Narcissistic leadership is a new term for an old idea. The traditional view of leadership is of charismatic, even heroic individuals who save the day. This is called The Great Man Theory of Leadership. In our more democratic times, we’ve largely abandoned this theory for more managerial or coaching models. We reject this old view as authoritarian, grandiose, narcissistic.

But a form of the old Great Man theory remains. How else do you begin to explain the behaviour and success of a Henry Ford or a Steve Jobs? So business psychologists have made a distinction between productive or healthy narcissists on one side, and leaders who are destructive narcissists on the other.

Michael Maccoby is an academic and coach who has particularly focused on this idea as it applies to the business realm. I’ve written about it for some time, and find it a fascinating, contemporary take on the old idea of heroic leadership. So here’s a collection of links to quality resources about narcissistic leadership. And, since the topic is narcissism, I’ll start with my own!

My Articles on Narcissistic Leadership

Narcissism is Good for Business – Here I suggest some ways in which you could develop your ‘inner narcissist’ in positive ways, and take a test to rate your current score!

Book Review of ‘The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership’ – This is my short review of Maccoby’s main book on the topic.

Political Issues at Work – Political Intelligence (PI) doesn’t require you to think like Machiavelli but it does mean you have to think strategically, something at which Maccoby argues narcissists can excel.

Book Review of ‘All About Me: Loving a Narcissist’ – This is my review of another, more practical book on the phenomenon of narcissism and how to deal with those who have it.

I Have the Power – This is the summary of a talk I gave at a business event in which I argue that narcissism is one of the ways entrepreneurs can use to build their charisma and their brand.

Key Research Papers on Narcissistic Leadership

These are both by Michael Maccoby. The first is the article in which he first put forward his theory. The second serves as nice summary of it, in his own words.

Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons (The Harvard Business Review, January-February, 2000)

We Still Need Visionary Leaders (The Washington Post, August, 2009 )

Useful Reviews, Summaries and Applications

Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails by Donald L. Nathanson, MD (Psychiatric Times)

4 reasons narcissists can be highly effective leaders by Shana Lebowitz (Business Insider UK)

Business leaders and narcissism by Alexander Burgemeester (The Narcissistic Life)

How to Work for a Narcissistic Boss by Rebecca Knight (Harvard Business Review)

Do you work for a narcissist? Here’s how to keep your sanity by Anna Hensel (Inc. Magazine)

Lots of the coaching work we do overlaps with developing a healthy narcissism or sense of self-esteem. We’ve worked with entrepreneurs, managers and leaders of other types on this topic…as well as those who have to work with them! Contact us to find out more.

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Assertive leadership is often identified as the one skill leaders need to work on. Not only is it an important trait in itself, enabling leaders to communicate effectively and maintain boundaries. Assertiveness also serves as a magnifier of many other leadership strengths. For example, assertive leaders are more likely to embrace innovation, foster collaboration and act with integrity.

Assertive leadership is often misunderstood as requiring pushy or aggressive behaviour. Here are a few surprising facts about what assertive leadership ideally requires.

Assertive Leadership is Curvilinear

A few studies have researched the relationship between assertiveness and leadership in a scientific way. These are:

• What Breaks a Leader: The Curvilinear Relation Between Assertiveness and Leadership (2007)
• Pushing up to a point: Assertiveness and effectiveness in leadership and interpersonal dynamics (2009)

What they found is that there is both a negative and a positive link between assertiveness and leadership, depending on the quantity of the assertiveness. Too much or too little assertiveness is detrimental to leadership. But the right amount of assertiveness, while largely unnoticed in itself, serves as a platform for other leadership traits. Assertiveness has a curvilinear, or inverted-U-shaped relationship with leadership effectiveness, rather than a linear one in which they are always directly proportional.

One of the authors put it like this:

When leaders get assertiveness wrong, it’s glaring and obvious, but when they get it right, it seems to disappear. We say it’s like salt in a sauce: when there’s too much or too little, it’s hard to notice anything else, but when it’s just right, you notice the other flavors. No one compliments a sauce for being perfectly salted, and it’s just as unusual for a leader’s perfect touch with assertiveness to attract much notice.

By the way, it’s the same with charisma in leadership – too much charisma can make leaders look less effective, just like too little!

Assertiveness Leadership is Calm

It turn out that people want to follow calm, assertive leaders. Both parts of the equation are important. From a biological viewpoint, assertiveness is related high levels of testosterone, while the calmness is related to low levels of cortisol. These might seem like a contradictory emotions. One way of bringing them together is by adopting the right physical posture, sometimes called a power pose. Research has shown that:

Posing in displays of power caused advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and these findings suggest that embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices. That a person can, by assuming two simple 1-min poses, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications.

To find out what these poses are, scientists have studied the body language of alphas, or leaders, both in the animal and human realms. Watch this TED Talk by Amy Cuddy to find out more. Or speak to us about training and coaching on body language. You might also want to read one of our 14 blog posts on assertive communication. And discover how Bully Karma can help you unleash assertiveness on the workplace bully!

