INTELLIGENCE - ORI AND ROM BRAFMAN

The span of a single week brought the departures of two important leaders. The first, of President George W. Bush, was met with a collective worldwide sigh of relief. In fact, we can’t think of any other time when so many people around the world were so excited to see an American president say goodbye.


But while the world was gleeful over President Bush’s departure, many were surprised and saddened to hear that Steve Jobs, C.E.O. of Apple Incorporated, had left the helm? at least for the time being? citing health concerns. Within minutes, shares of Apple tumbled by 8 percent.


Two leaders, two diametrically opposite reactions.


This got us thinking about the importance we place upon that single individual at the top. Granted, leaders like Mr.Bush and Mr.Jobs have the power to affect massive change (case in point: Guantanamo or the iPhone). Still, we have a tendency to view leaders as either saviors or devils. Especially during times of crisis and uncertainty, we pin our hopes or fears on them.


An interesting perspective comes from the late psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Fairbairn. He developed a school of thought called object relations, which posits that our early childhood interactions with our parents become a psychological model for our interactions with others all the way through adulthood. In other words, we unconsciously try to make sense of people with whom we come in contact in the same way we experienced our interaction with our parents. For instance, a caring teacher becomes the“good mother” and a mean boss becomes the“bad father.”


In this sense, President Bush easily fits the mold of the“bad father.”We hold him accountable for everything from instability in the Middle East to the dismal state of the global economy.


On the flip side of the coin, investors dubbed Mr.Jobs a“good father,”seeing him as possessing a nearly magical ability to keep Apple at the cutting edge and hoping he would continue to inspire and propel the company as a technological leader.


While we agree that in both cases the shoe certainly seems to fit, we wonder whether the typecasting says more about us than about the men themselves. We want our leaders? whether in politics or business? to fit nicely into an archetypal role. And once we collectively decided, for instance, that Mr. Bush was a colossal bumbler, it was difficult to see him in any other light.


And that’s the key. We fail to see the real individual. We forget that a country is more than its president, a company more than its C.E.O.


The arrival of“good dad”Barack Obama is certainly a welcome relief. But we wonder, with Dr.Fairbairn’s theory in mind, how our projections on President Obama will play out.


Many believe that he will save the day, but unrealistically high expectations may set us up for disappointment. Worse yet, they may lead us to prematurely lose faith in the new president when he makes a mistake? which is the last thing he needs as he attempts to navigate these difficult economic and political times.


We want our leaders to fit into an archetypal role. INTELLIGENCE ORI AND ROM BRAFMAN The Savior Or The Devil Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman are co-authors of“Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior.”Ori is an international speaker on management; Rom is a psychologist who lectures on interpersonal dynamics. They can be e-mailed at brafmans@nytimes.com.