The narcissistic leader

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 20-October-2014

Examining narcissistic leadership is more than just exploring the relationship between leadership and personality. In its own right, narcissistic leaders have become a separate field of research in leadership. They have also been the subject of numerous press writings.

Michael Maccoby (2004) presented a discussion in one Harvard Business Review about narcissistic and highlighted some of the pros and cons of such leader. In common view, narcissistic leaders are normally represented by the “larger-than-life” personalities that run organizations and figure famously in our society. Good examples of such leaders are Richard Branson, Donald Trump and Jack Welch.

It is always possible for an organization to be “leader centric” because narcissistic leadership is associated with the pros of such leaders having great ability to energize followers via grand and compelling vision. They also have the power to attract large number of followers that can enact such visions. Thus, followers’ loyalty is something that a narcissistic leader doesn’t lack, which means that the whole organization can be more of the leader than the organization itself. A good example is “Donald Trump” and “Trump Towers” in USA.

In any case, this form of leadership also has its disadvantages because narcissistic leaders are sensitive to criticism and they are poor listeners. They don’t like mentoring and they also lack empathy. Thus, they can overlook ideas that have the potential to transform the organization positively because of their huge ego, which can result to decreased performance or potential failure of such organization.

References

Michael Maccoby (2004), “Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons.” Harvard Business Review. Available at: http://hbr.org/2004/01/narcissistic-leaders-the-incredible-pros-the-inevitable-cons/ar/1. Accessed on: 12^th of June, 2014.