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International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2005 © Whurr Publishers Ltd 103

The Leonardo Effect: Why

Entrepreneurs Become their Own
Fathers

CARLO STRENGER AND JACOB BURAK

ABSTRACT

In depth investigation of male entrepreneurs shows a consistent finding: a large

proportion of male entrepreneurs tend to experience their fathers as weak, inefficient,
abusive, or absent. “Fatherlessness,” as we call this constellation, is, of course, not of
itself either a necessary or sufficient condition for entrepreneurship, and even less for
successful entrepreneurship. The present paper tries to identify the psychodynamic
constellation that allows some entrepreneurs to psychologically deal with the
experience of fatherlessness and to transform it into an asset. We do so using Freud’s
hypothesis that Leonardo da Vinci’s extreme independence of mind was one of the
predisposing factors to his extreme inquisitiveness and creativity. This model needs to
be combined with the insight that fatherlessness is per se harmful. Through detailed
case studies it is shown how only those who truly come to terms with fatherlessness can
become successful entrepreneurs, whereas those who remain fixated to the rage and
disappointment generated by fatherlessness are bound to become what we call self-
destroyers out of unconscious guilt or grandiose dreamers. The paper concludes with
some practical advice on how to identify the various types.

Key words: entrepreneurs, fatherlessness, independence, Leonardo da Vinci

INTRODUCTION

Research on male entrepreneurs (for a review, see Malach-Pines et al., 2002)

consistently reiterates an intriguing finding. Entrepreneurs tend to experience
their fathers as weak, inefficient, physically and/or emotionally absent. This
result seems, at least at first sight, counterintuitive. One of the more
entrenched assumptions of both commonsense and academic psychology is that
good fathering is crucial in the development of positive masculine identity. If
the father is strong, consistent, caring, and provides a positive identification
model, sons are more likely to develop similar character traits (for accumu-
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104 Strenger and Burak

lation of research, see Lamb 1997). If so, why should weak, absent, and ineffi-
cient fathers be relatively typical of male entrepreneurs? What role do failing
fathers, or “fatherlessness,” as we will call the experience of growing up with
insufficient fathering, have in shaping the entrepreneurial psyche?
Of course not all entrepreneurs are fatherless: there are families that have
evolved entrepreneurial dynasties (think of the Rothschilds, the Fords, the
Warburgs). Our focus will be on fatherless entrepreneurs. Our central argument
will be as follows: men, who come to terms with their fatherlessness and, in a
psychological sense, become their own fathers are indeed capable of creating
lasting businesses. Others never come to terms with their fatherlessness. Even
though they become entrepreneurs, they continue to suffer from inner void,
rage, and difficulty with authority. As a result they are likely to become self-
destroyers or grandiose dreamers, as we will call two typical syndromes of failing
entrepreneurs.
We will exemplify all these constellations through extensive case presenta-
tions, provide an analysis, and conclude with some practical applications: the
selection of entrepreneurs for investment, and the prevention of business
failures through early identification of the syndromes.
First of all we should emphasize that our experience confirms research
findings (Kets de Vries, 1985; Miner, 1997; Malach-Pines et al., 2002). Most
entrepreneurs that we have interviewed or worked with, indeed, describe and
remember their fathers as weak, as disappointing, as failures, as models to be left
behind rather than to be emulated. Some of them talk about their fathers with
visible pain, some with hidden anger, and others again with overt disdain and
hardly hidden rage.
Freud wrote a study that is of relevance to our question. In 1910 he
published a small book on the psychology of Leonardo da Vinci, who was born
the illegitimate son of a Florentine nobleman (Freud, 1910). Until the age of
five he grew up alone with his doting mother. Only afterwards his father legit-
imized him and took him into his home.
Freud formulates an intriguing hypothesis: until the age of five Leonardo did
not experience the weight of forbidding paternal authority, and hence his
infantile curiosity on sexual and other matters was not inhibited. As a result
Leonardo developed a mind that could roam freely, investigating nature, the
laws of painting and perspective, mechanics, or any other topic that caught his
attention. Leonardo was a multi-talented entrepreneur and innovator: he is
most famous for his innovations in painting, but he was an excellent anatomist,
engineer, and inventor who sold his services to a variety of Italian city-states.
Freud’s image of the father is primarily that of a (literally and metaphori-
cally) forbidding authority (Freud, 1905). Hence he thought that fatherlessness
may be liberating. Freud’s hypothesis might explain why entrepreneurs display a
disproportionately high frequency of fatherlessness. Entrepreneurs, after all,
need to branch out on their own. They need to feel that they do not need
external permission to do their own thing, and they need an extraordinarily
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The Leonardo Effect 105

high degree of independence to build their own framework. Let us call this the
Leonardo effect.
As a general statement the Leonardo hypothesis cannot be right.
Fatherlessness does not by itself foster independence, nor is it a sufficient
condition for entrepreneurship. Many men who grow up with insufficient
fathering end up as disoriented adults who cannot find their way in the world
(Erikson, 1959). Absent fathers are no blessing. They constitute a burden on
their sons. The question is why a sub-group of fatherless sons turn this, in and of
itself painful, experience into a motivation to develop into entrepreneurs.
Freud’s depiction of the father as forbidding authority is lopsided. It does not
take into account that fathers also have a very different function for their sons.
Psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut provided a fruitful analysis of this highly important
function (Kohut, 1971, 1977, 1979). The father, among other things, provides
the son with an ideal of what it could be like to be a man. This idealized image
will, in time, provide the foundation for the adult man’s sense that there are
goals worth striving for. The boy’s experience of his father as admirable and
worth emulating constitutes the developmental cornerstone of the adult’s sense
of orientation.
Kohut gives poignant descriptions of the enormous difficulty little boys have
when their fathers fail to provide a model that can be idealized. If father
behaves in a disappointing manner, the experience is shock, a sense of
emptiness, and unbearable loss. In fact, the result can be a life-long lack of
ideals and joy of life. A father who fails to provide an ideal image can become
the source for overt or covert depression, disorientation, and a weak sense of
self.
Kohut’s description of the father’s role would lead us to expect the opposite
of the Leonardo hypothesis: fatherlessness is likely to produce men who are
weak, prone to depression, and lacking in direction. They are likely to harbor a
deep sense of disappointment and rage for having been deprived of a crucial
source of support in their development.
The question we need to answer is: how do successful entrepreneurs
overcome the wounds inflicted by failing fathers, and under what conditions do
they instead exhibit the Leonardo effect?
Freud’s Leonardo hypothesis certainly points to some truth: the lack of
paternal authority generates a space of freedom. Yet living with this freedom is
difficult, and does not necessarily lead to success. Because entrepreneurs have
become cultural icons, we tend to forget that at least nine out of ten enterprises
fail. Although fatherlessness may indeed predispose towards entrepreneurship,
it does not in itself predispose towards successful entrepreneurship. What makes
the difference? Under what conditions will the fatherless child feel that there
are no rules and boundaries, and hence come into conflict with social rules and
regulations? What must happen in order for the future adult to be capable of
using this freedom to create something within the bounds of social accept-
ability?
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106 Strenger and Burak

Freud (1910) raises this question in the Leonardo book: he argues that
psychoanalytic exploration cannot explain why Leonardo became a genius,
whereas others who grew up in similar circumstances will do nothing extraor-
dinary. We do not claim to have the answer that eluded Freud. We cannot
formulate the sufficient conditions for the development of successful entrepre-
neurship.
Yet we do have a hypothesis about a factor that would help to explain at least
some of the differences between successful and failing entrepreneurs. The crucial
question is what emotional impact is left by the experience of fatherlessness.
Our answer, in a nutshell, is as follows: Kohut’s theory addresses basic
paternal function. Therefore it generates the hypothesis that is, in fact,
warranted by both commonsense psychology and research: fatherlessness is first
and foremost a burden on the child, and its effect is likely to be detrimental. In
order to be conducive to successful entrepreneurship, the experience of father-
lessness must be transformed in significant ways.
Fatherlessness can lead in two directions: the more common one is the
rejection of rules and boundaries and a persistent tendency to disregard reality
(Omer, 2000). Children deprived of guidance can often not negotiate the
complex developmental task of acquiring a strong sense of reality on their own.
The seeming freedom from external authority more often generates a weakened
sense of direction, or overt conflict with social authority. The result can be lack
of persistence and stamina, but it can also lead to delinquency.
How can fatherlessness become the cornerstone of positive character traits?
The essence of entrepreneurship is the creation of an independent institution
that is run by its founder. Paternal failure provides the future entrepreneur with
the incentive to create his own environment. He learns in early childhood that
he cannot rely on external sources of comfort, strength, and support, and
therefore prefers to create his own environment over which he has control (for
an extreme example, see Roman Polanski’s (1984) autobiography).
Entrepreneurship, we will argue, is a way of dealing with the pain engen-
dered by fatherlessness (see also Kets de Vries, 1985, 1996). Future
entrepreneurs realize at a very early age that they are on their own, that they
cannot rely on any external sources of strength. This early realization can
become the cornerstone of a powerful sense of inner authority. Entrepreneurs
do not wait for external empowerment, but can generate such empowerment
from within.
If it engenders the desire to create a more life-sustaining environment than
the one the entrepreneur grew up in, he is more likely to succeed. As we will
see, it takes extraordinary inner strength to overcome the pain and loss any
child deprived of adequate fathering experiences. Fatherlessness can predispose
to entrepreneurship, but this does not mean that it constitutes the foundation
of successful entrepreneurship. The Leonardo effect may provide a sense of
independence from external authority.
But fatherlessness can also create the propensity for unrealistic hopes and
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The Leonardo Effect 107

disregard for realistic threats and problems. If fatherlessness leaves future entre-
preneurs with an inner void and/or rage at having been deprived of the
essentials for healthy growth, they are likely to develop one or both of two
syndromes that we are about to exemplify: they can become self-destroyers or
unrealistic dreamers. Let us therefore have a closer look at the human drama
behind both successful and failing entrepreneurship engendered by the
experience of fatherlessness.

CASE STUDY 1: BENJAMIN, THE SOCIALIST ENTREPRENEUR

Benjamin was the son of two immigrants who had moved to the USA from
central Europe after the Second World War. They had tried to escape the dire
reality that had been created by the incorporation of their country of origin
into the Communist block under Soviet hegemony. They had dreamt of the
USA as the land of opportunity in which they would finally be able to live a
more fruitful and open life.
They settled in a small town on the east coast. Benjamin’s father had an
enterprising streak to him: he was an inveterate tinkerer, loved to try out new
pieces of machinery, and combined older ones into new configurations. He was
also something of an entrepreneur, but he was highly unsuccessful. “My father
had a singular lack of business talent.” Benjamin says, and adds, almost proudly,
“He didn’t have a merchant’s soul.” Father’s small business ventures went down
the drain one by one.
The family moved to larger towns when Benjamin was six years old. There
was a university, and there were very good schools, in which Benjamin
somehow enrolled. His father continued to open businesses that failed. His
mother had had academic aspirations in central Europe. Becoming an assistant
librarian at the university was as close as she ever got to realizing them.
“My parents were very busy with their lives. My father was involved with his
failing businesses, my mother with desperate attempts to get closer to the
professors. None of them actually had any time for me; neither did they have
much interest in what I was doing. I basically raised myself. I went to school,
and was a good student. I roamed the streets, playing games with the other kids.
“Then I started to be interested in science. I kept fixing things, making experi-
ments, taking machinery apart and putting it together again trying to figure out
how it worked.
“Not far from the school there was a poor neighborhood, primarily black.
The kids there didn’t go to school, and I began to understand that they were in
trouble, that they were headed for criminal careers from early on.”
At age 15 Benjamin began to convince the heads of his school that the
black kids should be drawn to workshops in mechanics, that some of them
might be saved if they found out that repairing broken appliances was inter-
esting and fun. Intrigued, the school authorities let him use the premises for his
projects.
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108 Strenger and Burak

“This is essentially when I found out that I was an entrepreneur” Benjamin

says. I was an ideas man, then as now. I saw what had to be done; I convinced
people around me that it was worth doing, and I set up the structure that would
make it happen.” Benjamin also found out that he was capable of combining all
he wanted into a life structure.
He continued to roam the streets, at age 16 he would sleep more often at his
girlfriend’s than at home. Not because he had to, just for the sake of his
freedom. At some point his parents suddenly noticed that they had completely
lost control of their son, and made a brief attempt to discipline him. “That was
the only time when we were in overt conflict. I explained to them that there
was no way they would tell me what to do, and it didn’t take long for them to
understand that they didn’t stand a chance. So they left me alone.”
After finishing high school he got in touch with a philanthropic foundation,
and convinced them to let him set up a center for homeless kids in the black
neighborhood. He convinced some like-minded late adolescents to join him,
and spent a year building and running this center. “When I was convinced that
I had a successor, I quit. It was time to move on.”
Along all his other activities, Benjamin had managed to be an excellent
student, and he scored an astronomically high SAT, which got him into a first-
rate college and then into a graduate program in engineering. During vacations
he would take backpack trips to Europe, the Far East, South America. “I took
those trips without a penny, so I often slept in the streets. My wife, whom I had
met in college, became my partner in these trips, as well in as in my later
ventures.”
After completing his studies Benjamin took on a series of three jobs. His
choices were designed to lead him to his goal. “The first job in a large high-tech
company gave me experience in R&D. Then I moved west to Silicon Valley. The
second job, in a smaller, more dynamic company taught me how to run projects.
The third, also in a smaller company, allowed me to get experience in strategic
planning and marketing. Then I felt ready to do what I knew I wanted to do.”
His eyes had been set on what he considered to be one of the most beautiful
landscapes in the southern USA. “I knew it would not be easy to lure talent
away from Silicone Valley; but I wanted to set up a company that would be
different. I wanted it to be a place where people could flourish, develop their
creativity. I also wanted to create a community where people could combine
their careers with family life. The company would provide facilities for
children, and we would make them part of the general atmosphere. My wife,
who was a social scientist, helped me in putting these ideas into reality.”
Benjamin founded his company on another principle as well: “At heart I am
an inventor. I didn’t want to create a company around a single product. I
wanted the company to be constantly inventive. I predicted that outsourcing
would become a major trend in the semi-conductor industry, and I proved to be
right. We developed several products that were highly successful, because they
truly met needs of the industry.”
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The Leonardo Effect 109

Benjamin was not looking for the quick kill. The company grew quickly, but
conservatively. After four years and several rounds of raising venture capital,
the company had sales of $45 million with fewer than 50 employees. The
largest players in the industry bought his products, even though they could
often hardly believe what they saw when they visited the company. “They
would talk about Benjamin’s kindergarten” he says with a smile. “They couldn’t
believe how a place that looked more like a playground than an R&D facility
would come up with these incredible technologies. The whole point was the
atmosphere: the people at my company were not brilliant; neither am I. The
secret was in the synergy of teams and the fun people had in working.”
Benjamin had not dropped his socialist leanings in becoming a business
entrepreneur. From the very beginning he set aside 25% of the equity for the
company’s employees. If necessary he used his own equity to maintain this
percentage.
After four years he launched a successful IPO (initial public offering) based
on a market capitalization of $400 million. Benjamin maintained a controlling
shareholding, and, despite taking care of his employees, did rather well for
himself.
Because Benjamin insisted on selling only fully developed and well tested
technology, the company grew solidly but relatively slowly. After another two
years he had sales of $125 million – with a $40 million profit. “At the time the
market sought fast growth, not profitability. Hence the share price did not
reflect the company’s real value. I understood that in order to solidify the
business I needed a strategic partner, because clients wanted integrated
solutions.”
Benjamin sought and found a strategic partner, and negotiated a good deal.
He stayed on for another year as chief executive officer, and made sure that the
character of the original company would not be harmed. He then gradually
retired. “It was a good merger that created a lot of value; I’m happy about that.”
Currently, Benjamin has moved to another area of the USA. “I really need
time to reconnect to myself. Those years as a chief executive officer demanded
a lot of hard work. And I’m not sure whether negotiating investment deals is
what I’m about. I’m glad I did all this; but now I want to be able to write poetry
again. And I’m thrilled about not having the slightest idea what I will do in five
years.” It would have been easy to miss out on the fact that Benjamin and his
wife have set up a philanthropic foundation involved in community building in
poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Benjamin has not ceased being a socialist
entrepreneur.

THE HUMAN REALITY BEHIND THE LEONARDO EFFECT:

TURNING PAIN INTO MOTIVATION FOR GROWTH

You would never believe that Benjamin is the founder and ex-Chief Executive
Officer of a company that became an impressive high-tech success story. He is
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110 Strenger and Burak

somewhat shy and his presence is low-key. Once he starts talking, in his quiet,
pensive voice, you become enthralled. When asked questions about his
emotional life, he is reflective, and sometimes puzzled. When talking about his
ideals, his business decisions and the company he created he emanates a quiet
but powerful enthusiasm.
The simple fact is that Benjamin was a neglected child. His parents were
busy dealing with their own existential frustrations, and had little time or
energy for their son. He speaks of them with some resignation, and it is difficult
to detect anger at them.
When he describes his childhood and adolescence, he has a mischievous
smile. He loves the memories of the freedom he created for himself.
Listening to his story, the first hypothesis that comes to mind is that, being a
neglected child himself, he decided very early that there was no one he could
rely on. His way of dealing with the pain of neglect was to find ways of helping
others in similar and worse plights. In adolescence he falls in love with the idea
of communities that foster growth and creativity, and all his activities, whether
in business or in philanthropy, are guided by them.
Benjamin is not psychologically minded. When we raised the hypothesis
that in taking care of neglected children he was also trying to heal the wounds
inflicted by his own childhood neglect, he was puzzled. As usual, Benjamin did
not dismiss the idea out of hand, but said: “I should really give this more
thought.”
His relationship to his father is rather fascinating. On the one hand he sees
his father realistically as a man who failed both as a father and as an entre-
preneur. Yet there is a hidden pride when he says “My father did not have a
merchant’s soul.” In a way Benjamin’s life is a vindication of the possibility of
being a success without being primarily driven by the desire to make as much
money as possible. His considerable financial success is almost a side product of
acting in accordance to his social ideals and his love for invention.
Again, Benjamin’s transformative powers come to the fore here: even
though he was let down by his father, and even though he could not use him as
a role model, he wanted to preserve some love and pride for his father. He did
so by turning his father’s lack of business acumen into strength. He showed that
one could be successful without being money-minded. Again, when asked, he
was puzzled by the hypothesis, but could not confirm any conscious intention to
vindicate his father – but he likes the idea.

CASE STUDY 2: JIM, THE MAN WHO NEEDED TO DESTROY HIS

ACHIEVEMENT

Jim was the third and last-born of a devout catholic family. His parents were
very involved in the church community, and had very clear images of what the
good life consisted of. They expected respect, they expected devotion – and
they had very little time for emotional interchanges.
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The Leonardo Effect 111

Jim felt uncomfortable with his surroundings from very early on. He had
little use for his parents’ disciplinarian attitudes, nor did he care much about
the community’s expectation for submissiveness. Already in his early teens he
began to be in open conflict with his parents. When they found out that he
skipped religious instruction and spent his time playing baseball with kids of
the adjoining neighborhood, they tried everything to discipline him: beatings,
scolding, and trying to bully him into submission were their means of trying to
get him to comply.
It was all to little avail. Their youngest son was not to be beaten into
submission. Then they resorted to systematically telling him what a piece of
shit he was, that he was going to burn in hell for committing mortal sins, that
his disrespect for his parents was in and of itself reason enough for his eternal
damnation. He reacted with rage, and his rebellion became even more
pronounced.
In his late teens the tension became unbearable. Jim’s parents told him:
either you comply, or you leave. Jim left, and began to roam the state around
him. Sometimes he slept in the streets, sometimes he found odd jobs that
helped him to stay afloat. His pride did not allow him to return home. But there
were nights where he would break down crying, utterly dejected, and he
thought of suicide as the only way out.
Then came his lucky break. The town he stayed in had some major tourist
attractions, and many tour groups would come to visit. One day one of the
groups arrived and the tour-guide fell ill with a really bad flu. Jim had done odd
jobs for the hotel they were staying at; they were desperate, and they asked him
whether he would take over the group. Jim had never done anything of the sort:
he hardly knew the sites he was supposed to show them nor had he ever done
anything like this.
In the two days he spent with the group, Jim found out about two assets he
had. He had an incredible ability to make contact and to fascinate people.
Where he didn’t have the required knowledge, he would fill in the gaps with
sheer chutzpa. In addition, he turned out to be incredibly resourceful and able to
handle emergencies on the spot. The bus broke down, so Jim improvised
another outing while mobilizing a fleet of taxis to get the tourists to the next
site.
The story of his saving the day quickly made the round, and the tour
company hired him as a guide. It didn’t take three weeks until he showed up at
the office of the company’s owner. He had some ideas about how to make some
of the tours more original. The owner did not know whether to be angry at the
youngster’s impetuosity or to be impressed by his ideas.
One thing led to another, and Jim, at the age of 21, found himself devel-
oping new tour packages. He also turned out to be very good at sales. He
quickly understood that selling the packages to institutional and other large
groups could multiply the company’s turnover in no time. But this required
massive investments in marketing, and the owner was a conservative man and
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112 Strenger and Burak

