Sixteen: Leadership and Narcissism
Power, wealth, and fame are corrosive to character - and in the present culture, corporate executives have a dangerous plentitude of all three. The CEO of a sizable company has great power, considerable wealth, and finds himself in the media spotlight. This invariably affects the ego. The author provides an account from a PR specialist who works with top corporate officers - who relates that he has encountered very few bona-fide geniuses, and a whole lot of "nuts."
There is some argument over whether narcissism is the cause or effect of executive status. To seek a position in corporate leadership, a person must have a very high sense of their personal capabilities; and once in that position, the frequency with which a person makes decisions that have a massive impact will create a sense of extreme power regardless of whether they sought to have power.
The benefit of narcissism is self-confidence. Without it, a person would be reluctant to take a leadership role, doubting in his ability to handle the responsibilities of the position. But taken to extremes, this becomes arrogance that alienates rather than attracts followers. A narcissist denies his flaws and mistakes, and is often blind to a truth that is plainly evident to others - and this is where many executives go sour.
Narcissism can also be present in a person at any level of an organization: it is not merely the executives, but lower levels of management and even certain workers who have a grossly distorted and inflated sense of self-worth that alienates allies and blinds them to reality, resulting ultimately in bad decisions that harm and organization and its brand.
What is Narcissism?
In common conversation, "narcissist" is casually leveled at anyone who shows self-confidence, generally when they refuse to capitulate to the will of the accuser. But in a more precise and clinical sense, the term has a specific meaning. Five or more of the following behaviors must be present to identify an individual as a narcissist:
- A grandiose sense of self-importance that is not supported by achievements or talents
- A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or other qualities
- A sense of personal superiority to others
- A craving for praise and admiration
- A sense of entitlement, meriting special treatment from others without recompense
- A willingness to take advantage of others to achieve personal goals
- Dismissiveness and indifference to the interests of others
- Envy of those who are more successful
- A belief that others are jealous of oneself
It is not dysfunctional simply to be narcissistic - a dysfunction is diagnosed only when this characteristic causes functional problems for the individual. Some of the more common problems that indicate narcissism has become dysfunctional include:
- Excessive Ambition - The narcissist seeks to achieve goals that are beyond his abilities because he is not realistic about his limitations.
- Denial of Failure - The narcissist simply ignores or denies his failures and shortcomings, and learns nothing from his mistakes
- Depression - If the narcissist is unable to deny failure, he becomes depressed, exhibits emotional outbursts and enters into long periods of brooding and sulking
- Lack of Intimacy - The narcissist chooses to engage with others only when he desires something of them and feels no deeper emotional connection to other people
- Alienation - Other people recognize that the narcissist is one-sided and choose to shun his company
- Pomposity - The narcissist feels himself to be superior to others and treats them with condescension and disdain
- Attention Seeking Behavior - The narcissist chooses goals that will win fame and praise, as opposed to those that are less glamorous but will achieve more valuable results
In essence, narcissism becomes a dysfunction when an individual loses touch with reality, which leads him to pursue impossible goals, deny his mistakes, and damage his social relationships.
Management and Egomania
Switching to Freudian psychology, the author speaks of the ego, which is a person's self-concept. The ego is concerned with things such as their physical attractiveness, possessions, status, job title, power relationships, personal capabilities, and the like. An ego is said to be healthy when a person's concept of themselves matches that which is perceived by others - and unhealthy when a person thinks significantly more or less of himself than is objectively warranted.
It is seldom the case that internal perceptions are diametrically opposed to objective ones: a very ugly man seldom thinks himself stunning handsome, but a moderately attractive man might consider himself stunning and a plain man might consider himself hideous.
(EN: This has been described as "binary" or "extreme" thinking - either something "is" or "is not" and it is generally applied to the extremes: a person is either stunningly gorgeous or revoltingly hideous with no sense of a scale on which most individuals tend to gravitate toward the center.)
This is often cajoled by external forces. And to swing this back to the topic of business: executives who experience moderate success, have a moderate level of competence, and so on often think a great deal more of themselves than their skills and accomplishments warrant. This is often bolstered by fawning subordinates who help to inflate their manager's ego to ingratiate themselves, or superiors who consider anything less than superlative performance to be absolute failure.
Conscious States
There is a brief and superficial reference to the degree to which people are conscious of their behavior. It is presumed that every choice we make is driven by intent - that human beings have complete knowledge and exercise a methodical thinking process at all times. Naturally, this is not true.
The author refers to Freud's concept of the subconscious or unconscious mind, driven by primitive instinct to take some action that is assumed without deliberation to have the potential to cause pleasure or avoid pain. There is some allegation that even rational people follow their unconscious instincts and merely use their mind to justify or rationalize their behavior afterward.
There is some mention of perception and awareness - how a person can seem to ignore something that was obvious to anyone else. This is a result of the mind's filtering, which focuses attention on things that are assumed to be important and ignores things assumed to be unimportant. When we view a line of people, we notice people whom we know and cannot remember anything about who was standing beside them at the time.
(EN: These are interesting points, some of which are valid, but the treatment here is very superficial - consult better sources.)
Self-Centeredness
The author considers Freud's approach to psychology, and the manner in which each person places himself at the center of the universe and values all things for their benefit they stand to offer to him, often without regard for the welfare or interests of others.
Freud's basic structure divides the self into three entities:
- The Id - The core of a person's being that is motivated by impulses and seeks to take pleasure or avoid pain based on superficial evaluation and virtually no reasoning.
- The Ego - A person's concept of themselves, which implies an inflated sense of self-worth. The Ego curbs the Id only when a satisfying momentary impulse would damage self-esteem.
- The Superego - A more rigorous restraint in basic impulses that is capable of inflicting embarrassment and shame for an individual's failures to serve their ego.
He then spends considerable time considering the topic of defense mechanisms, which are bizarre twists of reasoning that the mind uses to defend itself against anything degrading or shameful so that it a person can maintain an inflated sense of self-worth in spite of their actions or circumstances. There follows a list of defense mechanisms (EN: See other sources for a more comprehensive treatment.)
- Repression - Simply denying that something exists or has happened when it cannot be reconciled with self-image
- Sublimation - The transposition of vulgar urges into those that seem more palatable - such as putting one's energies into work to compensate for a lack of sexual satisfaction.
- Regression - Reverting to childhood behaviors as a means to return to a time before an unpleasant event occurred.
- Altruism - Proposing a noble motive for undertaking an action that is motivated by more vulgar urges
- Projection - Finding something outside of oneself to blame for one's own attitudes or behaviors.
- Splitting - Placing all-or-nothing propositions above the facts of reality. In particular, something is considered wholly good or wholly evil and evidence to the contrary is ignored.
- Compartmentalization - Creating mitigating circumstances to rationalize a behavior rather than accepting it as part of one's normal character.
Essentially, Freudian psychology maintains that all people are primarily self-interested, and it is only when this self-interest causes a break from reality that interferes with their ability to coexist in society that an individual is considered dysfunctional.