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Writers and researchers on emotional intelligence and leadership sometimes use the phrase primal leadership to describe their view on the place of emotion in a leader’s role. This seems like a weird word to use. Primal has (at least) two meaning that help us understand why they use it. Something is primal if it is:

• original, early, first in time
• primary, basic, of first importance

They believe that emotions are primal to leadership in both senses. Humanity’s primordial leaders where chieftains or shamans who compelled by emotional leadership. And modern business leaders have the task of both driving collective emotions in a positive direction and clearing away toxic emotions. But how?

Resonant Leadership vs Dissonant Leadership

Resonant leaders drive emotions positively, by pulling others through their vision and example. Dissonant leaders undermine the emotional foundations that let people shine. Daniel Goleman has detected six leadership styles, or different methods of showing leadership in different contexts and to different people. It is possible to move between them, and a good leader will do that, even using the dissonant styles when necessary.

The four resonant leadership styles are:

1. visionary – moves people towards shared dreams
2. coaching – connects what people want with company goals
3. affiliative – creates harmony by connecting people
4. democratic – encourages people’s input and participation

Dissonant leadership styles are:

1. pace-setting – meets challenging and exciting goals
2. commanding – gives clear directions in an emergency

Attunement vs Alignment

Some leaders speak of their task in terms of aligning their people with their strategy or goal. This leaves a mechanical impression of the role of leaders: people are objects to be arranged in straight lines, like so many cogs. But support requires the emotional as well as the rational parts of the brain. The concept of attuning more fully describes a leader’s role, with its suggestion of the harmony of the instruments in an orchestra. Attunement requires a direct connection with people’s emotional centres. It achieves this through involving people deeply in the process and allowing them to make decisions about their place in it.

Threshold Abilities vs Distinguishing Abilities

Many leaders find themselves in a position of leadership simply because they tick several of the correct boxes. The have the basic skills that everyone has to have to do the job. This usually amounts to standard mix of IQ, technical skills and personality traits. They are average rather than outstanding in terms of their performance. Leadership experts suggest it is better to disregard the standard criteria if you want star results. Instead, start with high performers, compare them to average performers, and find out what makes leaders in the field. These are the real leadership abilities, or, as Goleman calls them, the eight ‘distinguishing competencies’.

Process vs Program

Once you realise the need for emotionally intelligent leadership at all levels of an organisation, the questions become a matter of how exactly to roll it out. Traditionally, organisations have answered this question by means of one-time training and educational programs. These are necessary but not sufficient. What is required is an entire process that not only fills minds with information, but permeates every level of the organisation.

Such a process not only educated individuals, but also works with teams and the company culture too. Through coaching, it will apply lessons learned and provide feedback on progress. It will take the form of an emotional as well as intellectual journey. Without all these aspects in place, the leadership produces will simple take the form of theory and certificates.

We believe that you can learn emotional intelligence like any other set of skills. The same goes for leadership. We’ve taught and coached EI for over a decade, at universities and for businesses. Contact us to find out what we can do for your organisation.

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The discovery that Emotional Intelligence is real and can be learned has produced political issues. At first, there was Social Intelligence, and then, Cultural Intelligence. Now, there is also Political Intelligence (PI). What is it and how does it work?

Political Intelligence

PI has noting to do with running for office, voting, or political issues like that. It’s about understanding others and influencing them to achieve your objectives, or those of your organisation. Many consider such office or workplace politics as nasty and sneaky. I would argue that they are unavoidable and that it is possible to conduct them with integrity.

The bad reputation of workplace politics comes from two facts. Firstly, those who seem to succeed in them often do so at the expense of others or in ways that seem unethical. But such people only reach short term goals. Secondly, the nature of politics often requires the use of informal channels and indirect strategies that make many uncomfortable. But none of this is necessarily incompatible with high levels of integrity. In fact, character is one of the most powerful modes of non-rational influence.

It creates ambiguity that another name for Political Intelligence is Machiavellian Intelligence. This gives it a slightly sinister tone. Machiavellianism is one of the three points in the psychology of dark triad traits, along with narcissism and psychopathy. There’s a test for Machiavellianism called MACH-IV. You can try interactive, online version here. But what does it mean?

Machiavellian Intelligence

Machiavellian Intelligence is named after Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet, and playwright. Machiavelli is most widely known for his book on realist political theory called The Prince. In this sense, someone is Machiavellian if they place political expediency above morality, or if they use cunning to carry out their policies and deception to maintain their position.

The Prince teaches a newcomer how to stabilise his newfound power and build a structure that will endure. He must be publicly above reproach but privately prepared to do immoral things in order to achieve his goals. Machiavelli explains through examples which princes are the most successful in obtaining and maintaining power. The Prince is the first major defense of ‘realpolitic’ – politics or diplomacy based primarily on practical considerations rather than ideological notions.

