To speak about leadership in theatre is to speak about the choreography of power — not only the visible movements, but the subtle, often unspoken forces that shape how authority is felt, imagined, contested, and embodied. When women lead in the performing arts today, they do so in a landscape charged with both promise and contradiction. On one level, more and more women are stepping into top positions in cultural institutions across Europe. On another, the structures surrounding them — the expectations, projections, unconscious fantasies, and persistent stereotypes — remain saturated with older patterns that resist transformation.

The leadership workshop “Navigating Power Dynamics,” held within the International Women Theatre Leaders Programme of the European Theatre Convention (ETC), emerged precisely at this tension point. Co-facilitated by Bettina Pesch, longtime Managing Director of Theater Magdeburg, and Dragan Šimičević, psychologist, organizational consultant, and international ambassador for psychoanalysis and culture, the workshop brought together female theatre leaders from fifteen countries. What unfolded was not merely a training session but a rare and courageous shared pause — a reflective encounter with the layered, affectively charged realities of leading as a woman in the cultural sector today.

The conversations revealed a truth that is as old as theatre itself: we do not simply lead; we are led by unconscious currents, collective narratives, and symbolic roles that shape how we are seen before we even speak. In this sense, gendered leadership in theatre cannot be understood only in terms of structures or policies; it must also be understood psychodynamically, in terms of how power becomes entangled with identity, desire, fear, fantasy, and the deep social scripts that underlie professional life.

This article explores these dynamics in depth. It begins with a central psychodynamic proposition: that power is not a possession but a relationship, a space of projection and meaning-making. From there, it examines the gendered fantasies and contradictions that continue to accompany women in authority, even in progressive cultural spaces. It then traces the historical and cultural shifts that have reshaped the theatre landscape over the past decades, highlighting both the extraordinary developments on stage and the more sluggish transformations backstage. Finally, it argues for a psychodynamically informed leadership model — one that is reflective, dialogical, emotionally literate, and capable of holding complexity without collapsing into defensiveness or reactivity.

Throughout, the voices and experiences of the workshop participants animate the analysis. Their stories, insights, and vulnerabilities remind us that institutions are not abstractions; they are living environments, and leadership is always an embodied, relational practice. By listening to their experiences through a psychodynamic lens, we can illuminate not only their individual challenges but also the broader cultural patterns that shape leadership in theatre today.

Power as Relationship, Not Possession

In common organizational discourse, power is often imagined as something one has — a resource, a mandate, a formal authority. Yet from a psychodynamic perspective, power is never simply an individual attribute. It is a relational phenomenon. Power emerges in the space between people, through transference processes, symbolic meanings, and the unconscious narratives that govern how we invest others with authority or resist them.

Leaders in theatre know this intuitively. A director may have unquestioned formal authority, yet the moment they step into a rehearsal room, their power is shaped by the ensemble’s trust, by the emotional climate of the institution, by histories of conflict or care, by the symbolic figure they are imagined to be. Leadership is never neutral. It is always mediated through projections — idealization, rivalry, dependency, fear, hope. People respond not only to the leader’s decisions but also to what the leader symbolizes for them.

For women in leadership, these symbolic layers are particularly charged. They face projections that are profoundly gendered: fantasies of the mother, the seductress, the caretaker, the scold, the intruder into a male-coded space. These projections are not the personal problem of individual women. They are an expression of deep cultural ambivalences about female authority.

The crucial insight is that these contradictions do not arise from the personal qualities of the women themselves but from the symbolic weight that female authority carries in patriarchal cultures. The leader becomes a container for fantasies that have very little to do with her actual behavior. And because these dynamics operate unconsciously, they are difficult to resist or even name.

Psychodynamic leadership work invites us to look beneath the surface and ask:

What fantasies are being projected onto the leader?

Whose anxieties are being expressed through conflict narratives?

What unconscious contracts govern how people relate to authority?

How is gender being mobilized to uphold existing power structures?

By addressing these questions, leaders gain a deeper understanding of the institutional currents that shape their work — not to pathologize the organization, but to navigate its complexity with more clarity, presence, and resilience.

Gendered Leadership: Seen and Unseen Barriers

European theatre institutions have undergone meaningful structural shifts in recent decades. Many have introduced diversity policies, mentoring programs, or explicit goals for gender parity. Yet such changes, while significant, do not automatically dismantle the invisible forces that shape leadership cultures. Beneath the surface, the old scripts persist: the informal networks, the implicit biases, the deeply ingrained belief that authority is fundamentally masculine.

For women in leadership positions, these ambivalent environments create a paradoxical experience. On the one hand, they hold formal power. On the other, they must still prove their legitimacy repeatedly, often in ways that their male counterparts do not.

Participants in the workshop described this tension with striking clarity. They spoke about being undermined in meetings, about their strategic decisions being questioned more sharply than those of men, about having to demonstrate competence not once but twice: through qualifications, and then again through resilience against subtle doubts about their “fit” for leadership. They described the delicate calibration required to be “strong” but not “too strong,” “warm” but not “too soft,” “assertive” but not “aggressive.”

This double bind is not merely a sociological phenomenon. It is deeply psychodynamic. Women leaders are often asked to carry two contradictory symbolic roles at once: the caretaker and the commander. The expectation that they resolve this contradiction flawlessly — and without conflict — is itself a form of structural violence.

Furthermore, women in top positions often find themselves in heightened visibility. They do not represent only themselves; they are positioned as representatives of “women in leadership” more broadly. This symbolic burden is exhausting. It places them in a state of what psychoanalysis calls hyper-representation — the experience of being seen not as an individual but as a category.

One participant described the loneliness of this position poignantly:
“Every decision I make is read not only as my choice, but as a statement about how women lead.”

Her words highlight a phenomenon that is rarely addressed in leadership training: the affective labor required to carry symbolic significance for others. Theatre institutions, with their historically male-dominated structures, amplify this dynamic. A woman who steps into a leadership role is often stepping into a symbolic space that was not designed with her in mind.

The Theatre as a Mirror of Societal Change

To understand gendered leadership in theatre today, one must situate it within the larger cultural transformations of the past four decades. As Bettina Pesch reflected during the workshop, the landscape of theatre — both artistically and institutionally — has changed dramatically.

Globalization has expanded repertoires and audiences. Digital technologies have transformed staging techniques and audience engagement. Participatory formats have blurred the line between performer and spectator. Younger generations demand more transparency, inclusion, and political relevance. The theatre has become a platform for discourses on identity, climate justice, social inequality, migration, and the crisis of democracy.

In this sense, theatre has become what one might call a cultural seismograph. It registers social tensions early. It experiments with new forms of dialogue. It offers imaginative spaces for exploring the fractures and possibilities of contemporary life.

Yet — and this contradiction was named repeatedly in the workshop — inside the institutions, change has been more hesitant. Hierarchical structures endure. Patriarchal legacies shape decision-making processes. Old boys’ networks influence hiring and programming choices. The pressure to maintain tradition can suffocate attempts at innovation.

For women leaders, this creates a complex dual task: they are asked to embody the progressive values of contemporary theatre while operating within structures that often remain rigid and resistant. They must carry the institution forward while also navigating the defensive tendencies that institutions manifest when confronted with change — tendencies that psychoanalytic theory describes with concepts like regression, group anxiety, and resistance to uncertainty.

From a psychodynamic perspective, institutions do not simply resist change because of policy disagreements. They resist change because change threatens identity, tradition, hierarchy, and the unconscious fantasies that hold the group together. When women step into leadership roles, they often become the symbolic bearers of this threat — not because they are doing anything wrong, but because their presence disrupts an old narrative.

Toward a Psychodynamic Model of Leadership

What, then, might a psychodynamic approach to leadership offer to women — and indeed to all leaders — navigating these complexities?

First, it offers a way of making the invisible visible. Psychodynamic thinking invites leaders to pay attention not only to organizational structures but also to emotional climates, fantasies, resistances, desires, and unspoken norms. It encourages curiosity about the irrational aspects of group life, the ways in which conflict can be symbolic, and how power becomes charged with meaning beyond its formal definition.

Second, it creates space for reflection. Leaders need protected environments — supervision, coaching, reflective workshops — where they can explore not only their strategies but also their emotional experiences. Such spaces make it possible to recognize when one is responding to projections rather than reality, when one is carrying unconscious burdens on behalf of the group, and when institutional dynamics are being enacted through personal conflicts.

Third, a psychodynamic approach redefines leadership itself. It shifts the focus from control to containment, from performance to presence, from authority as domination to authority as a relational practice grounded in empathy, clarity, and psychological holding.

This perspective does not romanticize leadership. On the contrary, it acknowledges that leadership is difficult precisely because it involves managing not only tasks and teams but emotions, fantasies, and symbolic expectations. It asks leaders to remain open to complexity — to tolerate ambiguity, to avoid premature closure, and to stay connected even when confronted with projection or aggression.

In theatre, a field that thrives on emotional intensity and symbolic meaning, such a leadership model is not only useful but essential.

The Gendered Architecture of Authority

When discussing leadership in the performing arts, one cannot avoid confronting the gendered architecture of authority that continues to shape cultural institutions. Even as European theatres increasingly welcome female leaders, the deeper symbolic order — the one that quietly allocates authority, legitimacy, and trust — often remains unchanged.

In many organizations, authority is still imagined in masculine terms. Not explicitly, not through formal rules or job descriptions, but through subtle, unconscious assumptions about who “naturally” embodies leadership. When a man speaks assertively, the room registers competence; when a woman does the same, she risks being marked as “difficult.” When a man makes an unpopular decision, it is understood as the burden of leadership; when a woman does, it is interpreted as a flaw in character.

From a psychodynamic perspective, these reactions are not simply individual biases but collective fantasies. Institutions, like individuals, have unconscious lives. They hold onto internalized images of gender that influence how emotions, conflicts, and power relations become encoded and enacted. Leaders who do not fit the traditional mold — women, queer leaders, leaders of color — often become carriers of the institution’s unspoken anxieties.

Inside theatres, where strong egos and high stakes meet artistic vulnerability, these projections intensify. The stage is a place of symbolic amplification; the same holds true behind the scenes.

Female Leadership as Symbol and Symptom

Many women in the workshop described moments in which their competence was not questioned explicitly, yet their presence triggered discomfort, skepticism, or subtle forms of resistance. Psychodynamically, these responses reveal the tension between the conscious desire for gender equality and the unconscious persistence of archaic fantasies about authority.

Female leaders often face a paradox:
they are expected to be nurturing yet firm, accessible yet authoritative, emotionally intelligent yet emotionally restrained.

No one can meet these contradictory demands entirely — and the impossibility itself becomes a source of constant stress.

This tension becomes even sharper in institutions like theatre, where leadership is not simply managerial but deeply symbolic. Leaders become screens for the projections, wishes, fears, and unmet needs of entire teams. And because women’s leadership is still relatively new — historically speaking — they are forced to navigate expectations for which the cultural scripts are not yet fully written.

The Burden of Representation

Another theme that emerged strongly in the workshop was the burden of representation. When a woman steps into a leadership role in the cultural sector, she is rarely perceived simply as “the director,” “the manager,” or “the head of department.” She is also made to represent something larger: the progress of gender equality, the hopes of other women, the future of the institution.

Such symbolic weight can be both empowering and isolating. It opens doors, but it also invites scrutiny. It inspires, but it can also constrict. Many leaders described the constant pressure to “do well not only for myself, but for all women who will come after me.” This double responsibility — individual and collective — is something male leaders are rarely forced to carry.

And yet, acknowledging this pressure is not a sign of weakness. It is a recognition of the emotional labor embedded in leadership roles, particularly for those who challenge traditional power structures.

Institutional Fantasies and the Drama of Power

Theatre institutions are not only workplaces; they are symbolic systems that mirror society’s dreams and fears. In many theatres, the official hierarchy may appear modern, but the unconscious hierarchy — the emotional order that governs who feels entitled to speak, to decide, to belong — is often far older.

The Institution as an Emotional Container

From a psychodynamic perspective, every institution functions as a container for collective emotions. It absorbs anxieties, processes conflicts, and transforms individual feelings into shared meanings. But when an institution is under stress — budget cuts, political pressures, internal conflicts — it may lose some of its containing capacity.

