers a rare moment of intimacy at work where thoughtful words can be said and kindnesses and generosity remembered. People leaving may hear, perhaps for the first time, just how valued they and their contributions were. Such expressions boost a person’s confidence — the warmth and positivity can help them through the initial insecurity and even loneliness in their next job or venture.

It can also be a time to cement relationships — to strengthen contacts rather than feelings of relief at leaving others behind. Such endings benefit companies and organisations, too, by enhancing their reputations as employers and ability to recruit.

Endings also have a deep symbolic resonance with the people who stay. When exits are ignored, or worse, those departing are treated badly, it signals to staff remaining that they, too, are unimportant. This can result in lost motivation and effort, which damages overall collaboration, productivity and performance. What’s more, an opportunity to re-employ talented and experienced leavers in future is missed. Karen Thomas-Bland, founder of Seven, a management consultancy, says that with current pressures on recruitment, many companies are relying on a “boomerang effect”. But if people are treated badly on their way out, they are unlikely to return.

She adds that managers should also consider the impact on their brand of a bad social media review, or word spread around the industry by disgruntled ex-employees. She urges companies to consider: “What experience do you want them to walk out the door with — and what do you want them to tell the next 10 people?” And when people are made redundant through no fault of their own, such as in mergers, those remaining can feel guilty and may wonder why have they survived when friends have been sacked.

Leaving a job is rarely perfect — it is often messy and can provoke a range of emotions, from sadness to relief, or lingering resentments and excitement about new possibilities. This is all healthy and normal, and implies that the job and relationships made were meaningful.

Some endings are more challenging than others, however, as in the case of a client of mine whom I helped cope with a brutal and unfair dismissal by his boss.

My client explained: “[My boss] raised a whole bunch of issues which were essentially fabricated. He invited me to resign and if I didn’t I would be pushed out. When I said that it wasn’t to do with operational aspects, but [rather] how he and I had failed to work together, he had a histrionic fit and stormed out of the office. The head of HR walked me out of the building, took my phone and my pass.

“The overall experience felt more like being a courtier in the court of Louis XIV, where your ability to stay or go was determined by how attractive you were to the king, as opposed to whether you were delivering something credible.

“In hindsight, I realised that fundamentally it wasn’t down to a failure on my part, it was down to someone who was deeply flawed, and in subsequent years since leaving that’s been validated by the success that followed.”

Unless such bad endings are analysed and processed, unfair accusations can become internalised and the person made to feel inadequate. They are then likely to take their aggrieved feelings and project them into their next job, repeating a similar dynamic.

Mark Stein, emeritus professor of leadership and management at the University of Leicester, believes the worst scenario is when someone is unceremoniously thrown out and a non-disclosure or “gagging order” is imposed. It signals to the people who stay that, “I too could face this”.

He gives an example of when a person has only a few hours to leave and their email is suddenly shut down. “It often comes as a complete surprise — with no warning and [they are terrified] about [their] career. The only compensating fact is getting a sum of money for signing a gagging order.

“They are so frightened about jeopardising their pay-off that they don’t speak to colleagues or respond to questions. It’s catastrophic: not only losing the job, but the friendships at work.”

So how should employers handle departures? Above all, treat people with kindness and respect.

Endings need to be marked by rituals to help people move on, but it is important to find out how the individual would like to mark their leaving. Ensuring it is recognised in a positive way reinforces a safe working culture and allows the possibility for future working relationships.

Remember that those remaining will observe how their colleague is treated. Even if the reasons for a departure are unsettling, managers should provide an explanation because secrecy can become toxic, allowing people’s malignant fantasies to run wild.

For leavers, knowing someone else can do your job or that you may be quickly forgotten might be difficult pills to swallow, but this can be eased by valuing your achievements and the good relationships made.

There can also be personal and professional realities that are only confronted when leaving. Another client explains how a good ending from his employer helped ease the blow and accept that a 20-year career was being terminated prematurely because of serious illness. As he puts it: “[It was like] ending the war going on inside me, between my ambitions and my reality.”

A woman who left her job abruptly after being sexually harassed by her boss says: “It’s incredibly sad because I was leaving behind relationships and work that I was passionate about. I cried, I’m not going to lie, but I was having conversations with people which helped me move on. Some people were quite shocked and said they felt bad or guilty. They saw my ending and thought, ‘Gosh, that could be me’.”

