When the Boss Is a Narcissist
I ran across a very interesting post at The High Calling website by Christine A. Scheller. Her post is entitled When the Boss Is a Narcissist.
It’s a great example of the value of valid “descriptive research.” Scheller quotes from a 
number of leadership studies. I know I’ve experienced a fair share of narcissistic leaders in churches, para-church organizations, and Christian higher educational institutions. These findings might help all of us to create healthier, holier cultures in our places of work and worship.
Here are just a few of the spot-on findings:
• Initially narcissistic leaders may do well in leadership positions, but they don’t take defeat well. “It’s a wound almost, when they’re defeated, when something doesn’t go well, when they’re criticized.”
• As long as a narcissist is getting a lot of praise and support, he or she can perform well, but an “inflated sense of empowerment and invulnerability” can be a catalyst for organizational disaster.
• “These are individuals who on the surface may look well put together. They may be very confident and in many ways very competent, but they don’t deal with challenges and crisis decisions they make that fall apart.”
• A leader’s narcissism makes collaboration difficult, because there is no way but the narcissist’s way and they are unwilling to learn from others.
• “It prevents servant-hood, which I believe is a leader’s ultimate role. A leader needs to 
serve those to whom they’re responsible and if they are focused on themselves, it makes it difficult for them to focus on serving others. So, by definition, they fail to develop others. Others do not become better by being part of their group.”
• “They’re not good listeners either,” Blazer added. “They’re not intuitive about how others are feeling or thinking. So, they don’t pick up on the subtle signs and maybe even not-so-subtle signs of how people are doing around them. They’re big idea people but they’re not people people.”
• If narcissists do manage to maintain long-term relationships, they tend to be superficial ones.
• “They drive their subordinates into the ground and their organizations are not structured at a sustainable pace. There’s too much. There’s always a new project. There’s always an expansion.”
• Contrary to popular belief, narcissists aren’t suffering from excessive self-esteem. 
Instead their self-image is quite low. “These are individuals who are always in need of approval and reinforcement from other people.”
• The narcissistic leader views everything as a competition. Americans are a culture of scarcity in which competitive thinking is often central to our self-understanding. Yet, “the Christian affirmation, in the deepest sense, is that the flourishing of communities is not to be a competitive reality. Christian hope is in part about the affirmation that I can risk justice, mercy, and not constantly be thinking of self-protection. It’s not being determined by scarcity and competition, and therefore allowing for some possibility of creativity and generosity. It says we don’t have to live in fear of what it means to seek an interconnected flourishing in which we as individuals can lead communities and organizations, which themselves can be looking out for those that are vulnerable.”
Again, you can read the entire post here.
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What thoughts and feelings are prompted by these findings?
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