Stein, Mark. “The Othello Conundrum: The Inner Contagion of Leadership.” Organization Studies, vol. 26, no. 9, Sage Publications, 2005, pp. 1405–19, doi:10.1177/0170840605055339.
Stein takes a “psychoanalytic study of leadership and emotions in Shakespeare’s Othello” (1406). He writes about the stresses of leadership and the ways in which Iago was able to manipulate Othello so completely that he began to exist in Othello’s mind. Stein argues that as a part of any organization there are ways in which leaders begin to feel separated from others because “they have no peers” (1411). Iago is able to rely on Othello’s feeling of otherness invade his private thoughts to better serve his own motives, making Othello feel both jealousy and envy. Stein writes that “Iago succeeds in creating an ugly, vengeful mood” (1409). Iago’s closeness to Othello, when Othello feels most separated from everyone else, allow Iago to “invade Othello’s mind by casting aspersions on the integrity and character of Cassio” (1410).
--Lauren Olson
