{"id":1139,"date":"2012-11-26T14:29:44","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T21:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2012-11-26T14:29:44","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T21:29:44","slug":"why-do-we-keep-choosing-narcissistic-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/11\/why-do-we-keep-choosing-narcissistic-leaders.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Do We Keep Choosing Narcissistic Leaders?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I read an interesting article<\/a> today from the Harvard Business Review about the rash of high profile leaders resigning because of extra-marital affairs. As an evangelical Christian, my antenna is pretty high for narcissistic leadership \u2013 it has long been our stock in trade. The comparison is made easier when evangelicals like Pat Robertson make excuses for Petraeus\u2019 behavior, citing the woman\u2019s good looks, in-shape body, and the fact that \u201che\u2019s a man.\u201d (Watch the video of Robertson at the end of this post).<\/p>\n

Why do we excuse narcissism in our leaders? Is it because they get things done? Why are male narcissistic leaders so much more prone to having sexual affairs than women? It\u2019s an interesting discussion. Thanks to Bob Scott<\/a> for sending this article my way. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

What to make of the confluence of\u00a0General Petraeus<\/a>\u00a0resigning as head of the CIA and\u00a0Christopher Kubasik<\/a>, vice chairman, president, and COO of Lockheed also resigning \u2014 both for having affairs \u2014 within days of each other? Certainly not the first men to be brought down by an inability to control their impulses \u2014 these recent examples join a long list including John Edwards, Bill Clinton, and Harry Stonecipher of Boeing.<\/p>\n

There is a simple power story often told about such behavior:\u00a0research shows<\/a>\u00a0that people with more power tend to pay less attention to others. They are more action-oriented, pursue their own goals, and exhibit disinhibited behavior in part because they believe that rules don\u2019t apply to them; they are special and invulnerable.<\/p>\n

All of this is true, but nonetheless leaves at least a couple of questions unanswered. First, as my friend Bob Sutton noted in a conversation, these behaviors seem to be confined mostly to men. We seldom hear of powerful women who can\u2019t control their urges. Second, it at least feels as if this sort of behavior and the career consequences that result seem to be occurring more frequently now. Maybe that is because of more public scrutiny and the operation of social media. But maybe something else is going on \u2014 namely we are choosing more narcissistic leaders and the misbehavior is not just the consequence of power but also of excessive narcissism.<\/p>\n

First, a definition: narcissistic leaders, as research by Stanford colleague Charles O\u2019Reilly and colleagues notes, are characterized by the traits of dominance, self-confidence, a sense of entitlement, grandiosity, and low empathy. As Michael Maccoby pointed out in\u00a0The Productive Narcissist<\/a><\/em>, many well-known, even iconic leaders such as Martha Stewart, Jack Welch, and Bill Gates are almost certainly narcissistic personalities, and narcissism is useful for attaining leadership positions, maintaining power, and even stimulating creativity and innovation.\u00a0O\u2019Reilly\u2019s research on narcissism<\/a>\u00a0amongSilicon Valley executives shows that narcissistic CEOs earn more, last in their jobs longer, and also have a larger gap between their pay and the pay of their senior team.<\/p>\n

Evidence from surveys of college students<\/a>\u00a0shows that the level of narcissism has been rising over time \u2014 a possible answer for why leaders today are getting into more trouble than in the past. And examinations of the structure of narcissism and how narcissistic behavior differs between men and women helps explain the gender imbalance: \u201cPast research<\/a>\u00a0suggests that exploitive tendencies and open displays of feelings of entitlement will be less integral to narcissism for females than for males\u201d simply because women face more social constraints and social sanctions for grandiosity and self-aggrandizement than do men.<\/p>\n

And while narcissism and the associated behaviors may indeed help people ascend into leadership roles, as recent experience suggests, narcissistic individuals also contain the seeds of their own (self)-destruction. And leaders\u2019 downfalls are costly \u2014 Lockheed now has to find another person to assume the CEO role, and President Obama must find someone to take over the CIA. So while indeed there are productive narcissists, narcissistic behavior can be very unproductive for both the work organizations and the people who experience it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zwieeIU3lZg<\/a>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an interesting article today from the Harvard Business Review about the rash of high profile leaders resigning because of extra-marital affairs. As an evangelical Christian, my antenna is pretty high for narcissistic leadership \u2013 it has long been our stock in trade. The comparison is made easier when evangelicals like Pat Robertson make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[77,183,78,215,216],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-leadership","tag-evangelical","tag-leadership","tag-pat-robertson","tag-petraeus"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Do We Keep Choosing Narcissistic Leaders?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I read an interesting article today from the Harvard Business Review about the rash of high profile leaders resigning because of extra-marital affairs. 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