Confidence is correlated with career effectiveness and advancement.
However, people who exhibit too much of a good thing may seem “narcissistic.”
Jean Twenge
Narcissistic personality is characterized by:
-Inflated views of the self,
-Grandiosity,
-Self-focus and vanity,
-Self-importance,
according to San Diego State University’s Jean M. Twenge, with Sara Konrath and Brad J. Bushman of University of Michigan, collaborating with University of South Alabama’s Joshua D. Foster, and Keith Campbell of University of Georgia,
Calvin S Hall
One well-validated assessment instrument to identify narcissism is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, developed by University of California Berkeley’s Robert Raskin and Calvin S. Hall.
Sara Konrath
Raskin and UC Berkeley colleague, Howard Terry examined responses from more than 1000 volunteers and found seven constructs related to narcissism:
- Authority,
- Exhibitionism,
- Superiority,
- Vanity,
- Exploitativeness,
- Entitlement,
- Self-Sufficiency.
Timothy Leary
They related ratings of “self” and “ideal self” to participants’ responses on the Leary Interpersonal Check List, developed by Harvard’s Timothy Leary before he investigated psychedelic drugs.
Brian P Meier
An alternative to Leary’s lengthy NPI was developed by University of Michigan’s Sara Konrath, Brian P. Meier of Gettysburg College, and Ohio State’s Brad J. Bushman of Indiana University.
The Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS) measures grandiosity, entitlement, and low empathy characteristic of “narcissistic” behavior.
The team asked more than 2,200 participants to rate their answer to a single question on a scale of one to seven: To what extent do you agree with this statement? “I am a narcissist.”
Brad J Bushman
Konrath’s team demonstrated that the Single Item Narcissism Scale is a valid, reliable alternative to longer narcissism scales because it is significantly correlated with scores on the NPI and is uncorrelated with social desirability.
Erika Carlson
People who score high on the NPI and SINS say that they are more arrogant, condescending, argumentative, critical, and prone to brag than people who score low on the NPI, according to University of Toronto’s Erika Carlson.
Narcissism was also related in Konrath’s validation studies to:
- Negative emotions including anger, shame, guilt, and fear,
- Low empathy for others including low perspective-taking, low caring concern, and little personal distress when others experience distress,
- Minimal commitment to relationship partners.
People who scored high for narcissism also showed behaviors that can be problematic at work:
- Anger and aggression in response to perceived threats to “self-worth”, and “insufficient” admiration and respect, as in performance reviews,
- “Salary entitlement” in believing they deserve higher compensation than peers, even under adverse business conditions.
However, people who scored high for narcissism displayed positive attributes including:
- High creativity,
- Happiness,
- Self-esteem,
- Resistance to anxiety and depression.
Interacting with a narcissist in the workplace can be challenging, and a previous blog post identifies recommended strategies.
-*How do you identify narcissists in the workplace and in personal life?
-*What are more effective ways to work with them?
RELATED POSTS:
- Least Skillful Performers May Have Greatest Self-Delusions of Skill
- Managing “Triadic Managers” and Navigating Office Politics by Becoming a Little Like Them
- “Honest Confidence” Enables Performance, Perceived Power
- Costs of Workplace Incivility
©Kathryn Welds
Kathryn Welds, PhD | Curated Research + Commentary 
Jill Davis, President and Owner, Paces Inc. Executive Coaching and Strategic Planning, wrote:
Great and useful information, tools, and perspectives. Thank you for sharing. These narcissistic folks can be difficult to impossible to coach and to manage. So, it is a relief to have some research and assessments to support understanding and validate one’s intuition.
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Kathryn Welds responded:
Thanks so much for your comment, Jill.
Clinical studies reinforce your observation of the challenges in coaching and managing people with these characteristics because it’s easy to become the target of their ire, with few straightforward ways to repair the relationship or provide “consumable” perspectives and potential insights.
Yet, they have many characteristics that enable success and effectiveness — to a point.
The Center for Creative Leadership’s numerous studies on Executive Derailment summarize how these individuals may reach “the end of the line” in organizational settings.
Mohammad Khairul Alam, Programme Officer at RMG Center of Excellence, ILO-Dhaka wrote:
This pointers are incredible to me.I have gone over quickly to Kathryn Welds points.
Looking back, to a few individuals I worked with, all the majors points of a NARCISSIST’s behavoiur tallied what has been stated. I met two different versions of personality. One totally an extroverted slave runner, who did not care for his team members at all. But he was very surreptitiously amiable to others in other departments who are needed to achieve his ends. The other one is all so sweet on the surface, but beneath he was all of the personality what has been pointed in the above link.I have never seen such a camouflaged person who shows all superiority and exhibitionism, exploitative and no empathy to others with no commitment to his relationship partners.
I regret I did not know how to handle this kinds! Trying to cope invoked inner anger and stress in me.Any suggestions how to cope and handle such personality? Rgds and best wishes to all reading this post from me with greetings from Bangladesh
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Kathryn Welds wrote:
Thank you Kahirul, for your comment.
People with seemingly “narcissistic” personality traits have a number of positive characteristics that enable them to achieve leadership roles, and Simon Crompton distinguished between “Productive Narcissists” and their less productive counterparts.
Likewise, Michael Maccoby analyzed Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails, and offered suggestions to navigate professional interactions.
D.L Paulhus’s experimental study found that “self-enhancers,” characterized by narcissism and self-deception, initially made positive impressions on others, but over brief time periods, their interpersonal relationships deterioriated as people experienced their interaction styles.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9599439
Roy Lubit also offered suggestions to deal with narcissistic leaders in his article, The long-term organizational impact of destructively narcissistic managers. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4165819?uid=3739560&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104206319221
Advice includes:
* extreme caution and anticipate opportunities for unintended perceived slights
* polite, professional, pleasant yet distant, and avoiding personal relationships
* alternate employment if current role reports to such individuals
-Recognizing that most people have similar challenges in dealing with these individuals