Narcissism and Creativity: Intriguing and Troubling Findings

I've worked with several arrogant people that took under-performing operations and grew them into sizable profit centers. Their arrogance was an asset when in a fast change atmosphere where bullheaded determination and over confidence got things pushed through. They didn't always make the best decisions, but at least they were capable of making timely ones - and bend the will of others.

Once the rapid growth and improvement period was over, though, they never adjusted to sustaining mode. Their arrogance caused rifts in the organizations. Two were eventually let go.

So my amateur management theory is that highly arrogant people may be great for leading organizations in a period of rapid transition, but they are not typically the best leaders for mature organizations.

What? Simply being a narcissist causes "much damage"? It sounds like this article is coming from the POV of a manager having trouble controlling employees with a not-low-enough self-worth.

The only troubling thing to me about the finding is this article summarizing it. A good manager gets the most out of his employees by putting them in roles that maximize their abilities and take into account their personal traits. A bad manager uses scientific studies and best practice to make decisions, such as begrudgingly justifying keeping certain people on the staff even though they are unmanageable.

Having conviction in your thinking goes hand-in-hand with some ego or self-confidence. It's a great advantage to have, but also a potential weakness too.

This is why talented contrarian value investors like Buffett and Charlie Munger share a similar style -- when they have a strong opinion on something it's real hard to turn them back or convince them otherwise, so it's dangerous for the few times that they're actually wrong. But they're also very aware of this potential weakness in themselves (it's mentioned in Alice Schroeder's biography) and they've turned out to be right far more often than they've been wrong, so it works out.

When they say that the most productive group was half-narcissists, this also means it was half-extraverts.

Extraverts, compared to introverts, would be better on average in both those scenarios: at pitching ideas (appearing "more enthusiastic, witty, and charming") and generating ideas in groups. Because of this, it's hard to say what role narcissism played, separate from extraversion.

If there's a reason that our civilization will go the way of the dinosaurs, this may be it.

There is more than one way to be creative

What?