#29 The Good, Bad & Ugly of Handling Narcissists At Work

THAT MOMENT WHEN YOU HEAR

• “I’m sorry if you feel that way. But I’m a busy person. I don’t have time for your nonsense. You are the problem. I hope you know that.”

• “You don’t know who you’re messing with. You don’t know what I could do to you!”

• “I went in there to talk about how he was treating me - and I ended up being the one who had to apologise! I feel a bit mindf***ed to be honest.”

• “I don’t know why he shared with me all that stuff about X. I hardly know X. I listened but yeahhhh, it was kinda weird.”

…you’re in the Good, Bad & Ugly of Handling Narcissists At Work

THINK // 3 insights from the field

😇 THE GOOD THING  about the last decade or so is that talk about narcissism has become mainstreamed.

Because of the rise of more grandiose, controlling leaders in public office or in high profile corporations displaying narcissistic behaviours, there has been a lot more public education (some more dependable than others) about what narcissistic behaviour is and is not.

This is useful - not for us to become armchair therapists trying to diagnose people around us, but for us to recognise that something deeply unhealthy, even dangerous, might be happening to us or someone dear to us.

Why should I care about narcissistic behaviour?
How does it look like in the workplace?

According to therapist Dr Ramani Durvusala, narcissistic people are deeply insecure individuals who’ve learnt how to use manipulative and controlling behaviours to off-set their sense of insecurities.

So as they rise up the ranks on the workforce, in pursuit of personal validation, they will pursue leadership positions.

And they often secure those positions because they can be:

• overtly narcissistic: obviously charming, extroverted mavericks skilled at breaking rules and commanding people through grandiose, clearly chaotic behaviours like berating, ordering around, intimidating etc. (Think Harvey Weinstein of Miramax)

• covertly/vulnerably narcissistic: weirdly charming, more introverted rule-benders who are skilled at controlling people through subtler chaotic behaviours like creating “inner/outer circle” dynamics, triangulation, emotional blackmail etc. (Think Sam Bankman-Fried based on accounts by Caroline Ellison, his ex-girlfriend/ex-head of his now disgraced hedge fund FTX)

Dr Durvusala explains elsewhere that you can spot highly narcissistic people by looking for 4 core pillars of narcissistic behaviour:

• Lack of empathy: inability to care for people’s feelings in a sincere way or speak about others in a caring, respectful way.

• grandiosity: a sense of specialness and self-importance that leads them to boast about real or exaggerated accomplishments where to establish how much better they are than others.

• a chronic sense of entitlement: even if they’ve been caught doing unsavoury or unethical things, they feel entitled to an apology, empathy or forgiveness from the people they’ve hurt

• a chronic need to seek out admiration from other people and validation: a strong need for other people to praise and coddle them.

According to therapist Joe Nucci, learning to spot a narcissist is not easy, straightforward - or even the point.

Many narcissists are highly intelligent and/or highly skilled at hiding who they are from you - or making you disbelieve yourself and others.

To Nucci,

“What’s important is not that you spot them upfront but once you recognise you are in a relationship with one, you actually get out of that relationship and put up boundaries immediately.”

🤬 THE BAD THING  is all this public education is pointless when most people refuse to believe it can happen to them.

The repeated cautionary tales of how narcissistic leaders wrecked Uber, Theranos, WeWork etc. keep being put out there - and they are still not being heeded.

People still get charmed and tricked into adulation of narcissistic leaders.

People tend to forget the highly destructive effects narcissists have had on other organisations and favour the grandiose fairy tales the next new narcissist puts out there for people to believe in.

In fact, the main trigger for most people becoming truly aware and cautious of narcissistic behaviour is ONLY AFTER IT HAPPENED TO THEM - or someone they deeply care for.

Before that, all this talk of narcissistic behaviours will seem like “fairy tales”, “theoretical debates”, “too far-fetched”, “woke talk”.

So how do you tell what is narcissistic behaviour that is beyond the scope of an organisation to support vs. what is simply “jerk like” behaviour that HR/leadership can discipline?

Professor Charles A. O’Reilly who studies how the personalities of leaders shape organisational culture reviewed research into narcissistic leaders from 150 studies and concluded:

To O’Reilly, true narcissists are self-serving and lack integrity.

Another way is to get acquainted with the laundry list of controlling and manipulative behaviours all narcissists tend to use.

Here are just 5 classic dark strategies from the narcissist’s playbook:

• gaslighting: manipulating someone by presenting ‘alternative facts’ so repeatedly and convincingly over a period of time that their target begins to question their own perception of reality, sanity and ability to reason.

• Workplace example of gaslighting: You know you're competent and good at your job. But your new boss keeps insisting you correct multiple little errors that you’re pretty sure aren’t a big deal. The more he insists, shoots down your ideas in meetings and pokes holes in all your contributions, the more you start to doubt yourself - and others start to doubt you. When you try to tell him he hired you for being great at doing your last job, he says “I don’t remember saying that.” But you know he did. But now you’re not sure…did you remember correctly?

• love-bombing: manipulating someone by overwhelming them in the beginning with “too good to be true” showering of affectionate words, over-the top gestures, gifts to sweep you off your feet

• Workplace example of love-bombing: During the onboarding process, your manager was too good to be true. You got plenty of praise, texts, gifts and “we are family here”. You were swept off your professional feet. Then a few months later, all that changed into guilt-tripping and hints that you should be working harder and longer and that you are lucky to have this job.

