self-made men

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - what role does narcissism have in leadership? - - - - - - - - - - 

Narcissus by Caravaggio

Caravaggio’s painting presents a young man gazing at his own reflection in the water. He seems mesmerized and cannot take eyes of his own glance. 

The myth of Narcissus is firmly rooted in our culture, symbolizing self-love and egotism, selfishness and turning away from the world. Narcissus is not only in love in himself but also in his idealized image, which he creates. It is interesting to explore the meaning of this myth in the context of leadership.

In "Envy Theory: Perspectives on the Psychology of Envy" Frank John Ninivaggi describes narcissism as the 'energetic dimension of ego', 'the motor behind universal self-revelance strivings', a feature - when within normal limits - is necessary to maintain a reasonably coherent sense of self and self-identity. Only abnormal and excessive levels of narcissim are expressed as arrogance, egocentric pride and vanity. The psychological birth of narcissism is natural, and dates back to each one of us first experience of hunger and first cry as an infant, which signals to the mother a state of loneliness and need for help. 

Being an abnormal narcissist paves the way to ‘leadership’ – people with narcissistic personalities usually aspire to become someone ‘special’. Taking a leading position represents one of the ways of realizing this need. Narcissists are tireless in the pursuit of success and are ready to give up their private lives for this sake. The life of a narcissist becomes a never-ending race to confirm his own value.

Being a narcissist facilitates building one’s career and surpassing others - not because one is better than all the rest. People with this character trait are simply more willing to sacrifice everything for success. Moreover, narcissistic people are often selected as leaders due to the fact that they are very convincing and able to make a good impression. The impression is false – behind a façade of a confident person hides someone whose internal self-esteem is not very high and whose competences do not actually stand out.

Narcissism is a detrimental and dangerous feature of any leader, and it should not be mistaken for positive characteristics like self-confidence or willingness to take control over a situation. Narcissistic leaders, while always ready to give orders and constantly empahasizing their dominant position, are not good at the basic activities which facilitate the work of any team: communicating, listening to others, encouraging knowledge, ideas and information sharing. Collaboration is just not their thing. Narcissistic leaders prefer obedience to constructive criticism, strive to make their authority undeniable, instead of welcoming opposing views as valid points on the way to compromise solution.

The problem is that almost everyone can get narcissistically ‘stung’ – our self-centered, egotistic characteristics can come to the surface once we climb up the career ladder, once we emerge as leaders. 

Let's be alert to that. Haven’t we had enough of narcissistic 'leaders' in our history? Don't we have enough of them in our daily lives? 

The first step to overcoming one's excessive levels of narcissism is gratitude - that is, clearer appreciation of and developing admiration of the attempts of another, realistic and respectful acknowledgment of differences, weaknesses, shortcomings, faults and uncertainties of both oneself and others (Ninivaggi, 2010)

effective leadership: no to cohesion - yes to creative chaos

It has been said that the desire for cohesion is the enemy of a real leadership. Why?  

Leaders require certain qualities and skills to be effective. They need to be able to influence people, motivate them, and ensure them that their work is a meaningful contribution to the project. Leadership is always context-dependent, and there is no set path, and no one typical solution for exercising it successfully.

It may seem that effective leaders should be able to dominate the group and take all their members in one direction, uniting them for a common objective. Leading a group of people characterised by similar features, with a sense of collective identity and purpose, mutual support and effective patterns of communication – a cohesive group – seems  therefore as an ideal environment, which allows for achievement of the highest level of performance, guaranteeing  the success of the project.

Nevertheless, cohesion and integrity are not natural features of the society, especially in today’s deepening culture of individualism and emphasis on personal freedom and independence. For this reason, modern leaders need to be open-minend, and should be able to turn differences among individuals, with their varied mindsets and convictions, into the strengths of the organisation. Real leaders require the ability to listen, understand and make positive use of the different views and insights they encounter, turning them into creative and innovative purposes. Leaders who follow one clear path from the outset, and try to uniformalise employees behaviour in the workplace, miss out on many original and inventive ideas generated outside of „the box“. Moreover, they fail to inspire their subordinates. 

Many modern enterprises – including Internet giants like Google or Facebook and small start-ups - recognising this issue, foster cultural and intellectual diversity among their employees and encourage experimental attitudes.

In the article and video below you can learn more on how leadership in the most visionary companies has nothing to do with search for cohesion and uniformity, but rather with managing creative chaos - an example of which is Google's Twenty Percent Time solution. 

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room

Google's Twenty Percent solution