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10,1 The Project Charter 10,2 Power and Struggle 10,3 Large Group Process
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Lesson 10,3 · Relations / Team Roles · Focus — Large Group Process

Large Group Process

Silence is never empty. It is the group holding its breath. What Bion called the basic assumptions — dependency, struggle and flight, and pairing — is what a group reaches for when the leadership falters, and what a leader who accepts everyone’s projections slowly becomes.

Personal
Heart language · “How”

Photographed from above: chairs of several different kinds set out in rings on a tiled floor beneath a wrought-iron chandelier, one man sitting among them with papers in his lap
Rings of chairs set out for a large group, before it arrives.

Personal · Heart language · “How”

Iran in Bion’s Mirror — and the Road Ahead

March 2026 · What group psychology tells us about a nation finding its voice

I have spent years sitting with groups in rooms where the air was thick with things unsaid. I have learned that silence is never empty. Silence is the group holding its breath — gathering courage before it acts. That silence is what I hear from Iran right now. And I am not afraid of it. I am watching it with curiosity.

The psychologist Wilfred Bion spent his life studying what happens to groups under extreme pressure. His conclusion was both simple and profound: before a group can think clearly, it must feel its way through chaos. Collectively, unconsciously, it moves through three survival patterns — not as failure, but as process.

Iran in March 2026 is living that process in real time. Dependency gives way when the old father no longer answers — and he no longer answers. Fight-flight burns hot but burns fast; external enemies are borrowed time, and the group knows this, even when it cannot say it yet. Pairing is where hope begins to organise itself. Factions form. Alliances are tested. Some break. Others hold. This is not chaos — this is a people trying out futures.

Here is what history — and group psychology — teaches us about power struggles. The first mover is always the loser. In every great transition, those who reach for power too early expose themselves and are consumed. Status quo, meanwhile, is slow self-destruction — a regime that cannot reform will eventually eat itself.

A crowd outdoors with placards and raised arms, one person at the front holding a megaphone up and turned away from the camera
A large group trying out futures.

This is the paradox of the power struggle phase: everything looks like chaos, but underneath, a brutal and necessary selection process is under way. Alliances will be built, broken and rebuilt. Two fronts will eventually emerge with enough clarity and enough courage to name what they truly stand for. And that is the moment — not of maximum violence, but of maximum choice, and of fantasies about the next president or crown prince, the son of the old king.

Large group dynamics

The large-group dynamics described here — based on a real experience — have received relatively little attention in management literature and leadership development. Even so, the theoretical models come from W. Bion’s work from the 1950s. The connection between large-group dynamics and organisational development is nevertheless well known through the English Tavistock movement and its Nordic branch NORSTIG, which organises annual, high-quality courses. A great deal can be learned from the experience material from the NORSTIG conferences.

A key insight is that a group seems to operate on two levels:

  • One level is conscious and rational, with a clear purpose — in our case, the course plan.
  • The other level is unconscious — Bion calls this the basic assumption, also known as mental images or the hidden agenda.

There will always be tension between these two levels. The unconscious level can either support the rational work, or weaken and undermine it. The most common basic assumption in a group is dependency — the unconscious fantasy that the leader should take all responsibility and free members from anxiety and worry, as if everyone becomes a child. Such dependency leads to collective regression. In seminar settings, it becomes clear that participants stop functioning as mature, responsible, competent adults, and instead take on roles as helpless, insecure, and less capable than they really are.

When “the world” sets the agenda

Unconscious dependency needs often surface as conflict or crisis reactions, which in turn affect the leader and leadership. Most leaders do not dare do what we did in the exercise. Instead, the organisation unconsciously pushes the leader into roles that are neither rational nor sustainable over time. Members place their competence, responsibility, and maturity onto the leader, who may then feel stronger, more capable, or more powerful than they truly are — influenced by the group’s positive or negative energies.

This phenomenon is called projection — we transfer our own expectations and values onto another person, much like idealising someone we are in love with. If the leader accepts this role, we get the leader we deserve. This is projective identification: unconsciously becoming what others make us into, rather than who we truly are. When we receive projections this way, we act like a container — we get filled up. This is not harmless. What fills us changes us.

If I am expected to know everything and handle everything, I may start to believe that I do. The fall can then be hard. The megalomaniac is rarely more extreme than what the environment allows — the same applies to criticism and dissatisfaction. Over time, we may become what we are accused of being. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a leader withdraws to avoid expectations of strength, disappointment and anxiety soon surface. If aggression is not addressed, it never disappears. We see this clearly in delegation processes: when teams are given more responsibility, they often demand clearer direction and stronger control. If they must figure things out themselves, irritation, frustration, and aggression increase. Then another basic assumption emerges: the group’s mental images.

People standing in loose clusters in a wide lobby before a seminar, some talking in pairs, others alone with a cup, seen at a distance
Before the room is called to order, the group has already arranged itself.

Struggle, flight, and pairing

The group may feel a need to fight (see phase 4 in Secret 10,2). This can take many forms: mistrust, control, attacking the leader, or internal conflicts. It may also lead to flight — leaving the group or turning against the leader (see phase 5). In hectic project settings, this can appear as rumours demanding the leader’s removal, or people creating their own rules. Others withdraw, claiming the project lacks leadership. This can push the leader into becoming more authoritarian, suspicious, or controlling — like a strict parent.

In this process, any “crack looking for an axe” will be found. People with similar ego states find each other and form alliances (see phase 6). At the same time, fantasies arise about a “crown prince” who could take over leadership — preferably someone with a clearer profile. This is what Bion calls pairing. It has little to do with gender. Pairing usually does not happen openly — it is driven by unconscious needs directed toward two group members, creating hope or excitement. The unconscious fantasy is that these two will eventually produce something that solves the group’s problems (see phase 7). In such groups, intimacy and sexuality may be experienced as protection against underlying dependency and aggression conflicts.

These dynamics can also affect the leader. In our exercise, all these phases became visible on the surface within a hundred and twenty minutes. Had we continued for days, behaviour would have become even clearer — ego states and underlying roles would have solidified. This is exactly how it works in real life. Beneath the surface, roles live on and guide our actions.

Awareness creates capacity

Bion believed group members are far more affected and frightened by these unconscious tendencies than necessary. By bringing them to the surface — making them visible and conscious — the group’s ability to work rationally increases. We experienced this in our seminar. In the final phase, the large group relaxed. Participants felt safe handling the situation during the remaining minutes. They took responsibility for being alone together. The struggle was over. The work could begin.

A high-ceilinged room with gilt-framed paintings, a marble fireplace and a half-empty ring of chairs; three men sit far apart from one another
A group room between sessions. Being alone together is the last thing a large group learns.

Closing reflection

Professional leadership means being attentive to these reactions during change and transition — when “the world” sets the agenda. Then nothing works as planned. There are only moments where one must take responsibility in ways one never imagined.

That is why it helps to recognise your own stress reactions. What is familiar is never as frightening as what is unknown.

Colleagues gathered close in an office and looking up towards the camera, several smiling, one with a thumb raised
What the far side of the process looks like. The fear was of the unknown, not of this.

Your turn

An open notebook and two sharpened pencils on a dark desk under the pool of light from a lamp, the page still blank
The exercise wants a pen and paper, not a keyboard.

Homework 10,3

Small group against large group.

What distinguishes the process in a small group of eight to twelve people from a large group of twelve to forty?

Identify two factors that distinguish the processes.

Be dynamic with your values. That closes Secret 10 — Secret 11 opens SGL-Values.

SGL Secrets — For those who are in need, and those who want a lot!

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