From Likability

From Likability Leader to the Invisible: Who’s on the bus? By Judy White

GetRuralLeaderMag.com | NOVEMBER /DECEMBER 2015 17 American culture’s central tenet through the modern years has often been defined as self-admiration. Taken too far, self-admiration has demonstrated a distinct downside and all the negative effects that can flow from it are more commonly known as excessive narcissism. Psychologists and researchers identify the negative effects when a leader holds attitudes or behaviors filled with arrogance, conceit, vanity, grandiosity and selwick-centeredness.

These leaders tend to be superficially charming, charismatic, over-confident and even funny. These character traits in and of themselves can bring value to an organization, however, studies demonstrate that over time some hidden traits may eventually take center stage and can bring a wrath of destruction to workplace relationships.

While individuals with a healthy self-esteem value relationships, extreme narcissists have difficulty expressing genuine empathy, warmth and caring toward others. Studies support that extreme narcissism is often the result of childhood upbringing or may represent a personality disorder. A healthy dose of narcissism tends to bridge a balance between strong results and collaborative partnerships. For extreme narcissists, however, they face a haunting psychological challenge: how do they keep feeling like an important person and on top? How do they continue to fill this deep hole that garners attention and fame? In the workplace, extreme narcissism shows itself when: • other people simply become pawns in a grand game of deception; • exploiting people and viewing people as tools to make themselves look and feel good; • there is excessive bragging about achievements (while blaming others for shortcomings); • material goods, physical appearance, display of status symbols, manipulation and cheating to get ahead is the focus.

Extreme narcissists often surround themselves with people who look up to them and feed their psychological needs for high-regard. Since they spend their life regulating social relationships in order to maximize self-admiration, they often demonstrate patterns of hiring or promoting talented individuals whom they believe can be manipulated and controlled. If an employee, colleague, customer and/or Continued on page 20