Zaleznik served on corporate boards, consulted to many businesses, and was an early contributor to the formation of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.
He was a critic of what he called "the managerial orientation" which led managers and executives to focus on process, rather on the substance of their work.
He followed up this article with an important book, published in 1989, The Managerial Mystique: Rediscovering Leadership in Business, which explored this theme in depth.
In this school of thought, character emerges from the compromises a person makes between the demands of reality and his or her drives and desires, what Freud called "the Id."
This point of view led Zaleznik to discount any idealization of "leadership" and to see leaders as people who have, through psychological conflict and struggle, found a way to express their passions in the context of difficult choices where resources are limited.
This point of view led Zaleznik to be skeptical of the Organization development tradition that highlighted how leaders could facilitate the human potential of followers.