Narcissistic Leadership
Narcissistic leadership is a leadership style in which the leader is only interested in him. Narcissists are good for companies that need people with vision and the courage to take them in new directions. Such leaders sometime might be highly successful, but is it a style to be followed. Learn the various types of narcissistic leadership and the characteristics of such leaders.
What is Narcissistic leadership?
Freud named the narcissistic personality after the mythical Greek hero; Narcissus, who became pathologically obsessed with himself and his reflection, an obsession that ultimately ended his life (Maccoby, 2000).
Sigmund Freud (1931) defined a narcissistic personality type as an individual whose main interest is self-preservation, is independent and impossible to intimidate. Freud (1931) suggested that individuals belonging to this type of personality group impress others as being strong personalities, and are especially suited to act as bastions for others, essentially in leadership roles.
Narcissistic leadership is a leadership style in which the leader is only interested in him. Their priority is themselves - at the expense of their people/group members. This leader exhibits the characteristics of a narcissist: arrogance, dominance, and hostility. It is a common leadership style. A study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that when a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge. Researchers found that people who score high in narcissism tend to take control of leaderless groups.
Narcissism may range from anywhere between healthy and destructive. To critics, "narcissistic leadership (preferably destructive) is driven by unyielding arrogance, self-absorption, and a personal egotistic need for power and admiration.
Types of Narcissistic leadership:
There are four basic types of a leader with narcissists:
1. Authoritarian: With task-oriented decision making
2. Democratic: With task-oriented decision making
3. Authoritarian: With emotional decision making
4. Democratic: With emotional decision making
Characteristics of Narcissistic leadership:
1. Narcissists leaders profess company loyalty but are only really committed to their own agendas.
2. They pursue their own interests rather than the interests of the organization
3. Their organizational decisions are highly influenced by their personal agendas
4. Productive Narcissists have an interrelated set of skills, foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating, and partnering
5. Productive narcissists tend to be over-sensitive to criticism, over-competitive, isolated, and grandiose
6. Productive narcissists have a sense of freedom to do whatever they want rather than feeling constantly constrained by circumstances
7. Productive narcissists through their charisma are able to draw people into their vision and gather many followers who follow them.
8. Narcissists Leadership is good for companies that need people with vision and the courage to take them in new directions.
9. Narcissists Leadership can also lead companies into trouble by refusing to listen to the advice and warnings of their managers.
10. Narcissists Leaders have difficulty in forging long-term relationships because they are continuously seeking recognition from others to reinforce their own self-worth.
11. As leaders, narcissistic individuals have fantasies of power and success, an exaggerated, grandiose sense of self-importance, and little empathy or concern for the feelings and needs of others (Yukl, 2002).
12. Such innate characteristics lead to the exploitation and manipulation of others for the primary purpose of indulging a narcissistic leader’s desire for personal enhancement. They expect special favors without feeling any need to reciprocate, oversimplify relationships and motives and have extremely bipolar worldviews; seeing things as either extremely good or extremely bad and see others around them as either loyal supporters or mortal enemies (Yukl, 2002).
Conclusion:
Narcissists, by definition, are arrogant, have splendid visions about their own importance, believe they are special and have unique gifts that others do not, have a sense of entitlement, are exploitive, and lack empathy. These qualities are not considered to be desirable leadership traits by most scholars. However, they could be highly successful in certain circumstances where the organization wants to pursue a new line of business that faces resistance within the organization. They could be highly effective in transforming phases as they are strategic thinkers who can see the big picture and take risky challenges.
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
Frederick Winslow Taylor started the “Scientific Management Movement”, and attempted to study the work process scientifically. Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. It is a system for increasing the efficiency of manpower to its maximum potential and streamlining production to improve efficiency. This article explores this theory in more detail.
-
Adaptive leadership is a style of leadership that emphasizes the importance of each and every person and role within the company. Adaptive leadership views the organization as an ever-changing, living organization, where employees can learn, adapt, and grow. Adaptive leaders mobilize people towards a common goal and also have the courage to experiment with new ideas and approaches. Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing groups of people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. Learn how to adopt this style and how to become an adaptive leader!
-
Narrative leadership is interpreted as the leader who aspires to construct leadership by telling stories. Leadership is a task of persuasion, of winning people’s minds and hearts. Storytelling is thus inherently suited for the task of leadership. Learn about the narrative leadership style and how to use this style to inspire and motivate followers or to manage change.
-
There are four characteristics of leadership that help us to understand the character of leadership as a concept. 1. Leadership is a process, 2. Leadership involves influence, 3. Leadership always occurs in a group context and 4. Leadership involves goal attainment. These are the four components that make up the character of the 'leadership' term and help us to define the leadership concept. All of these components of leadership have common characteristics.
-
Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader's legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. The authentic leader acts upon his or her values and beliefs, and inspires others to do the same, is committed to know and develop oneself. Are you committed to developing yourself; know your motivations and the purpose of your leadership? Read this article to know more about authentic leadership style and discovering your authentic self.
-
Appreciative leaders encourage contributions from those around them and facilitate the discussion to mutually solve problems. Understand the concept of Appreciative Leadership and learn about tools to create and ask powerful questions - that lead to new discoveries and possibilities. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong in the workplace, learn about, and build upon what works. Learn in this article the art to apply appreciative inquiry to specific situations and challenges at your workplace.
-
We define Lean as the systematic elimination of waste through a continual effort to decrease inefficiency; the lean leader strives to create a more efficient organization. Lean leadership is a philosophy. It is a consistent way of thinking and being in your role as a leader. The focus of this approach is on raising new leaders and help their team embrace a culture of continuous improvement. Learn what we mean by lean leadership style and its principles.
-
Authoritarian Leadership Style
Although generally considered as a traditional, outdated, and non-preferred style of leadership, the autocratic style still can be used effectively in certain situations. It is a leadership style characterized by individual absolute control over a group. If you work for an autocratic leader, your job is usually to do what you're told. Learn more about this style and situations where this could be an effective style to use and when to avoid this type of approach. Analyze the characteristics of this style to evaluate if your followers consider you an authoritarian leader!
-
Narcissistic leadership is a leadership style in which the leader is only interested in him. Narcissists are good for companies that need people with vision and the courage to take them in new directions. Such leaders sometime might be highly successful, but is it a style to be followed. Learn the various types of narcissistic leadership and the characteristics of such leaders.
-
Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.