In such moments, leaders become emotional lightning rods. Women in leadership positions often feel this more intensely, not because they are less capable of holding complexity, but because their authority is less readily accepted by others. The result is a disproportionate emotional load: more projections, more expectations, more fears.#

Old Boys’ Networks and Invisible Power

Several leaders in the workshop spoke about the enduring influence of informal power structures — the infamous “old boys’ networks,” which continue to shape decision-making behind the scenes. These networks are not always malicious. Often they arise from long-standing relationships, shared histories, or cultural familiarity.

But their exclusivity has consequences.

They reinforce the perception that power belongs to men, and that women’s authority is conditional, exceptional, or fragile. They create parallel systems of influence that operate beyond formal transparency. And because they function largely through habit and unconscious preference, they are difficult to challenge directly.

Psychodynamically, these networks represent a deeper resistance to change — a desire to preserve the familiar, the comfortable, and the predictable. Yet leadership, especially today, demands confronting precisely those resistant forces.

The Ambivalence of Authority

Authority is never neutral. It evokes admiration, but also envy; trust, but also suspicion. In the workshop, many participants described moments in which authority felt deeply ambivalent: moments of pride and satisfaction, but also loneliness, doubt, and self-questioning.

The Loneliness of Leadership

One of the most painful and universal insights shared in the group was the experience of loneliness at the top. The loneliness described was not personal isolation, but structural — a byproduct of carrying responsibilities that cannot simply be shared horizontally.

For women, this loneliness often carries an additional layer: the experience of not feeling fully seen or supported by peers, boards, or political stakeholders. Some described situations in which they had allies but no true confidants — no one with whom they could speak openly about their fears, their uncertainties, their ambivalence toward power.

A psychodynamic perspective validates these experiences: leadership always involves encounters with one’s own shadows. The question is not how to eliminate doubt, but how to integrate it, how to use it as a source of reflection rather than shame.

Authority as Containment

In psychodynamic leadership theory, authority is not defined by control but by containment — the ability to hold emotional complexity without becoming overwhelmed or defensive.

Containment is an art:
the art of listening without absorbing, clarifying without attacking, confronting without humiliating.
It is the capacity to remain grounded amid turbulence, and to offer others a sense of safety and direction even when the path ahead is unclear.

Women leaders often excel in containment, though this strength is frequently misunderstood as softness rather than skilled emotional labor. Yet containment is one of the most powerful tools in modern leadership — particularly in artistic institutions, where creative processes naturally generate anxiety, competition, and vulnerability.

The Emotional Ecology of Theatre Organizations

Theatre institutions are not only sites of artistic production; they are microcosms of human emotion, culture, and history. Every rehearsal, meeting, and board discussion is charged with affective energy that goes far beyond the immediate task at hand. Emotions ripple through these organizations, often in subtle, unconscious ways. Leadership in this context is less about controlling outcomes and more about understanding, negotiating, and shaping the emotional ecology of the institution.

The workshop participants described this vividly. Decisions about programming, casting, or management often triggered responses that could not be predicted solely by logic or policy. Ambivalence, envy, loyalty, fear, and admiration coexisted within teams. Women leaders frequently found themselves mediating these emotional currents while simultaneously negotiating their own position and symbolic significance within the organization. It was a delicate dance: one misstep could escalate tension, compromise authority, or reinforce gendered expectations.

From a psychodynamic perspective, these dynamics reveal the interplay of conscious and unconscious forces. Teams unconsciously communicate expectations about leadership: who is “allowed” to make decisions, whose authority is “natural,” and whose presence disrupts established patterns. In these moments, leaders are not only making managerial decisions—they are navigating projections, resistances, and group anxieties.

Projections and Their Impacts

Projection is a central psychodynamic concept in understanding organizational behavior. It refers to the unconscious process by which individuals attribute their own feelings, desires, or conflicts to others. In the context of theatre leadership, projections can manifest in ways that are both subtle and profound:

Leaders are idealized or demonized not for their personal qualities but for the fantasies and fears they evoke in others.

Emotional outbursts may reflect team members’ discomfort with authority rather than direct critique of the leader’s actions.

Resistance to change often carries symbolic meanings: the fear of losing status, the anxiety of confronting one’s own biases, or the threat of new authority models.

Women leaders are particularly likely to experience these projections because they challenge established gendered norms. Their authority disrupts familiar unconscious patterns, eliciting heightened scrutiny, ambivalence, and emotional intensity. Understanding this process allows leaders to respond strategically rather than reactively, to maintain clarity without becoming defensive, and to create spaces for reflection and dialogue rather than conflict escalation.

Psychodynamic Tools for Reflective Leadership

A psychodynamically informed approach does not offer prescriptive rules. Instead, it provides tools for reflective leadership—practices that allow leaders to navigate the complex interplay of conscious and unconscious dynamics.

1. Supervision and Coaching

Regular supervision or coaching creates a protected space in which leaders can examine their emotional responses, consider projections, and explore unconscious dynamics within the team. In these spaces, leaders can:

Recognize when conflict reflects deeper institutional anxieties rather than personal failure.

Understand how their own history, identity, and internalized expectations shape interactions.

Develop strategies to contain tension without suppressing it, transforming anxiety into constructive dialogue.

This reflective practice is particularly valuable for women leaders, who are often expected to “perform” authority flawlessly while carrying disproportionate emotional labor.

2. Recognizing and Naming Ambivalence

Ambivalence is a natural part of leadership, yet it is rarely acknowledged in institutional cultures. Leaders may feel simultaneously empowered and anxious, admired and scrutinized, assertive and vulnerable. Naming these feelings openly, either in reflective groups or confidential settings, is an act of courage. It allows leaders to:

Normalize their experiences, reducing the isolation that often accompanies top positions.

Respond to challenges with awareness rather than reactivity.

Strengthen resilience by integrating contradictory emotions rather than splitting them into “acceptable” versus “unacceptable” categories.

3. Attending to Symbolic Roles

Leadership is always symbolic, but women often bear additional symbolic weight. Recognizing this allows leaders to:

Understand which responses are about them personally and which reflect projections of the group.

Intervene thoughtfully, rather than defensively, when symbolic roles are activated.

Use their position to reshape institutional narratives about leadership, demonstrating that authority can be both competent and relational, both firm and empathic.

4. Cultivating Emotional Literacy

Psychodynamically informed leadership emphasizes emotional literacy—the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to emotions in oneself and others. In practice, this means:

Observing how emotions circulate within meetings, rehearsals, and teams.

Listening actively to subtle cues of tension, resistance, or fear.

Responding with empathy and clarity, holding boundaries while remaining attuned to collective dynamics.

Emotional literacy does not soften authority; it strengthens it. Leaders who understand the affective dimension of their institution can make decisions that are both effective and psychologically attuned.

Navigating Rivalry and Collaboration

One of the workshop’s most vivid discussions centered on the dynamics of collaboration among women leaders. While male leadership structures are often implicitly hierarchical and linear, female leaders frequently find themselves negotiating co-leadership arrangements that require balancing multiple, sometimes conflicting expectations.

Psychodynamically, this reflects cultural anxieties: the belief that women cannot share power without conflict. Such projections are externalized onto the leaders, creating challenges that do not stem from personal incompatibility but from unconscious societal scripts.

To navigate these dynamics effectively, psychodynamic tools suggest:

Reflective dialogue: Explicitly naming assumptions and fears about collaboration.

Shared containment: Holding responsibility collectively rather than individually, and agreeing on boundaries and decision-making processes.

Awareness of projection: Recognizing when external narratives about rivalry are influencing internal perception.

Mutual recognition of authority: Acknowledging both leaders’ roles and resisting the temptation to see collaboration as a zero-sum game.

When approached consciously, dual leadership can transform these pressures into opportunities for richer, more nuanced governance, demonstrating that authority can be distributed without loss of coherence or strength.

Building Inclusive and Reflective Institutions

Theatre institutions themselves can evolve to support more inclusive and psychodynamically informed leadership. This requires a combination of structural and cultural interventions:

Transparent structures and clear expectations: Policies and practices that clarify decision-making channels, responsibilities, and accountability reduce the space in which projections and unconscious biases operate.