A man who sold his business after reaching his financial targets reflects: “There was a sense of, ‘could we have achieved more?’ And of not wanting to burn bridges with my business partners. While we did have our difficulties, we accomplished what we set out to do. That shared experience of achieving success — it’s a bit like brothers, where you fight but ultimately there is a bond. But you also wonder what your employees are going to think of you and how you’ll be remembered.”

Change is confusing and makes us anxious. It is also ubiquitous. The world of work has been transformed by rapid and disruptive technological development, issues of equality and race, and political upheavals such as Brexit. And then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which has only accelerated change and deepened uncertainty.

Even if such changes are positive, they can feel overwhelming. Suddenly people are forced to make cognitive and behavioural adjustments to entrenched habits and ways of thinking, and are forced out of their comfort zone.

And change, of course, always involves loss. Leaving one’s area of expertise, saying goodbye to trusted colleagues and losing the admiration of clients are just some of the losses for individuals. Transitioning to a new role can also leave one feeling inadequate, isolated and fearful of not being up to the job.

One example comes from a solicitor in her thirties who sought my help after moving from London to another city to be close to her family. She was recruited by a firm that wished to expand its services in her area of law. When she began the job, she was shocked to discover her new colleagues had little interest in her expertise and the firm’s management offered inadequate resources. Her confidence plummeted to the extent she could no longer think clearly.

“It felt as if I had gone from being a respected player to being a curiosity on the sidelines,” she explains. “Everyone was nice, but rarely sought my opinion nor listened if I volunteered it. I had the ‘that’s not the way we do things round here’ response more than once.”

To counter this, we are exploring how she might assert her role and express her concerns and needs to the firm more forcefully.

For people switching employers, having to work from home during the pandemic has magnified such difficulties. And even for those staying put, I have clients who have felt disorientated because changes in personnel and leadership occurred “online”. They only felt the impact of these changes when they returned to the office.

Because of the Great Resignation and global staff shortages, people are being asked to take positions for which they lack training or experience. Consequently they can suffer extreme imposter syndrome, blaming themselves for failings when in fact their organisation is setting unrealistic expectations and/or not providing adequate resources.

Although many managers believe in maximising staff autonomy, for those struggling in changed roles this can mean being left to fend for themselves. New staff in particular are sometimes short changed in necessary instruction and guidance. Supporting such employees as their manager requires asking questions and having regular conversations — and not just when things go wrong.

Even when transitions are positive, such as a promotion, individuals can suffer raised anxiety as they leave behind their areas of expertise and discover that what is required is more to do with managing relationships. Not only had their technical skills served them professionally, often the same traits had helped them manage their emotional lives.

This was the case for a 36-year-old man who came to me for work psychotherapy following a depressive breakdown.

He had been promoted to chief marketing officer by his employer, which required more strategic thinking. His chief executive, who was preoccupied by other objectives, assumed my client would know what was required. Adding to his stress, he also had to perform his old role as well for an initial period.

This created a mental conflict between having to think strategically and executing operational tasks.

“I felt I was moving backwards and consumed with things not going right. The only way that I was getting any break was in drinking and trying to forget things. Your chest is tight and you want to cry, sometimes you do cry, and feel you’re oversensitive to everything,” he says.

During our sessions he told me that during childhood he found learning had helped him overcome feelings of inadequacy, ease his feelings of isolation and become socially confident.

He took this strategy into his career, studying what was necessary and becoming expert. As a result he prided himself on accepting fresh challenges. But when faced with the reality that he could not possibly absorb all that was required for his new job, he panicked.

“That caused me to have more doubts, to drink more, become less focused and then spiral downwards until a point where I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Instead, he had to learn to ask others for help, and accept that the strategy that had served him well in the past was now obstructing his ability to adapt.

It was difficult because when stressed or anxious one is likely to double-down on what is familiar and comfortable, rather than recognise what needs to change. Being confused and overwhelmed are triggers to stop and think, “hang on, what’s going on?”

As my client says: “The crazy thing is I’ve been on management courses [where] you learn at a superficial level, but then there are things inside you which short-circuit the right thing to do and you don’t do it. This is where our conversations helped.”

Recognising the opportunity for new possibilities and personal development in times of uncertainty can motivate individuals to face change. Seeking help, finding the courage to experiment and allowing for failures are crucial. Most difficult is tolerating the uncomfortable feelings that will arise.