would not hear of it. Jim became angry, then abusive: “How could this old idiot
not see that I was offering him a gold mine?”. Relationships were become more
and more strained, and Jim was on the verge of being kicked out from what had,
in a sense become his adoptive home.
Then came the epiphany: Jim’s family, although devout, had never felt
much connection to high culture. One of the stations on the itinerary of one
group was a church. It had turned out that the day the group was there, a local
choir and orchestra was to perform Mozart’s mass in C minor. Jim had never
heard of it, in fact he hardly knew who Mozart was. But he thought it was a
good idea to throw it into the package. Thus he came to hear Mozart’s great
mass. Of course he knew the text: “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleyson .” But he had
known it as a meaningless recitation. When the first soprano began to sing on
the background of the choir, tears were streaming down Jim’s eyes. He could
not stop crying to the end of the mass.
When he came out of the church Jim’s mind was set. He contacted catholic
organizations with great clout and financial means. He proposed to set up a
company that would create tours for catholic communities. In these tours, they
would not just be shown attractions. The tour guides would be well-versed
Catholics with a deep knowledge of art history, and the tour’s explicit goal
would be to connect between the, often mindless, religious instruction the
participants had received and the great art Catholicism had inspired. The
organizations he contacted quickly saw the immense potential of his idea, and
also felt that it would serve their religious goals well.
It was to take less than a year until the new company got into gear. The
concept was a huge success, but soon enough Jim got into conflict with his
financiers. Even though his original epiphany had to do with his own catholic
upbringing, he himself did not conceive of himself as a catholic anymore. He
saw no reason not to apply the concept to other religious traditions. Why not
cater to people interested in Buddhism, to Protestants, Jews, and others?
Obviously, his catholic partners did not welcome his plans for expansion,
and again Jim was at a crossroads. But now, after three years of running a
successful operation, he was more confident. He spoke to banks and arranged
financing to buy his financiers out. They had little choice but to acquiesce, as
he was the life and soul of the company. At the age of 29, Jim was finally his
own master. Even though highly leveraged, the company was now his own, and
he did not have to rein in his creativity and ambition.
Jim’s mind was bubbling; he would come up with ever new concepts that
combined tourism and culture; sometimes he came up with an idea in the
morning, and by the evening he would have sold the first five tours, before he
even had the slightest idea how he would manage the practicalities. His endless
resourcefulness would generally help him to get out of dire straits. He never
invested deeper thought in developing an organizational structure that would
provide him with the means to plan ahead more systematically. He proudly
called his modus operandi “management by chaos.” Jim also had relatively
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The Leonardo Effect 113

unclear notions of the company’s finances. He just knew that he was making
operating profits despite his unfettered, chaotic growth.
Now in his early thirties, Jim ran his company like a little kingdom. He
would dispense favors to potential clients, took them on tours. But more
ominous signs were beginning to emerge. Jim’s love life had always been
chaotic. He was mostly involved with several women at the same time. He
began to use his company as an endless resource for feeding his voracious sexual
appetites. He would show up in the middle of a cruise, after one of his trusted
employees had targeted the most attractive women, and set up occasions for Jim
to meet them. His charm and charisma combined with his status as owner of
the company would inevitably win them over. Yet many of them would get very
angry when it turned out that he was having affairs with two more women on
the same cruise.
Jim’s endless resourcefulness mostly got him out of trouble somehow; so he
stepped up the ante. He began having affairs with women who worked for the
company. Some of his most trusted employees began to warn him: the climate
in the USA had become extremely sensitive to anything that smelled of sexual
harassment. “It is a matter of time until one of the women you dump will sue
you,” his friends warned him – to no avail. Jim had several close misses. He paid
off some female employees who were hurt by his high-handed and often humil-
iating actions, and he continued to pride himself that it was almost impossible
to nail him down.
As yet, Jim did not fall, but in hindsight it seems that he was determined to
orchestrate his own downfall. If he had not succeeded in doing so with his
affairs with women, he was to succeed with his next step. He had been the
heart and soul of his company, and his hands-on approach kept the chaos from
turning into a disaster. There was no tour, no cruise, no event of which he did
not keep track. If there were operational problems, he would step in, even to
the point of playing tour-guide once again – a role he was particularly fond of,
as it had been the start of his career.
But now Jim decided that he wanted more time for fun. He hired a chief
executive officer (CEO) and retained the chairmanship. The CEO was
horrified by the mess in the company and wanted to create a more structured
management. Jim gave him a free hand for about half a year, until the CEO told
him one day, that he would not implement Jim’s newest idea until he had stabi-
lized the company. He was ousted the day after, not without some litigation
about his severance pay.
Jim was furious. Six months had been enough to make him enjoy the lack of
pressure; he loved not being responsible for day-to-day operations. He
functioned as CEO briefly, until he decided to promote one of his more trusted
employees, a man who had helped him in many of his amorous entanglements,
and who was intensely loyal to him.
From there on, things went downwards. The new CEO began to pay himself
a higher salary and convinced Jim (who had never taken much money
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114 Strenger and Burak

personally), to make a quantum jump in his own salary and bonuses. Company
cars became more lavish, Jim began to use chartered helicopters and aircraft to
join the tours in order to chase women. Jim ignored his CFO’s warnings, and
after two more years the company had to file for chapter 11 amid widely publi-
cized allegations ranging from mismanagement to the implication of criminal
practices. Jim left the USA and ruefully compared himself to Roman Polanski,
who had to flee the USA amid charges of sexually assaulting a minor.

THE ANATOMY OF SELF-DESTRUCTION

Jim never truly got over the wounds inflicted upon him by his upbringing. He
deeply identified his parent’s typecasting him as the bad boy. His rebellion
against his tyrannical but emotionally distant father took the form of
constantly playing with the borders of the acceptable. Throughout his career he
continued to flaunt his disdain for his father’s values. He was driven to
perpetuate his existential role as the bad son. “I am Ivan Karamazov,” he would
sometimes say in the interview.
Jim was not a cold cynic. He did not simply play the bad boy, but desperately
sought something that would make him feel that there was true value to be
found in the world. The epiphany of hearing Mozart’s great Mass in C-minor
was more than the realization of a business opportunity. It was also an outcry of
his soul that there was true beauty, and that religion could be something other
than coercive, condemning indoctrination. Jim wanted to create true value; he
wanted to provide his customers with something that he had never received.
Yet he was torn between the constructive, paternal aspect of his personality,
and the child-part that continued to rage at the ways in which his father had let
him down. In the end his obsession with transgressing the rules of society was
stronger than his, equally genuine desire to create value.
Jim’s fixation to his intrusive and oppressive father can be felt in his inter-
action during the interview. Jim has a strong self-dramatizing streak. He enjoys
playing out the drama of his life. At the same time, there is a distinct sense that
he is uncomfortable with the situation. He very easily experiences questions
and interpretations as threatening impositions; he has an obsessive need to
show that he has thought of anything of value himself. It is difficult to discuss a
topic with him without his trying to turn the conversation into a context of
power struggle. Jim, to this very day, experiences himself as being in a struggle
with authority.

CASE STUDY 3: ARNOLD, THE MAN WHO WANTED TO PROVE

HE WAS VALUABLE

Arnold’s family was proud of its lineage. Soon after Jews were allowed into
German universities, one of Arnold’s ancestors became a famous legal scholar.
He founded a dynasty of scholars and researchers in law, medicine, and
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The Leonardo Effect 115

philology. In the 1920s Arnold’s grandfather moved to Israel, and became one
of the founders of Israel’s first university. The family became part of something
like an Israeli aristocracy. In their quiet ways, they contributed to the founda-
tions of Israel’s intellectual and academic life.
Arnold’s father was a mathematician. Even though he did not produce any
outstanding work, he was highly competent, served as chairman of the
department, organized and participated in international conferences. He
married in his late twenties to a woman who soon turned out to suffer from a
deep depressive streak that became more dominant after the birth of her first
child. The treating psychiatrist advised them to refrain from having more
children.
Mother would spend whole days in bed, and Arnold learned very early that
he was not to disturb her. If he asked for something, or simply sought her
company, she could burst out into rages, after which she would return into her
state of passive helplessness.
His father knew about this, but had no idea what to do. Being well-
connected, they sought out the best psychiatrists in Israel, but no treatment
helped. His father’s way of dealing with the emotional deadness of his wife was
to invest himself more deeply in academia: he took on several administrative
functions, traveled widely, and tried to avoid being at home.
Arnold grew up in an emotional wasteland. Surrounded by photographs of
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather donned in black robes at academic
festivities, he knew that the family was of proud lineage. His grandfather was
alive until his mid-twenties, and Arnold spent quite a bit of time at his grand-
parents. They were caring, but emotionally remote people who would primarily
tell Arnold about the importance of academic achievement.
But Arnold could not concentrate on his studies. From early on he felt an
inner void and chaos. He did not feel truly connected to anyone. He disdained
his father and felt that all this respectability was fake. How could the chair of
the department, the dean of the faculty be incapable of taking care of his son?
The extended family soon gave up on Arnold: he seemed to have none of
the qualities that had made the family into a dynasty of great scholars. They
knew about the depression of Arnold’s mother, but the family style did not
allow explicit discussion of the problem – Arnold continued to live in an
emotional vacuum.
Somehow Arnold managed to finish high school. Because of his asthma he
was exempted from military service, and instead went to school. He studied law,
but could not truly invest himself in his studies again. He made it through law
school somehow, and then moved on to do an internship.
One of the clients was a wealthy man who had no children. He took a liking
to Arnold, who had developed into a charming man who felt very insecure
about his true abilities. The client at some point asked Arnold to come and
help him in managing his investments. Arnold accepted. Something about the
elder man’s warmth and his willingness to trust Arnold made him feel better.
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116 Strenger and Burak

In addition, Arnold came to know a world that his family had always
despised; business was regarded as an inferior field by the extended family. He
eagerly learned from his mentor, who had plenty of experience in real estate
development. And, gradually, Arnold found out that he did indeed have a
talent. He had a knack for business. He knew how to identify valuable assets,
and it turned out that he was a good negotiator.
Gradually he began to deal in equities as well. His employer and mentor was
somewhat reluctant in this respect, but gave Arnold the opportunity to try his
hands at the stock market. Arnold turned out to have a deft touch in this
respect as well, but he failed to convince his mentor to take larger positions in
the stock market.
And then his mentor died, unexpectedly, from a heart attack. Even more
surprisingly, he left Arnold a considerable sum of money in his will. Arnold,
now in his late twenties, was inconsolable at first. The only father-figure who
had ever cared about him had died. It took him a year to overcome his paralysis.
And then he felt that he now had to justify his mentor’s belief in him. He
decided that he was going to make a big success out of himself.
These were the early years of Ronald Reagan’s first term. The stories of
brokers who made millions and corporate raiders who bought huge companies
were beginning to capture the financial world’s imagination. Arnold decided
that New York was the place to be. He was lucky, and without too much effort
he landed a job at one of the major investment banks. He was part of the teams
that handled some spectacular takeovers, again proved adept at his job, and he
was being paid a very good salary. Independently of his job he also played with
his own money, and managed to double it within a year.
Arnold soon began to live the high-flying life of the emerging New York
Yuppie scene. He donned expensive designer suits, wore a gold Swiss watch,
and moved into a fashionable apartment. He loved it. Yet his inner void would
not fill. He decided that this was the time to show his family what he was really
made of.
Through his work he had made the acquaintance of a number of wealthy
business people. This was the time where everyone expected to make huge
returns on their investment. Stars like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken
fuelled everybody’s imagination, and Arnold felt that he had it in him to make
it big.
While he was still in his job, he made sure that he would have enough
investors to open his own hedge fund, and then branched out on his own. His
first year was great: he brought his investors more than 80% return on
investment, and a growing number of people were willing to invest with him.
Arnold was well-connected, he got good tips, he knew how to evaluate
them, and his hedge-fund grew to a remarkable size. He was, by now, truly
well-to-do. He invited his frugal family to New York, hosted them in the most
expensive hotels, and tried to show them a good time. Even though his parents
and cousins accepted his invitation, he did not feel that they were impressed.
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The Leonardo Effect 117

“All they saw was a despicable money-maker” he felt. Again he had failed to
convince them of his value.
He decided that making a lot of money wasn’t enough. He had to do
something truly spectacular. During his time at the investment bank he had
seen corporate takeovers from close by. He decided that it was time to do this
on his own, and put together a group of investors who were willing to go along
with him.
He found a suitable target, put together the right team, and turned to the
investment bank he had worked for to handle the takeover. After months of
strenuous, exhilarating work, the takeover was completed.
But the punch-line was yet to come. Arnold’s plan was to be different from
the standard corporate raiders of the 1980s, who dismantled companies and sold
their assets. He wanted to salvage the company. He was going to prove that he
could not just make money, but truly create value.
Some of his friends and colleagues warned him: after all he had no
experience in corporate management. He was a good investor, and he had
turned to be a gifted player in orchestrating the takeover. But, they told him,
turning around a retail company took skills and experience that he didn’t have.
But Arnold’s mind was set. He was going to prove that he was more than a
gifted manipulator who dressed in Armani suits. And he managed to convince
his investors that he was going to make them a lot of money.
From that point onwards, the demise came quickly, and, in hindsight,
inevitably. Arnold’s lack of experience took its toll. He picked the wrong CEO
for the company, he bet on the wrong strategy for restructuring the company,
and it was to take less than a year until he was forced to surrender his controlling
shares to the financial syndicate that had financed the takeover.
Arnold retreated from business and fell into a rather deep depression. He felt
that he had missed his chance to leave the mark he had wanted to leave, and,
even though he remained rather wealthy, he did not see any value in what he
had achieved.
Arnold went into psychoanalytic treatment, where, in the course of several
years he came to understand the roots of his wrong decisions. His desperate need
to fill the void in his soul, and his fierce desire to show his family that he was a
valuable individual had led him to lose touch with his true talent and to run
after a fantasy that did not suit his abilities.
After his father’s death, in the early 1990s Arnold went through another
crisis: he realized that his deepest desire, to achieve something that his father
would truly respect, would never be fulfilled. Yet in his analytic work, he could
also mourn his own destitute childhood and began to understand that he
needed to live his life without ever achieving what he had been yearning for.
Arnold remarried and moved back into the field in which he had shown
competence. He has since, together with a partner, built an investment
banking boutique that has done well during the high-tech boom of the 1990s,
and has managed to survive the bursting of the bubble.
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118 Strenger and Burak

ANATOMY OF A GRANDIOSE DREAMER

Arnold grew up in an emotional wasteland. The combination of a depressed

mother and a weak and absent father created an unbearable void in his soul. As
often happens with children, Arnold could not simply see his parents’ weakness
for what it was. He inferred that their emotional distance was a function of his
own lack of value as a human being, and embarked on the desperate search to
prove that he was capable of creating something of value.
He might never have got as far as he did without the experience of
emotionally significant mentoring. Sometimes future entrepreneurs find a
father figure who provides them with some of the self-confidence that they did
not have before. But in Arnold’s case the years with his mentor were not
enough to fill the void in his soul, nor did it calm his desperate need to prove to
his parents that he was a valuable human being.
As a result, Arnold was not capable of the type of self-knowledge that is
crucial for successful entrepreneurship. At a crucial juncture in a successful
career he could not distinguish between his real abilities and the image of what
he wanted to be. He did have real talents, but his achievements did not heal
the festering wound in his psyche, and as a result made a crucial mistake.
Arnold’s story is doubly instructive, because it shows that self-knowledge
can indeed prevent fatal mistakes and help entrepreneurs make fuller use of
their talents. After a substantial piece of psychotherapeutic work that dealt
with his profound pain and the sources of his failure Arnold was capable of
reconnecting to himself and to build a new business in which his considerable
talents could express themselves more realistically. Arnold needed to come to
terms with the fact that he was indeed fatherless in order to know both his true
abilities and his true limitations. He was then capable of living not a fantasy of
grandeur, but a realistically constructive life.

THE LEONARDO HYPOTHESIS REVISITED: FROM RAGE AND

PAIN TO INNER AUTHORITY

Benjamin, Jim, and Arnold were all fatherless, each in their own way. They
were also gifted men with proven abilities in their respective fields. Benjamin
securely led his company through various stages of development. Both Jim and
Arnold somehow took turns that led to the downfall of their creations.
Fatherlessness was crucial in the development of all three entrepreneurs. Why
did it lead Benjamin to success, whereas Jim and Arnold failed at some point?
The question is intriguing, because the downfall of both Jim and Arnold was
not a function of lack of competence or talent. Both succeeded for a substantial
period before making catastrophic moves that led to their downfall. Why does
the Leonardo effect work well for some entrepreneurs, and not for others?
Something about the Leonardo hypothesis is compelling: the combination
between the published evidence and our cumulative empirical impression
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The Leonardo Effect 119

makes the idea that a surprisingly large proportion of entrepreneurs are

fatherless difficult to resist. Yet the cases that we have presented show that
Freud has missed a large part of the human drama of fatherlessness. Having
been born into a bourgeois family during a time when the paternal role was, as
yet, less contested than it is nowadays, Freud unconsciously may have wished
his father not to be there (Gay, 1989).
Freud’s theory had strong autobiographical roots. As his various biographers
(Jones, 1955; Gay, 1989) have shown abundantly, he was born into an inter-
esting family constellation: he was the first-born son of his mother, who in turn
was his father’s second wife. He had half-brothers a generation older than
himself. He was his mother’s darling and prince, and from early on felt that he
was destined to greatness, even though his father was a less than impressive role
model. Driven away by bankruptcy from Freud’s place of birth, Jacob Freud
would never quite make it as far has he wished, and cut a less than heroic figure.
Sigmund Freud was driven to leave his mark from early on in his career, and
this drive would lead him up several blind alleys. For a while he thought that
his investigations into the effects of cocaine would make him famous (with
disastrous consequences for one of his friends), and in the early 1890s he
believed to have solved the puzzle of hysterical neurosis by his theory that it
was caused by the trauma of sexual abuse in early childhood.
It was only after his father’s death in the fall of 1896 that Freud embarked on
the course that would turn him into one of the most significant thinkers of the
twentieth century – a status that he is not denied even by those who think that
his theory was wrong-headed. During the year after his father’s death Freud was
to formulate the theory of the Oedipus complex, his general theory of neurosis
and complete his The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900). Soon after this, he
was to initiate the psychoanalytic movement that would continue his work into
the twenty-first century.
Freud, one of the great entrepreneurs of Western intellectual history, could
not use his father as a role model, but his mother’s ardent love instilled a deep
belief in him that he was destined for greatness. Nevertheless, he had enough of
a father to make his road to success rocky: in order to come into his own he had
to work through the intense guilt of having surpassed his father. Only after this
psychic piece of work was completed, could he fulfill the destiny that he
consciously and unconsciously believed in.
Because of his father’s benign, by and large unobtrusive presence, Freud
never quite saw how much sons need their fathers. Future generations of
psychoanalysts and psychologists have given us deeper insight into the depth of
the paternal role. The case studies presented here exemplify the need for fathers
who can be idealized and provide for true guidance. They also show how deep
the despair, rage, and sense of loss engendered by paternal failure is, and how
difficult it is to leave it behind.
Freud was one of the great masters of deciphering human drama. Yet even he
did not fully grasp the depth of boys’ attachment to and need of their fathers.
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120 Strenger and Burak

As has been pointed out (Simon, 1988) he simply repressed half of Oedipus
myth; after all, the original story of Oedipus begins with Laios’ decision to kill
Oedipus, afraid that his son would kill him, fulfilling the oracle’s dark
prediction. The beginning of the drama between fathers and sons resides in the
father’s ability to deal with the complexity of his own emotions towards his son.
The continuation resides in the son’s desperate need to have a father he can
look up to. Freud, because of his of his own psychological make-up, could not
face this part of the Oedipus complex.
We have dealt with men whose fathers failed to live up to their role. We
have seen how difficult it is to overcome the wounds inflicted by paternal
failure. Hence we can now rephrase the Leonardo hypothesis with more depth.
Men whose fathers have been emotionally absent are faced with a tremendous
psychic task. They need to come to terms with disappointment, loss, and a
lifelong feeling of having been deprived of essential psychic nourishment.
A small proportion of these fatherless men will be able, early in life, to truly
mourn the lack of good fatherhood. They will develop a deep and lasting sense
that there is no use in relying on external sources of support and empowerment.
The result will, indeed, be the type of freedom Freud associated with father-
lessness in his Leonardo book. They are likely to become the entrepreneurs who
are guided by a powerful sense of inner authority, and do not feel that they need
anyone’s permission to do their own thing. As a result, they can develop the
inner strength and resilience to shape their own destiny, and to create organiza-
tions that last and to lead them towards success.
More often than not, fatherlessness leaves a psychic scar that expresses itself
through a lifelong fight with authority. This fight is fuelled by rage, disap-
pointment, and a constant desire to engage authority in a perpetual struggle.
The result is often destructive: if rage, guilt, and the perpetual attempt to fill an
inner void fuel the entrepreneurial drive, chances are that the enterprise will
falter at some point. The raging entrepreneur is not fully guided by an inner
guidance as to what is possible and what is not, but by wishful fantasies of
proving to the absent father that he did not recognize his son’s value. As a
result, the entrepreneur often does not fully take into account realistic limita-
tions, which may lead to the downfall of the enterprise.

WHEN DOES THE LEONARDO HYPOTHESIS WORK?

There are, it seems, basically two forms of fatherlessness: some fatherless men
forever seek the father they have not had in their childhood, or remain
attached to the failing father and forever seek his approval, as we have seen in
Arnold’s story. They do not achieve full inner authority, and their judgement
tends to be clouded at crucial junctures. Others, like Jim, carry the rage and
pain of early humiliations and pains in their psyche, and continue to be in a
rebellious position. As a result they fight authority, and, deep inside, remain the
raging, hurting children of failing fathers.
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The Leonardo Effect 121

The fatherless entrepreneurs who succeed are those who emotionally come
to terms with their fathers’ failures. For them entrepreneurship becomes a way
to repair the emotional damage of having been let down. They become the
fathers that their own fathers could not be. Benjamin developed this trait very
early, when he began to take care of adolescent black children who grew up
without paternal guidance.
Where, then, lies the truth of the Leonardo hypothesis and the liberating
impact of effect of paternal absence? The answer, we believe, does not reside in
a clear-cut set of external circumstances. It is to be found in the way the
experience of Fatherlessness is transformed in the entrepreneur’s psyche. The entre-
preneur truly comes to terms with the fact that nobody will ever take the paternal role
his own father did not fulfill.