Ritualized reflection: Regular opportunities for teams to reflect on group dynamics, including emotions and unspoken assumptions, normalize ambivalence and make organizational anxieties legible.

Mentoring and peer networks: Facilitating connections among women leaders, and between leaders and allies, creates relational support that buffers against isolation and symbolic burden.

Valuing emotional labor: Recognizing the invisible work that leaders perform to maintain relationships, contain conflict, and navigate projections, especially when gendered expectations amplify these demands.

Cultural modeling: Leaders can actively demonstrate relational, emotionally intelligent authority, showing that power need not be enacted through domination, suppression, or unilateral control.

These practices are not mere technical fixes. They are interventions in the psychological architecture of institutions, reshaping the unconscious scripts and relational norms that govern organizational life.

Toward a Theatre of the Future

The future of theatre leadership requires a shift in both imagination and practice. It is not enough to replicate old hierarchical patterns with new faces; the very meaning of authority must evolve. Leadership should be understood not as an individual performance of dominance but as a relational, reflective, and ethically attuned practice.

A theatre institution that embodies this vision:

Embraces diversity in leadership, not merely as a metric, but as an ongoing practice of inclusion and co-creation.

Integrates psychological awareness into decision-making, team development, and organizational change.

Values emotional intelligence and relational skill as core competencies alongside artistic and administrative expertise.

Creates spaces for reflection where ambivalence, projection, and unconscious dynamics can be explored safely.

Balances innovation and tradition, acknowledging the symbolic weight of history while allowing new forms of authority to emerge.

Women leaders, by virtue of the challenges they navigate and the skills they cultivate, are often positioned to spearhead this transformation. Their presence not only challenges outdated norms but also demonstrates the possibility of leadership that is courageous, relational, and deeply attuned to both human and institutional complexity.

Integrating Psychodynamic Insights into Leadership Practice

Psychodynamic perspectives offer theatre leaders a lens through which the invisible currents of emotion, projection, and symbolic meaning can be navigated intentionally. Understanding these dynamics is not a theoretical luxury; it is a practical necessity for creating institutions that are both effective and humane.

1. Reflective Practice as Leadership Strategy

Reflective practice involves creating consistent opportunities to pause, observe, and make sense of interpersonal and institutional dynamics. For leaders, this can take many forms:

Personal supervision, where emotional reactions, projections, and ambivalence can be explored safely.

Peer reflection groups, in which leaders exchange experiences and collectively name patterns of unconscious dynamics.

Facilitated workshops, where teams examine group behavior, communication patterns, and hidden resistances.

Through reflective practice, leaders develop the capacity to distinguish between reactions triggered by organizational anxiety or projection and those arising from operational realities. This skill allows decision-making to be more intentional and grounded, rather than reactive or defensive.

2. Awareness of Projection and Counter-Projection

Projection, as explored in previous sections, is central to understanding leadership in theatre. Leaders often experience themselves as “mirrors” for the unspoken anxieties, hopes, and resistances of the group. Equally, they may experience counter-projection, responding to staff or peers with heightened sensitivity, defensiveness, or idealization.

Effective psychodynamic leadership involves:

Recognizing when conflicts or emotional intensity are amplified by projections.

Naming and addressing these dynamics without personalizing them.

Developing strategies to contain projected anxieties while maintaining relational clarity.

For women in leadership, mastering these skills is particularly vital. It allows them to navigate both the overt responsibilities of their role and the invisible pressures of gendered symbolic weight.

3. Containment and Emotional Holding

Containment is the ability to absorb, regulate, and transform emotional energy within an organization. Leaders who practice containment create psychological space in which teams can operate safely and creatively. Containment is not about suppressing emotions or avoiding conflict; it is about offering a stable presence in which others feel heard, validated, and understood.

In practice, containment can look like:

Listening attentively to tensions without immediate judgment.

Recognizing the emotional subtext of disputes and addressing it constructively.

Maintaining composure in high-pressure moments, modeling resilience and emotional literacy.

