Pathological Narcissism - A Dysfunction or a Blessing?

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The Narcissist in the Workplace

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Narcissism as a career move

Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, August 19, 2006

How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one -- but he has to wait for the whole world to revolve around him.

Researchers have found that criminals, psychiatric patients and CEOs share
common traits, which might come as no surprise to loyal readers of the
International Socialist Review, but might be something of an eyeopener for
the rest of
us.

Successful business managers, they discovered, are as likely to exhibit the
traits of narcissistic personality disorder -- lack of empathy, alienation,
grandiosity, amorality, hyper-sensitivity -- as the residents of prisons and
mental hospitals.

Not that that's a bad thing.

Michael Maccoby, author of The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril
of Visionary Leadership, says narcissistic leaders can be visionaries who
create excitement, turning their companies into near cult-like organizations
that
propagate the CEO's world view.

"Narcissists are driven to engage others and to bring others into their
vision," Maccoby told the Conference Board publication Across the Board.
"It's a
profound psychic need."

Often cited as successful productive narcissists are Microsoft's Bill Gates,
Apple's Steven Jobs and General Electric's Jack Welch.

While narcissists can be charismatic leaders and innovative thinkers, the
jury is out on whether these qualities translate into better corporate
performance. A study called It's All About Me: Narcissistic CEOs and Their
Effects on
Company Strategy and Performance revealed that CEOs at the high end of the
narcissism scale were more likely to take high-risk, high-reward actions
that
deliver big wins -- or big losses. The more narcissistic the CEO, the more
volatile
the performance.

A more incremental approach, favoured by productive obsessives, as Maccoby
called them, would produce steadier, more consistent results.

So how do you know if your boss is a narcissist? Well, researchers have
developed their own indicators. They looked at the size of the CEO's
photograph in
the annual report, the prominence of his or her name in press releases, the
length of the CEO's entry in Who's Who, the frequency of self-references in
interviews and the CEO's compensation relative to that of the second highest
paid
executive in the company.

Okay, so it isn't exactly the scientific method.

Since there's a fine line between narcissism and psychopathy, you could also
use the Psychopathy Checklist developed by University of British Columbia
professor emeritus Robert Hare.

Here are the traits of corporate psychopaths: glibness and superficial
charm;
grandiose sense of self-worth; pathological lying; cunning and
manipulativeness; lack of remorse or guilt; shallow affect (that is,
coldness covered up by
dramatic emotional displays that are insincere); callousness and lack of
empathy; and the failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions.

Working for people like this can be stimulating -- until it becomes
intolerable.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006