This era of rapid and profound change puts a tremendous onus on business leaders. Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and managing principal of New York’s Boswell Group, a consultancy that advises leaders, says that as change brings greater complexity the leader’s essential role is the ability to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty, rather than offering certainty and clarity that is quickly exposed as false.

“Never has there been a greater need for humility on the part of leaders — which is the opposite of arrogance and certainty,” he says.

“The leaders who are thriving are seeing this as a time that is really interesting — where their intellectual curiosity comes to the fore without feeling the need to fully understand and taking some pleasure in adapting to these rapidly changing circumstances.”

People who come to see me for work therapy are usually troubled by behaviour they know is damaging their career or business, but are unable to stop. 

When well-meaning advice from coaches or colleagues fails to help, digging more deeply to understand our underlying motivations can be the most effective solution. Since the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, psychotherapists have known that our early childhood experiences have a significant effect on our perceptions and character traits, which we then bring into our working lives.

Compulsions such as perfectionism, workaholism, controlling behaviour and even people pleasing, habits which can undermine our careers, can be understood best by examining our past.

Our earliest relationships reside deep in our minds and, consciously or not, create a template for how we relate to others, respond to conflict and deal with authority. These relationships, beginning with our parents or caregivers, set the tone for how we perceive all subsequent relationships, including and especially those in the workplace.

For example, if in our formative years our parents responded to us with nurturing care and interest, we are more likely to believe that authority figures later will treat us with the same regard. However, if we were let down routinely or harmed in any way, we are likely to anticipate that other people we depend on will fail us or even be against us.

While we might grudgingly accept that our unreasonable behaviour in our personal lives is a reaction to early family experiences, we rarely consider how work tensions might originate from the same source. At work we are generally convinced that problems and threats we experience come from others — manipulative colleagues, bullying bosses or demanding clients. 

The danger, however, is that we may be misinterpreting matters — overestimating the external threats (from bosses, clients, colleagues or even underlings) and underestimating the internal ones (from unresolved past conflicts). Such confusion can mean we misread situations — for example, believing our manager’s intrusions into our work mean he or she is planning to fire us rather than attempting to help. 

Misreading situations

One 48-year-old man in advertising nearly had a breakdown because he felt persistently manipulated by a succession of female bosses. He always thought he was on the verge of being sacked or criticised and so became highly conscientious and perfectionistic in his work.

This is how he described his first boss: “She would land me with her outlandish ideas and would then leave me to deal with them. We would have these long conversations which felt very intimate. I wanted her to stop feeding me these stupid ideas that weren’t going to work. It felt like my mother trying to get inside my head and manipulate me.”

In his youth his mother’s intrusive and persistent questioning about details of his life left him feeling suffocated. “As a teenager I was miserable and wanted my mother to back off, but she always wanted to know who I was friendly with and who said what to whom — she always wanted to drag more out of me.”

Resisting her questioning had consequences for him. “I always feared she would lose her rag. She could get very unpleasant if I crossed her.”

Once his career had begun, he transferred that same confusion and mistrust of women to his female managers. Consequently, he tended to misread their intentions as malicious rather than supportive. 

And ironically, rather than avoid criticism, he unknowingly encouraged it. He gave an example: “One boss came up with a bizarre idea and I concluded that this was ridiculously stupid. The first thing I did was panic and put it on the back burner. The end result was that I annoyed her. I later realised that the idea was a good one but at the time I thought that she was dumping this on me to make me look bad.”

As long as such internal threats reside in our unconscious we have little or no control over our reactions. But bringing such processes to conscious awareness gives us the clarity to respond appropriately rather than irrationally.

Another case of the past playing out in the present came from a recently promoted chief executive of a consultancy company. 

His fear of offending people meant that he was unable to give his clients the harsh truths they were paying him for. Instead, he was bending over backwards to make them feel good. Not only was he undermining his career, but the company was at risk of losing clients. 

Through our discussions, I discovered that the first person he upset seriously was his mother. Initially he was her “golden child”, but when he was bullied at school he lost his spark and humour, and his mother withdrew, wrongly interpreting his low mood as criticism of her rather than a plea for help. This left him feeling depressed and alone. 

In his teens he discovered that by pleasing others he could escape loneliness and he later brought this same approach to his professional life to protect him from imagined threats of rejection. That came with consequences, as he now realises: “[People pleasing] is inhibiting because the decisions you make are layered in lots of considerations about how the other person might feel and react, how they might speak against you or recruit others against you. By trying not to offend them and diluting what you say means you’re less efficient, less productive.”

Paradoxically, this made it more likely that his clients would be frustrated and walk away, leaving him with the very feelings he was fleeing from.

Why the past plays out in the present

The most common question I am asked is why would anyone knowingly repeat behaviour that undermines their career? 

Simply, the determination to resolve tensions from our early years is often strong enough to sabotage our ambitions. Unconsciously, we repeat past scenarios to try to resolve them, but sadly it often results in repeated failure rather than resolution. Furthermore, returning to the past is compelling and there are few surprises, whereas change is uncomfortable and confusing.

Not only are unresolved conflicts re-enacted in the workplace, attempts to fulfil deeper longings are too. Perhaps you lacked sufficient attention or reassurance from a parent, love was scarce at best and security inconsistent. At work these longings can be ignited so that praise and validation from the boss means much more than simply that you are doing a good job — it becomes your way to try to satisfy needs that were inadequately met in childhood. 

What to do next

If we believe that people at work are against us, we need to consider whether our suspicions are based in reality or emanate from our early lives. Separating our personal past from our professional present is crucial to read situations accurately and respond appropriately. 

If your feelings are strong and reactions irrational, you may be responding more to historical than present events. Find someone you trust to help you gain perspective. Get to know who your bosses, colleagues and underlings actually are, rather than who you imagine them to be. You might discover that they are reasonable and not against you at all. 

It is no wonder that work relationships touch deep wounds from our past. Issues around dependency, authority and closeness in the workplace can reignite our earliest experiences of them. Furthermore, there is rarely the time or interest to find out who colleagues are, and instead we judge them quickly, putting them into various pigeonholes that we are rarely inclined to reassess. But if our view of them is based on our misguided perceptions, misunderstandings are inevitable. 

Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, is acting out their childhood experiences in the workplace and this is what makes office politics such a minefield. If you want to understand your colleagues’ irrational behaviour, begin by understanding your own.

‘The Man who Mistook his Job for his Life’, by Naomi Shragai

Naomi Shragai is a psychotherapist whose practice includes a lot of workplace therapy, both inside companies in an official capacity, and in her private practice. Her name may be familiar to FT readers as she has written many articles about the ways in which our unconscious motivations influence our behaviour and relationships, at work and beyond.

Now she’s bringing all her insights together in a fascinating book. The Man who Mistook his Job for his Life is for anyone who is curious about human behaviour — our own, and that of our colleagues and bosses. By learning how our early experiences may be influencing the way we react to tricky situations — chapters include “In fear of conflict — or why there is no such thing as a perfect childhood” — we can take the right action to solve our workplace problems.

The book is much more than a practical guide, though. It is a guide to all human life and there is a fair amount of personal anecdote from Shragai’s own life. We may all claim rationality, but that is rarely evident in our workplaces.

Shragai is not just telling us why we behave as we do (it is because “the pull towards the familiar is strong and it is often powerful enough to overtake our conscious desires”). She shows us how to get past these patterns and find a different way of reacting.

‘Woke, Inc: Inside the Social Justice Scam’, by Vivek Ramaswamy

“Wokeness”, or the idea of being alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice, is contentiously sitting at the centre of the so-called “culture wars” that dominate much of public politics.

But when “woke” ideas are sponsored by big corporations, Vivek Ramaswamy argues we risk turning democracies into the autocracy of the elite. In Woke, Inc., the founder and former chief executive of biotech group Roivant Sciences examines the ways in which stakeholder capitalism and woke culture have developed over the past decade, and how this evolution has put the legitimacy of democratic processes on the line.

The book was written following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, when Ramaswamy penned an article arguing against the censorship of individual accounts on Twitter and Facebook. The backlash to the piece was such that the author felt compelled to step down as CEO and focus on defending his political ideas.

Ramaswamy argues that stakeholder capitalism has become a means for top level corporations to increase their profit while dictating moral and social values that should rather be voted on by the electorate.

He presents a clear argument filled with entertaining professional and personal anecdotes and claims that wokeness is used as a “hollow excuse” for companies to assume their place in a “moral pantheon”.