Containment is particularly powerful in the theatre context, where creativity, vulnerability, and ambition intersect and amplify emotional intensity. Leaders who can hold this complexity enable both artistic innovation and relational stability.

Reflections from the Workshop

The voices of the participants in “Navigating Power Dynamics” illuminate the practical and emotional dimensions of leadership. Many described moments of vulnerability and challenge, but also moments of profound insight and growth.

One participant reflected:
"I realized that what I thought were personal failures were often projections. Understanding this shifted how I relate to my team — I can now respond without taking everything personally."

Another noted:
"Leadership in theatre is less about being in control and more about being present — holding the room, holding the tension, and seeing the unspoken. That is both exhausting and deeply rewarding."

These reflections demonstrate that psychodynamic insight is not abstract; it is deeply operational. Leaders who understand the unconscious currents within their teams, and within themselves, are better equipped to navigate complexity, build trust, and inspire creativity.

Toward Resilient, Inclusive Theatre Institutions

Building resilient and inclusive theatre institutions requires more than policy changes or quotas. It requires a transformation in how authority, collaboration, and emotional labor are understood and enacted.

Principles for Psychodynamically Informed Leadership

Relational Authority: Leadership is exercised through presence, listening, and ethical influence rather than domination.

Reflective Spaces: Institutions provide regular opportunities for reflection, supervision, and dialogue about emotions, projections, and organizational anxieties.

Shared Responsibility: Co-leadership, mentoring, and team collaboration are structured to distribute authority and reduce the burden of symbolic representation.

Valuing Emotional Labor: The invisible work of managing relational dynamics, projections, and ambivalence is recognized as a core leadership competency.

Symbolic Awareness: Leaders remain aware of the symbolic dimensions of gender, authority, and culture, and actively work to reshape limiting narratives.

By embedding these principles, theatres can become laboratories for emotionally intelligent, psychologically informed leadership. Such institutions are not only more humane; they are also more resilient, adaptable, and capable of fostering creativity in all its forms.

Imagining the Future of Theatre Leadership

Psychodynamic thinking invites a radical reimagining of leadership. It asks us to move beyond hierarchical, control-oriented models and to embrace leadership as relational, reflective, and co-creative. In this vision:

Women leaders are not exceptions but central architects of institutional culture.

Authority is not a zero-sum game; it can be shared, distributed, and embodied in diverse forms.

Institutions themselves are treated as emotional systems, with attention paid to both their structural and affective health.

Theatre becomes a mirror and a model — reflecting societal change while demonstrating the possibilities of inclusive, reflective, and emotionally intelligent leadership.

This vision does not ignore conflict or challenge. On the contrary, it acknowledges that tension, anxiety, and ambivalence are inevitable in any human system. But it also asserts that these forces can be navigated consciously, transformed into learning, and harnessed to build institutions that are not only sustainable but also deeply humane.

Conclusion: An Invitation to Lead Differently

Leadership in theatre today is an invitation — to awareness, reflection, and courage. It is an invitation to understand that power is not possession but relationship, that authority is shaped as much by projection and symbolism as by role or title, and that leading as a woman often entails navigating currents that are both personal and collective.

The psychodynamic perspective equips leaders to accept complexity without fear, to hold tension without collapsing, and to engage with the symbolic dimensions of their role with clarity and empathy. It empowers women to lead not by conforming to traditional norms, but by expanding the possibilities of what leadership can be: relational, reflective, inclusive, and psychologically attuned.

Theatre, as an institution, can embody this vision. By embracing reflective leadership, attending to emotional ecology, and cultivating awareness of unconscious dynamics, it can become a space where creativity, humanity, and authority coexist harmoniously. Such institutions will not only thrive artistically but also serve as models for the cultural sector more broadly, demonstrating how gendered leadership, when understood psychodynamically, can transform both people and organizations.

In the end, navigating power dynamics is not simply a challenge to be managed; it is an invitation to shape the symbolic, emotional, and ethical architecture of theatre institutions consciously and courageously. It is an invitation to lead differently — to imagine a theatre culture where authority, care, difference, and reflection are not contradictions, but the very foundation of sustainable and inspiring leadership.