ENTREPRENEURS WHO BECOME THEIR OWN FATHERS

We can see this constellation most clearly in the life and career of Benjamin.
After he had understood that he could not expect either guidance or support
from his parents, he proceeded to make the best of it. He turned the disad-
vantage into an opportunity. Benjamin exemplifies one of the most striking
features of successful entrepreneurs. They have become individuals even to the
point where their parents cease to be a relevant inner audience. What we mean
by this is as follows: psychoanalytic theory has shown the extent to which we
all carry inner audiences with us. We tend to internalize important figures in
our lives (primarily the parents) inside us. Our lives are, in many ways, plays
directed at this inner audience.
Benjamin did not even maintain his father as an inner audience to which he
wanted to prove that he would have been a worthy object of attention and
love. Benjamin didn’t “kill” his father, neither did he rebel against him (there
was nothing to rebel against): he simply understood that he had to be his own
father, and already as an adolescent he took the paternal role of helping others
to grow.
This profound independence is also reflected in Benjamin’s functioning as
an adult. He succeeded in individuating completely: when asked about whether
he had had any role models in his life he said: “I have been enthusiastic about
things that I have seen people do. But I have never felt deep admiration
towards anyone; I never felt ‘I want to be like him’. I was far too lucid to turn
anyone into a guru, or even a role model. I looked at every person to see
whether there was something to learn from him. But that was it. I accepted
ways of acting and thinking, but I never idealized anyone.”
Nowadays it is striking to see Benjamin’s soft-spoken, warm presence. He is
the ideal interviewee: he does neither experience the interviewer as intrusive,
nor threatening. He takes questions and potential interpretations as exactly
that: questions and interpretations. He is willing to consider trains of thought,
to play and experiment with them. This shows that he does not experience
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122 Strenger and Burak

authority as threatening, nor does he feel the need to rebel against it. He simply
doesn’t experience anyone as an unquestioned authority. Although willing to listen
and to consider other people’s point of view, Benjamin retains very much a
mind of his own.

SELF-DESTROYERS OUT OF UNCONSCIOUS GUILT

Jim exemplifies a different way of dealing with fatherlessness, a way more likely
to evolve if father is not only emotionally unavailable, but also abusive.
Throughout his life Jim harbored a deep-seated rage against his father, and
transferred this rage to all authorities. He forever needed to fight real and
imagined authorities, and, deep down, remained a rebellious adolescent who
needed to test the limits of how far he could go. Jim’s tragedy was that, along
with the rage, he also carried tremendous guilt in his psyche. He never ceased
to be the reprimanded son who was told that he was a worthless human being.
Although overtly cocky and rebellious, he did not truly feel that he deserved
success. Even though he created a service that gave fulfillment, aesthetic, and
even spiritual fulfillment for thousands of people, he never quite felt that he
had ever created anything of value. This deep-seated, unconscious guilt finally
drove him to destroy his own achievement.

THE GRANDIOSE DREAMERS

Arnold exemplifies a group of men who feel the desperate need to gain their
fathers’ attention and love. They try to prove to them (even if they are no
longer alive) that they were wrong in not recognizing the child’s value. Like
Arnold, they feel an inner void, and a desperate need for the attention that
they did not receive. They never quite accept that they didn’t receive what
they needed, and internally remain dependent on the neglectful parent. They
develop grandiose fantasies of becoming great successes. What drives them is
the image of being adulated and recognized as great successes. This image
becomes an idée fixe. They feel that they need to realize this fantasy, because
they hope that it will fill the inner void, the painful yearning for paternal love
and recognition.
The problem is that no external success is likely to heal their childhood
wounds. As a result they feel driven for ever more, hoping that ever-grander
achievements will quench their thirst for recognition. Along the way they are
likely to lose the ability to differentiate between their actual (often consid-
erable) abilities and their fantasized grandeur. They ignore warning signs and
push the envelope too hard, which often leads to their downfall.

THE THEORETICAL PUZZLE

We would, of course, love to provide an explanation why some fatherless entre-

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The Leonardo Effect 123

preneurs become their own fathers, whereas others become self-destroyers or

grandiose dreamers. The case examples might suggest two hypotheses:
Benjamin’s father was neglectful, whereas Jim’s father was abusive. Could that
make the difference?
It might make some difference, but Carlo Strenger has worked with two very
successful and constructive entrepreneurs whose fathers were highly abusive.
Yet there seems something compelling in the idea that neglect might make the
mourning process of not having had a father more possible. There is a
biographical aspect that we have not emphasized in this study, and that seems
to be highly significant. The research literature (Malach-Pines et al., 2002)
suggests that the differentia specifica might be found in maternal functioning.
Many entrepreneurs report that their mothers were strong, life-giving women
who inspired them with a basic optimism about life. It might be this basic belief
in their own life-force and what Erikson (1959) called basic trust that might
provide these entrepreneurs with the inner strength to move from rage to inner
authority, and thus become their own fathers.
We offer this hypothesis with some trepidation, as both of us know distinct
counter-examples of successful entrepreneurs who had depressed, withdrawn, or
weak mothers, abusive fathers and yet succeeded in making the developmental
transition that characterizes the Leonardo effect. Nevertheless, our impression
is that there might be some truth to this idea, as the statistical investigations
(Malach-Pines et al., 2002) show.
We need to leave both hypotheses as suggestions that need further investi-
gation. The human furor explanandi makes it difficult to leave such intriguing
facts as to why some fatherless men turn into innovators and leaders, whereas
others exhibit identity diffusion, or make careers in drugs or criminal behavior
unexplained. But here we may encounter limitations that even Freud acknowl-
edged, whose furor explanandi is undeniable. In the last pages of his Leonardo
study (Freud, 1909, 135 ff) Freud writes that, although psychoanalysis may be
capable of explaining a certain amount of Leonardo’s development, it is not
possible to explain Leonardo’s creative genius. Constitutional factors and
inborn talents may just not be amenable to psychodynamic explanation, and
need to be relegated to the domain of biology and the study of inborn tempera-
mental factors. Entrepreneurship and leadership may be no different from
artistic and intellectual creativity in this respect.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The sixty-four million dollar question is (sometimes literally): How can you
differentiate between the fatherless entrepreneurs who become their own
fathers and exhibit the Leonardo effect, and those who, at some point will self-
destruct or go overboard with grandiose dreams?
Our elaboration of the Leonardo hypothesis has practical implications, and
our experience shows that, with sufficient investment of time and attention, it
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124 Strenger and Burak

is indeed possible to find out to what category fatherless entrepreneurs belong.

Yet a word of warning is in order. We think that a deep psychological process
determines to what category fatherless entrepreneurs belong, and hence time
and energy need to be invested in order to do so.
Let us consider two possible situations: that of the investor who needs to
decide whether an entrepreneur is likely to succeed, and that of the entre-
preneur who feels that he is headed for trouble.

