Leaders by Default: Second-Choice Sons

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511920059.014

13 - Leaders by Default: Second-Choice Sons

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014

Jerrold M. Post

Ruthie Pertsis and

Jerrold M. Post

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Jerrold M. Post: Affiliation:
George Washington University, Washington DC
Jerrold M. Post: Affiliation:
The George Washington University

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Summary

There is a small group of important international leaders who were not their parents’ first choices to occupy the seats of power. They were raised in politically oriented families, chose their own paths in life (having embraced their own unique interests and skills), but were pushed into leadership positions because their brothers, the initially designated choices to carry on the family torch, died before they were able to fulfill the parents’ dreams of glory. The devastated parents then turned to the sons who were next in line, who had grown up in the shadows of their brothers, and compelled them to abandon their own career ambitions and step in, paving the way for the “second-choice sons” to become leaders by default.

It is interesting to explore how they and their leaderships were impacted by the knowledge that they were not originally selected for the important positions that they eventually came to occupy and by the accompanying pressure that they surely felt at being under the watchful eyes of overbearing parents whose narcissistic needs were suddenly and belatedly projected onto them. What does it mean to grow up in the shadow of the blinding son, the designated hero, eclipsed by his larger-than-life stature?

Type: Chapter
Information: Narcissism and Politics
Dreams of Glory
, pp. 196 - 216

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511920059.014 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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13 - Leaders by Default: Second-Choice Sons

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