A Narcissist In Every Leader

Whether we like it or not, India’s future will be largely determined by self-taught, young and unconventional “productive narcissists”.

Do you love yourself? If yes, to what extent? The fact of life is we do love and like ourselves. But the problem is when we start loving ourselves at the cost of everything else. And if you are in a high position and people are watching you constantly, then you are indeed in a big soup.

Unfortunately, in today’s business environment, corporate leaders need to maintain a very high degree of public presence. The information explosion all around and a growing need to be “seen and heard” are making corporate leaders more narcissistic. This tendency is making them indeed more vulnerable. Vulnerable to the extent where they might get trapped in their own success formula and often fail to see drawbacks while continuing their own strategy even in the longer run while seeking future success for their organizations.The chances of such failures are many, especially in the current business environment that are truly characterized as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) by management scholars.

In Greek mythology, Narcissus, a young and handsome hunter, was the son of the river god Cephissus. He was proud, in that he disdained those who loved him. He was attracted to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus finally drowned in the pool.

The gives credence to the common negative perception about narcissistic leaders that many of us have. For most of us, narcissism is associated with excess of self-love and in the corporate context, it gets translated into self-aggrandizement, a set of behaviours that increases the leader’s own power and influence or draws attention of others towards the leader.

But interestingly enough, way back in 1931, it was Sigmund Freud who came up with the concept of Narcissist as a personality type. And he defined a narcissist as:

“independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in a readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they are especially suited to act as support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.”

Honestly speaking, by reading through the original description by Freud, you will agree with me that the narcissistic personality type is very much a part of many leaders’ inherent traits. As a matter of fact, in my three decades of corporate experience, I do not remember meeting a single CXO whose leadership traits did not match with the ones described by Freud’s as narcissistic personality.

So where does a narcissistic leader go wrong? In spite of excelling in defining a compelling vision and infusing enormous energy in their followers, they seem to miss receiving the feedback from people around them. Especially if the feedback is negative or not so favourable to the strategic direction set by them. They often fail to recognize that this tremendously negative trait can cause not only severe dents in their own career but also jeopardize the organization’s survival in the longer run.

If we look at corporate leadership history, we will find that narcissism in corporate leaders is on rise, especially in recent times. What is contributing to this phenomenon? The answer is very simple.

We indeed are becoming more narcissistic as a society. More and more people, especially younger ones who are aspiring and pluralistic, are becoming far more attention-seeking and fame-obsessed. The National Institute of Health in USA found 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. The columnist Joel Stein, in the cover story “Me Me and Me Generation” in Time magazine in May 2013 wrote: “The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that’s now 65 or older.

Is it a Western phenomenon only? Perhaps no. Each country has its share of millennials. And they are certainly different in many ways. But they are similar in many ways too. Because of the lightning speed of globalization, spread of social media and to some extent the exporting power of Western culture, millennials in India are also becoming more narcissistic in their approach.

Social scientists are more worried about the impact that these enhanced narcissistic traits are having on the younger generation. The most common one, as you will often hear from the older generation, is the mindset of entitlement in the younger millennials. This is perhaps the most sweeping change that we need to be cautious about in future.

But is it all bad with the narcissistic leaders? No certainly not. Many of the narcissistic traits as described by Freud are essential to nurture self-esteem in leaders. And we all know that higher self-esteem many a time helps a person acquire effective leadership qualities for the future.

But psychologists believe that self-esteem is a result and not a cause. The problem starts when corporate leaders try to boost self-esteem without traits like humility and pragmatism. Instead of higher self-esteem, they breed narcissism in them. And that’s where the problem for narcissistic leaders lies.

So where is the solution? Michael Maccoby, a well-known psychoanalyst and leadership researcher coined a term “Productive Narcissists” for many successful corporate leaders whom he studied. According to him, a narcissistic leader can become successful by striving to become a productive one in a corporate set-up, provided he learns a set of interlinked skills. He referred these set of skills as “Strategic Intelligence”. In his research, he found five components that constitute this strategic intelligence. These are foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating and partnering.

India is witnessing a period where rapid social, psychological and economic changes are driving our business environment. I believe we will therefore see the emergence of more leaders who will have larger than life corporate images. And I also believe that unlike in the past, they will emerge from smaller cities and towns, from unknown small start-ups and not produced through systematic and well-designed rigorous corporate leadership processes.

Whether we like it or not, India’s future will be largely determined by these self-taught, young and unconventional productive narcissists. The biggest challenge for them will be to transcend their world of self-love and material success to creating an intellectual legacy that consists of a compulsive, over-arching and super-ordinated purpose that creates collective goodness for all stakeholders.

I want to live and see these narcissists succeed in every corporate sphere to build a great and prosperous India.