The Narcissistic Leader: When Idealization Displaces Critical Thinking
Dear Colleagues,
Have you ever worked under the leadership of a narcissistic personality?
Such an experience tends to remain in memory for a long time and is rarely perceived as neutral.
At first, working with such a leader may appear promising: the leader displays strength, confidence, breadth of vision, speed, and energy. It may seem that work under their direction is dynamic and productive.
Gradually, however, it becomes clear that the difficulty lies in the very structure of the interaction, and that its source is the leader themselves. Decision-making begins to depend on the leader’s mood, and employees’ effectiveness on their ability to anticipate expectations. Disagreement and criticism are discouraged. Professional competence gradually gives way to loyalty. At a certain point, the organization ceases to function in pursuit of its own goals. Instead, it begins to revolve around a single person—the leader. For this reason, a narcissistic leader is not merely difficult; their influence is structurally and systematically destructive.
Dr. Otto Kernberg, M.D., uses the concept of narcissistic personality in a narrow sense, referring to individuals:
- whose interpersonal relations are characterized by excessive self-reference and self-centeredness;
- whose grandiosity and overvaluation of themselves exist together with feelings of inferiority;
- who are overdependent on external admiration, emotionally shallow, intensely envious, and both disparaging and exploitative in their relations with others.
In his scholarly work, he argues that among all characterological pathologies of leaders that endanger institutions, narcissistic personality features are perhaps the most serious.
The inordinate self-centeredness and grandiosity of narcissistic people is in dramatic contrast to their chronic potential for envy. Their inability to evaluate themselves and others in depth makes them incapable of empathy with a sophisticated discrimination of others, all of which may become damaging when they occupy leadership positions. In addition, when they do not receive expected external gratifications, or when they experience severe frustration or failure, they may develop paranoid trends in place of the more usual depression and sense of personal failure. Such paranoid tendencies exacerbate the leader's narcissistic character traits and the damage they can do to the organization.
Because narcissistic personalities are often driven by intense needs for power and prestige to assume positions of authority, individuals with such characteristics are frequently found in top leadership positions. They are often men and women of high intelligence, hard working, and extremely talented or capable in their field, but their narcissistic needs neutralize or destroy their creative potential in the organization.
Pathologically narcissistic people aspire to positions of leadership more as a source of admiration and narcissistic gratification from staff members and from the external environment than because they are committed to a certain task or ideal represented by the institution. As a consequence, they may neglect the functional requirements of leadership, the human needs and constraints involved in the work, and the value systems that constitute one of the important measures against which to judge administrative and technical responsibilities.
Leaders with narcissistic personalities are unaware of the variety of pathological human relationships they foster, both around themselves and throughout the entire organization, as their personalities affect administrative structures and functions at large.
In contrast to leaders with pathological obsessive and paranoid features, the narcissistic leader not only requires submission from staff; he also demands their love. He artificially intensifies the normal tendency to depend on and idealize the leader: as the staff becomes aware of how important it is for the administrator to receive perpetual demonstrations of their unconditional love and admiration, adulation and flattery become constant features of their communications with him.
(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,
Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy