How narcissistic leaders infect their organizations’ cultures

I have also in the past found myself being led by a deeply unethical individual, resulting (along with everyone else in the organization) in the difficult situation where we have had to collectively somehow drag the organization back out from under the lies (and perhaps fraud) committed by that single unethical leader.

This is a serious issue, and not something that we should take lightly. Not only have I experienced serious health repercussions from this episode in my life, but I have also seen other victims within the organization suffer emotional and psychological problems over the following years.

Creating a functioning, productive and healthy organization is such a critical activity - for all of us. It is something which by now we should know how to approach systematically and reliably, and yet I don't yet see (or perhaps am simply not aware) of a state-of-the art approach to this, or even a useful set of metrics by which we can judge success.

OK.

So, was Steve Jobs a transformational leader or a narcissistic leader?

We all hate narcissists when we have to deal with them, and perhaps we hate our own narcissism. But look at the incentives: CEOs are often terrible people because, to become CEO, you have to battle your way to the top in an increasingly machiavellian up-or-out pyramid and make awful decisions in the interest of the business (I've had to fire someone, it is horrible.) So we shouldn't be surprised to find many sociopaths there.

The offered solutions don't address incentives, and rely on the board, which is filled with the same type of people who are in the C-Suite. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

We are all aware that sociopaths are bad. Tell us something we don't know, Berkeley.

From the article: "Narcissistic leaders have personalities that are profoundly grandiose, overconfident, and dishonest, credit-stealing, and blame-throwing, according to Chatman. They are abusive to their subordinates, think they are superior, don’t listen to experts, create conflict, and believe the rules simply don’t apply to them. They can explode in rage at any sign of disagreement or disloyalty. There’s always an “I” in their conception of the team."

It reads more like a complaint and not an observation. I think the basic mistake these and other people make when they interpret the myth of Narcissus is thinking that he is in love with "himself," instead of the more incisive insight that he is preoccupied with his reflection, that is, how he imagines himself to be perceived by others. That is the crippling pathology, which manifests in bizarre behavior that is over-indexed on shaping the perfectness of that reflection. Whenever I see "narcissism," mentioned anywhere these days, it's always the same kind of complaint made by someone who identifies as feeling inferior to an imagined charismatic, glad handling, type-A personality.

Narcissism really is a pervasive problem, but mainly because it's not what most people think it is, and the roots of it are not something most people are prepared to face.

I honestly doubt this. The whole credit-stealing blame-shifting will inevitably put the blame on those with less power and status and set them up for retaliation. In all the years I've been working, I've honestly never solved a problem writing a peer review, ever. Many times, those don't even end up on a review or are shown to the person being reviewed, unless the person's manager wants it to be.

I'd also like to reference the 'fish rots from the head down' - while the meaning is true, I find this to be such a strange saying. I heard a better one that I've started to use from now on. "The house leaks from the roof on down"

What side is down on a fish anyway? And do they actually rot that way? Seems suspect to me. Perhaps an experiment is in order.

> profoundly grandiose, overconfident, and dishonest, credit-stealing, and blame-throwing, according to Chatman. They are abusive to their subordinates, think they are superior, don’t listen to experts, create conflict, and believe the rules simply don’t apply to them

How do you objectively study such a thing? How do you tell when credit is stolen or blame underserved as an outside researcher? How do you determine who is abusive, but for those that do it out in the open (such that Bill Gates is a counterexample); how can you talk about what people believe?

I've seen this first-hand. It was very sad to see someone spend so much energy yet reap so much damage. They don't do it out of malice, they simply don't notice it and are resistant to criticism which they perceive as personal attacks.

Developers stalled in their skills, communication between departments ceased and people started leaving. Within a few month the entire development team was gone.

That is true for some narcissists. Now there is a new breed of narcissists that use all of the above to strengthen their positions in companies without doing real work. And they are more ruthless than their predecessors, who often at least had a sense of humor.