In contrast with other forms of lobbying, “woke” moral principles are, he writes, comparable to a religion that is being imposed without the consent of the majority. However, most policies lobbied by large corporations have an equal impact on voters’ day-to-day lives.

While the author’s criticism of the infiltration of politics in the boardroom is valid, he fails to explain who, exactly, is behind the turn to “woke” capitalism.

But as the political cleavages of American (and to a certain extent, British) society become more entrenched in cultural and identity issues, Woke, Inc. is a reminder of the power of overcoming group think centred around identity labels, and facing challenges with a more equanimous mindset.

‘Friday is the New Saturday: How a Four-day Working Week Will Save the Economy’, by Pedro Gomes

The concept of working four days a week started decades ago and has divided opinions.

But as we slowly emerge from the pandemic, the conversation around the idea is gaining force. Pedro Gomes presents a compelling approach to the topic, rooting his arguments in a range of economic theories, history and data — focused on the improvement of society.

The narrative is constructed around the ideas of influential economists John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek. The book is thoroughly researched, providing substantial analysis of both the benefits and drawbacks of changing the status quo of the five-day week.

The book examines arguments from both the left and right of the political spectrum. The first part explains the historical panorama of the four-day working movement, with statistics, facts and initial thoughts on how the economic activities could be reorganised to influence a healthy societal change.

Moving on, the author blends economic theory, opinions of brilliant minds, stories of successful companies, anecdotal evidence and examples based on data to persuade readers from different ideological preferences. He uses eight economic statements to explore different scenarios of what people would do with their extra day off work.

In one of the statements — “Because it will give people more freedom to choose how to spend their time” — Gomes comments that under the four-day week, workers would have more freedom to decide how much and when to work, leveraging productivity and a better work-life balance.

The final part examines the practical details of implementing the four-day working week, in both the private and public sectors, how it could propel innovation and remodel our idea of freedom. After all, Keynes believes “the biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones”.

‘Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why It’s Everyone’s Business’, by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro

‘Power for All’ is an attempt to reclaim the idea of power as a good thing and explain how to increase it in your life © Little, Brown Book Group

The concept of power is a difficult one. Most people would like more of it in their lives, but we also see the problems caused by those few who have a lot of it. This book is an attempt to reclaim the idea of power as a good thing and explain how to increase the power in your life, while noting that this is only good if society shares power around more. It is a difficult sell but takes the reader through some interesting examples of how to use power and how not to.

The authors — both professors of organisational behaviour — frame their subject in economic terms. Power can manifest itself in various forms: a skill; access to certain people; or an understanding of how to act in certain circumstances. But like other scarce resources, it is only valuable if someone else wants what you have to offer.

Battilana and Casciaro include insightful anecdotes about how power is gained by those we know as powerful. But many of the examples the authors give are purposefully everyday to illustrate both the importance of power for all of us in order to have a good life and how we can all obtain it.

This is a guide to how people can build power over their lives, and those of others. It is also a call to arms. The way to counter the devious enterprises of the powerful is not to turn our back on power, but to understand how we can use our own portion of it to fight unjust hierarchies and to ensure individual rights.

‘Undiversified: The Big Gender Short in Investment Management’, by Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley

‘Undiversified’ is aimed at those who might be considering a career in investment management or those already in the industry © Columbia University Press

When you think of someone who manages money, do you think of a man or a woman? This is the opening line to Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley’s deep dive into investment management, its gender problem and how to fix it.

It has a broad appeal in terms of the issues it deals with, but it is aimed at those who might be considering an IM career or those already in the industry. The authors, both successful portfolio managers, highlight the contradiction between the mantra that “diversification is investing 101”, yet why is this not reflected among practitioners?

Split into three parts, the first gives an overview of the industry, the jobs, and the gender imbalance. The second looks at why women are not choosing to go into the industry both at a graduate and MBA level, and identifies the barriers to women’s advancement (80-hour weeks don’t work so well with family life). It also provides insights from other women who have succeeded in developing a successful career and the different paths they have taken.

Part three looks at solutions; how to recruit more women by increasing the visibility of the IM career and how to improve its “image problem”. Less Gordon Gekko and the more troublesome activist investors and more a focus on IMs’ role “as stewards of capital”.

Carr and Dudley also make a case for changing the entry-level recruiting process and improving retention by applying data driven approaches to both promotions and pay. And they ask that readers demand to know who exactly manages their money, as “you will shine a brighter light on our problem”.