TO INVEST OR NOT TO INVEST? THAT IS THE QUESTION

Let us begin with the investor’s dilemma. If faced with a business opportunity,
potential investors need first of all to go through a thorough process of due
diligence, evaluation of the market situation, and the business plan. Yet, as
every investor knows, the most thorough evaluation leaves a lot of uncertainty.
One of the crucial factors that will determine success or failure of a young
company is the entrepreneur’s personality. The question is how this personality
can be assessed. We have described two character types that are likely to fail:
one is the self-destroyer; the other is the grandiose dreamer. How can these
types be identified?
Of course, first of all there are the standard tools: looking at an entre-
preneur’s CV we are likely to find some clues. Entrepreneurs who have had a
relatively stable and ascending career track are less likely to belong to either of
these two categories than those who have an erratic career track with a lot of
ups and downs. Yet this is not enough. Looking at Jim’s career track until the
age of 30 we would have seen a steep incline with a remarkable learning curve.
In fact until his early thirties Jim did not have a single setback. Similarly,
Arnold had a remarkably consistent ascending career until the age of 30.
Where could the warning signs have been? In Jim’s case one would have
needed information about his reckless philandering, which endangered his
business. Yet such information is often not easy to come by. In Arnold’s case the
situation would have been similarly tricky: he was very knowledgeable in
business, he had produced good results up to that point, and his career pattern
in itself would have given little indication that he was going to head for
disaster.
Let us therefore look at some more sophisticated tools that might provide
clues for potential danger. Jacob Burak has done such interviews within the
context of investment decisions for years, and made the following experiences.
Entrepreneurs who have stable personalities understand rather quickly why
they are being interviewed on their personal lives. If they don’t feel that they
have something to hide, they willingly cooperate.

The Family Tree: Did the Entrepreneur have a Father?

First of all the entrepreneur’s family tree needs to be assessed. If he comes from a
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family with entrepreneurial background, the dynamics will be very different

from that of entrepreneurs who come from families that did not foster entrepre-
neurial activities.
Entrepreneurs who have had close relations with their fathers are likely to
reflect Freud’s personal problem: they may feel guilty about overtaking their
fathers, and to develop a ceiling effect.
The best sign that they are not likely to be stuck with a ceiling effect is, of
course, if they already have overtaken their fathers financially or in other
achievements. If they have not yet done so, deeper investigation may be in
order. Such investigation should focus on how these entrepreneurs deal with
competition. Do they feel guilty about winning? Can they allow themselves the
type of killing instinct that is absolutely essential for making use of business
opportunities? Or do they tend either to avoid competition, or persistently fail
to win? In other words: entrepreneurs who are too loyal to their fathers, and do
not allow themselves to beat them, are likely to get stuck at some point.

Inquire into the Entrepreneur’s Relationship with the Father

These interviews need to investigate entrepreneurs’ relationships with their
fathers. Even without being clinically trained, it is possible to get a sense of how
emotionally charged a man’s relationship with his father is.
The features to look out for are as follows: first of all, entrepreneurs who
speak without any affect or brush the issue aside are likely to fall into either of
two categories: they can consciously hide something, or they may be
completely detached from their own feelings. Neither of these constellations
are positive indicators.
If they speak about their fathers with disdain or rage, it is advisable to
inquire respectfully and empathically into the reasons the entrepreneur’s
feelings. The more he is capable of explaining the reasons and is in touch with
the pain behind the rage and disdain, the higher the chances that he is not
driven unconsciously by these feelings. The less he shows insight into the
dynamics behind his pain and rage, the higher the danger that he will run into
trouble in the future.

Inquire into the Entrepreneur’s Role Model

Another factor that Jacob Burak investigates in his interviews relates to the
entrepreneur’s role models. This line of questioning is extremely important, as
it may provide clues whether he belongs to the category of the unrealistic
dreamer. The interviewer should not just ask who the role models are, but why.
If the answers pertain to the role model’s external paraphernalia of success, this
should constitute a warning sign. The entrepreneur may be running after a
fantasy of who he wants to be without being connected to what it takes to get
there.
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126 Strenger and Burak

If the answers touch upon the role model’s modus operandi, the character
traits and personality characteristics that enabled him to achieve his success,
this increases the probability that the entrepreneur has a realistic under-
standing of what it takes to realize his ambitions, and is willing to endure the
hardships along the way.

Take the Time to Truly Get to Know the Entrepreneur

We need to emphasize that such interviews are not run-of-the-mill half-hour
affairs. It takes one-and-a-half to two hours to create the atmosphere and the
personal rapport that allows another human being to trust the interviewer, and
to open up.
Many investors may feel that they neither have the inclination nor the
ability to do such in-depth interviews. They have two possibilities: one is to
forgo information that may be crucial to the success of their investment. The
other is to use consultants trained in clinical interview techniques that may
provide them with a reasoned assessment of the entrepreneur’s personality.

WHEN ENTREPRENEURS FEEL THAT THEY ARE HEADED FOR

TROUBLE

Entrepreneurs often know themselves that things are getting out of control.
Carlo Strenger has seen a large number of them who felt, often without being
able to put their fingers on the precise reason why, that they were heading for
trouble. Sometimes friends, partners, investors, or board members are the first
to point the entrepreneur’s attention to potential problems. Sometimes the
entrepreneur’s instincts issue a warning sign that something is wrong. In fact,
the current climate in the business community often leads business entrepre-
neurs to seek psychological advice even before they get into concrete trouble,
simply because they are aware of the need to counteract the stress and
loneliness of their professional activities.
Entrepreneurs like Jim and Arnold could have avoided their downfall if they
had sought help in time. A word of caution is in order, though: as Steven
Berglass (2002) has convincingly shown, the currently popular executive
coaching methods that are not psychologically informed are as likely to create
damage as they may be of help. Coaches that only work on the entrepreneur’s
behavior patterns, self-confidence, and communication patterns, without
trying to understand the psychological dynamics that fuel their self-destructive
patterns, often fail to prevent the entrepreneur’s heading for disaster or even
speed up the downward spiral.
Psychoanalytically or psychologically informed consultation, which has a
therapeutic aspect, is not a quick-fix method. But, as experience shows, psycho-
analytically informed consultation need not require four-times-a-week classical
psychoanalysis for five years. Intensive work can lead to tangible result within
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The Leonardo Effect 127

the space of less than a year, even though it generally takes more time to
stabilize the results.
The business community, at this point, is more psychologically minded that
it used to be. A growing number of entrepreneurs and high-level executives are
aware of the potential benefits of psychoanalytically informed consulting. The
negative stereotypization of such consultations as psychobabble, as good for
people who talk a lot and do nothing, and the fear that such consulting
indicates that you are crazy, are less prevalent than they used to be.
Businesspeople feel less obliged to live up to the cultural image of the entre-
preneur as super-human icon. This development is beneficial. We hope to have
shown that entrepreneurship is a way of dealing with profound existential
issues. Recognizing this fact does not diminish the cultural and economic
importance of entrepreneurial achievement, but only helps to appreciate its
value.

A FINAL WORD

In this paper we focused on business entrepreneurs exclusively. Yet, experience

in political consulting and work with entrepreneurs and leaders in academia
and non-governmental organizations indicates that the Leonardo effect may
play a significant role in much wider contexts. We hope that our hypotheses
will lead other researchers and practitioners to test both the theoretical model
and develop further practical implications in a field that to us seems of pre-
eminent social and economic importance.

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Carlo Strenger
Department of Psychology
Tel Aviv University
Israel
(strenger@freud.tau.ac.il)

Jacob Burak
Founder and Chairman
Evergreen Partners
96 Rothschild Blvd
Tel Aviv 65242
Israel
(jburak@evergreen.co.il)