A more concessionary work that is inspired by and compared to The Prince is Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. It takes the form of a manual which provides laws for those who seek to increase their power in life. This book shares thematic elements with The Prince and quotes Machiavelli, as well as many classical and Renaissance authors. The work aims to illustrate that “certain actions always increase one’s power…while others decrease it and even ruin us.” It  has become very popular among hip hop artists and producers.

Strategic Intelligence

All this probably sounds dark and not immediately useful. Michael Maccoby might disagree. He’s a psychologist and leadership expert who has made an astounding claim: narcissists can made excellent leaders, if they can overcome their cons. In his book The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership, Maccoby sets out his claim that narcissistic leadership is particularly valuable in times of disruptive change within organisations, as it inspires people and shapes the future.

Narcissism can be unproductive, even destructive, in leaders. What makes it work is Strategic Intelligence, which Maccoby breaks down into five elements:

1. foresight – the ability to understand trends, threats and opportunities
2. visioning – the ability to imagine and implement an ideal future state
3. system thinking – the ability to  integrate elements for a common purpose
4. motivating – the ability to motivate different people in different ways
5. partnering – the ability to develop strategic alliances

Your Intelligence

If all this sounds a little high level, don’t despair, there’s much you can do. First, you can learn about the different models of influence and persuasion you can use within your workplace. Second, you can read our blog articles on networking and communication. And, finally, feel free to contact us for consultation or coaching work in this area.

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As a trainer and consultant, I’ve come across many different models for giving power to the people in a workplace. Some paint a big picture of power throughout society or over time. They are relevant because businesses and organisations are part of society and share the same structures. Others present a small picture view, offering help on how to persuade your client, your boss, or your audience.

Because it’s Workplace Politics Awareness Month, I’ve gather the best of them together in this one blog. As you read, remember the words of Sir Francis Bacon that mark the beginning of the modern era.

“ipsa scientia potestas est” (‘knowledge itself is power’)

The Three Modes of Persuasion

Rhetoric was one of the key parts of Greek education in the ancient world, along with Grammar and Dialectic. The word ‘rhetoric’ comes from the Greek for orator. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion through the use of spoken and written language. The Greeks considered it necessary in a democracy since persuasion is the only way to give power to the people without resorting to force of arms and coercion.

Aristotle in his Rhetoric divided rhetorical strategies into three modes or ways of working:

1. Ethos – the use of a speakers character or credentials to make their argument credible
2. Pathos – the use of passion and pictures to stir up emotions
3. Logos – the use of reason in the form of facts and arguments to prove the case

The Three Types of Social Power

Futurologist Alvin Toffler wrote in Powershift that there are three types of power, each of which has shifted to a different, dominant class of people over time.

1. Violence – associated with the old nobility (negative)
2. Wealth – industrialists and financiers (positive and negative)
3. Knowledge – modern ‘knowledge workers’ (transformative)

He summarised these as “Muscle, Money, and Mind.” Each type of power has shifted from group to group over time in increasingly flexible ways.

Canadian scholar J K Galbraith proposed a very similar tripartite typology of social power in his book, The Anatomy of Power.

1. Condign – based on force
2. Compensatory –  through the use of various resources
3. Conditioned – the result of persuasion

Galbraith added that there were three sources for each type of power: personality, property, and organisational.

The Four Political Animals

Different authors have suggested that we have to grapple with all kinds of different animals in the political jungle of work. The best I’ve come across is this one. It originates from an article called Owl, Fox, Donkey or Sheep: Political Skills for Managers.

1. Donkey – inept, low political intelligence, low integrity
2. Sheep – innocent, low political intelligence, high integrity
3. Fox – cunning, high political intelligence, low integrity
4. Owl – wise, high political intelligence, high integrity

The Four Strategies of Influence

One of the most useful accounts of the persuasion strategies in The Influence Styles Model. A variation of this is Dr Tim Baker’s Four Strategies of Influence. It divides major strategies into those that push (‘driving’) and those that pull (‘enabling’).

1. Arguing – a push strategy that focuses on the message (logic and facts)
2. Asserting – a push strategy that focuses on the person (statements and repetitions)
3. Empathising – a pull strategy that focuses on the person (engagement and connection)
4. Energising – a pull strategy that focuses on the message (vision and goals)

The Six Bases of Power

In 1959, social psychologists French and Raven identified The Bases Of Social Power. This included workplace organisations. They initially found five but added a sixth in 1965.

1. Legitimate Power – position (president, prime minister, monarch)
2. Reward Power – favours (managers, CEOs, directors)
3. Expert Power – skills (scientists, academics, thought leaders)
4. Referent Power – charisma (celebrities, community leaders)
5. Coercive Power – threat (judges, police and military)
6. Informational Power – knowledge (media, PR, lobbyists)

As a communication consultancy, we possess expert power in many of these issues. Dawn has designed and delivered many successful workshops on assertiveness and networking. I’ve coached people in presenting and those aspects of Emotional Intelligence that help us interact with others (especially empathy and persuasion) . Give us a call and persuade us to work with you.

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