Why write a novel about a narcissistic CEO? Because a narcissistic leader who would fight any feedback report can still recognise himself in a story. Fiction gets past the armour: there is no messenger to shoot. Wahlberg, my business novel about CEO Dirk Wahlberg, has...
How do you negotiate with a narcissist? By negotiating with the pattern instead of the person you wish were present. Concretely: manage the relationship between the deal and their self-image, because the pattern will pay real money to protect the story; never spend...
Can you screen narcissism out of executive hiring? Not with the tools most organisations use: assessments entertain, references defend, and interviews actively select for the pattern, because interviews reward confident self-presentation, which is the pattern’s native...
How do you tell a narcissistic leader from a strong one? Not by confidence, decisiveness or impatience, which both share. The reliable differences show over time in four places: what happens to people who correct the leader publicly, where credit and blame travel,...
Where does narcissistic leadership come from? From an early deficit in unconditional recognition, what clinical psychologist Martin Appelo calls an ‘oersoep’ (primal soup) problem, compensated by narcissistic inflation, which produces a structural deficit...
