In recent years, coping with narcissistic behavior at work has attracted increasing interest, perhaps because many believe that some world leaders, prominent individuals, and historic figures have exhibited narcissistic behaviors. The full list of behaviors and attitudes examined in this series is:
- Expresses exaggerated self-importance
- Preoccupied with superiority fantasies
- Believes that he or she is special and that only special people or institutions can fully appreciate that specialness
- Constantly demands attention and admiration from others
- Expects and demands favorable treatment
- Exploits others for personal ends
- Displays ruthless disregard for the feelings of others
- Envies others or believes that others envy him or her
- Is Off-the-charts arrogant
For convenience, I've been referring to the person exhibiting these behaviors as either Nick or Nora. Last time, I explored expressions of exaggerated self-importance. In this installment I examine preoccupation with superiority fantasies.
- Illustrations
- Nick always insists on the most sought-after assignments and the largest and most pretentious office space with the best view. He demands remedies when he isn't satisfied. Even though the workplace is rather casual, Nick, who has a Ph.D., demanded that ", Ph.D." be appended to his name on his cubicle nameplate.
- Since Nick requires that his role be superior in every way to the roles of his co-workers, his fantasies about it sometimes appear as embellishments of history. He asserts fictions about the past. He claims that he warned about a risk when he didn't, or that he predicted a solution's success when he actually predicted failure. He couples these claims about his stellar contributions with disparaging claims about the contributions of others. Although all these claims are untrue, they aren't mere lies. They're points of conflict between reality and Nick's superiority fantasies.
- Perhaps Nick's most debilitating fantasy is that his fantasies of future glory aren't fantasies. He regards them as realistic objectives.
- Description
- Typically we regard fantasies as private, but narcissistic fantasies can be ostentatiously public displays, such as emblems of success, power, credentials, and organizational status, especially if they're overblown relative to reality — or totally fraudulent. In the more personal dimension, examples include exaggerated regard for one's own attractiveness, intelligence, or romantic conquests.
- Fantasies can Keeping large numbers of
heavily embellished truths
straight in one's mind
can be difficultbe pure, in that nothing about them is true or factual. Or they can be based on reality, but embellished in fantastical ways. Keeping large numbers of heavily embellished truths straight in one's mind can be difficult. Nick therefore is frequently caught contradicting past embellished stories or positions. - Organizational risks
- Nick's ability to distort his own perceptions and recollections of reality enables him to convincingly represent his fantasies to others as realities. Nick can recruit others to his cause when he wants to isolate someone, or damage someone's career, or cause his team to adopt or reject a strategic option, or ignore a very real risk. At times, he can distort the views of people around him so as to cause groups to make decisions inconsistent with organizational health and safety.
- Coping tactics
- As Nick's supervisor, recognize that you probably can't talk Nick out of his pattern of fantastical distortions of reality. Temporary improvement is possible, but relapses are nearly inevitable. There's no question of establishing the right performance goals, or devising a performance improvement plan that will lead to a permanent change of behavior. Make plans for replacing him. And if you discover that he misrepresented his experience or qualifications when you hired him, termination could become a very practical option.
- As Nick's co-worker, skepticism is a helpful defense. It's difficult to justify relying on his word for anything. Get his promises and claims in writing, by taking minutes at meetings or asking him to put his promises in email. But recognize that despite whatever evidence you later show him, he might very well deny what the evidence is supposed to show. Evidence doesn't prevent him from rewriting history; it serves only to narrow the basis on which he rests his rewrites. By collecting evidence, you might be able to cause his behavior to become so outrageous that management might no longer be able to refrain from action.
Next time, I'll examine attitudes like, "I'm so special that you can barely appreciate me." First in this series Next in this series Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Managing Pressure: Milestones and Deliveries
- Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status —
they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of
doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part III of a set of tactics
and strategies for dealing with pressure.
- Stalking the Elephant in the Room: I
- The expression "the elephant in the room" describes the thought that most of us are thinking,
and none of us dare discuss. Usually, we believe that in avoidance lies personal safety. But free-ranging
elephants present intolerable risks to both the organization and its people.
- The End-to-End Cost of Meetings: II
- Few of us realize where all the costs of meetings really are. Some of the most significant cost sources
are outside the meeting room. Here's Part II of our exploration of meeting costs.
- Workplace Politics and Social Exclusion: I
- In the workplace, social exclusion is the practice of systematically excluding someone from activities
in which they would otherwise be invited to participate. When used in workplace politics, it's ruinous
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- Rational Scope Management
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See also Workplace Politics and Devious Political Tactics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
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