• future faking: manipulating someone to get something in the present by up-selling a “too good to be true” vision of the future.

• Workplace example of future faking: During the onboarding process, your manager was too good to be true. You got plenty of grand, beautiful promises of how you were going to work on this amazing project and that amazing project - and who knows maybe one day you will head the regional office. You were swept off your professional feet. Then a year later, when you try to ask “am I ever going to be put on that amazing project?”, you get stabbed with “Not at the rate you are working.”

• DARVO: manipulating people trying to hold them to account by DENY first - ACCUSE them back if that doesn’t work - REVERSE VICTIM/OFFENDER roles as a last play.

• Workplace example of DARVO: You know the boss took credit for your work. You ask her “what’s that about?”. She denies that it happened and that you’re overthinking it. When you press her, she accuses you of not being a team player and even tells you how hurt SHE IS by YOUR selfishness and insistence on taking all credit for yourself. You leave the room very confused by the conversation.

• triangulation: manipulating by covert creation, maintainance and orchestration of conflicts between people. The goal is to avoid direct interactions by pitting two people against one another and seeming like the hero still.

• Workplace example of DARVO: Colleague A keeps telling you about how Colleague B is not the best at her job and some of Colleague B’s unsavoury past situations. You don’t have much interaction with B and don’t think it’s any of your business what A & B’s dynamic is. But the more you listen, the more close you feel to A. A’s sharing of office gossip with you makes you feel entertained and special in a way. After you leave your job, you meet B in another context. She talks about how glad she is to leave the company at last and particularly how free she feels now that she no longer works with A. She shares how surprised she is by how friendly you are and tentatively shares with you the negative - and false! - stories that A had told her about you(!). You’re gobsmacked that B thought you disapproved of her and horrified at A’s tales about you.

😈 THE UGLIEST THING some of us have to face is that we might not be handling narcissists - but narcissists are already handling us more than we know.

Remember the triangulation strategy above?

This is one of the classic ways narcissistic people use to bring unwitting people into their drama of control and manipulation.

One of the uglier truths some of us have to consider is:

Could I have ever unwittingly played the role of
The Useful Idiot/The Flying Monkey
in some narcissistic person’s game?

What is a narcissist’s Useful Idiot/Flying Monkey?

The Flying Monkey is a reference to the winged monkeys that an evil witch sends out to do her bidding in the fairytale Wizard of Oz.

Flying Monkeys/Useful Idiots are basically the loyal friends and followers that a narcissist sends out to fight battles on their behalf.

In the workplace, these would be the peers, managers or leaders who have been subtly manipulated into feeling sorry for, protective over, and/or loyal to the narcissist.

Unfortunately, what makes you a Useful Idiot for a narcissist are some lovely traits we appreciate in each other.

The best Flying Monkey/Useful Idiot candidates have some combination of these characteristics

• easy-going, empathetic people who would never dream of a world where regular looking people could actually abuse, manipulate, coerce others. They would be too innocent to suspect they could ever be cheated, manipulated, lied to, or used by someone for nefarious means.

• who think very highly of themselves and their ability to judge people. A great flying monkey would be someone who is too self-righteous and proud to suspect they could ever be cheated, manipulated, lied to, or used by someone for nefarious means.

• who don’t want to ask too much questions: unlikely to question someone else’s version of events, especially if that person is telling their side of the story with great emotion or utmost conviction.

• who are more into following than leading

What work do flying monkeys do for the narcissist?

• The narcissist needs enough people to agree with and enforce their alternate version of reality vs. what actually happened. If something bad happened, the narc quickly takes first mover advantage to share and sell his story to his (pre-nurtured) circle of Useful Idiots who will unwittingly repeat, re-sell, re-gossip or re-market that story on the narc’s behalf. They may even take action on the narc’s behalf. The narc gets to stay safe and protected - and play the innocent card because their hands are not directly dirtied.

• For example: Say a narc is unhappy with a manager’s decision to promote X because they feel snubbed. They might turn to their flying monkey and say: “Isn’t this unfair? Management never cares about who actually does the work and just promotes who looks good. I just want to do good work. It’s shocking how they ignore X’s history of doing etc. etc.! But you know, I’ll just keep on keeping on.” The flying monkey takes the narc’s perspective without question and raises the issue with management not because that’s how they feel but because they swallowed whole the narc’s perspective.

How can you tell someone is being a flying monkey?

2 things you can watch out for as people bring up issues:

• Do they bring up issues with “I’m not the only one who feels this way! Others do too.” “I’ve heard (bad things) about X.” But when pressed are vague or unsure about who else is unhappy and aren’t immediately open about where/who they heard things from.

• Are they unable to state facts to back up what they are talking about but keep relying on “I heard it somewhere” “I’m not sure but somebody told me and I trust them”

How can I tell if I’m being groomed by someone into being their potential flying monkey?

A big red flag is if someone has made a deliberate attempt to connect with you (especially in a closed 1-1 setting, like a car or their home or a quiet space where there are no other witnesses) and somehow slides into the conversation a negative story about someone else that you DID NOT ask for/about.

Another red flag is if the person you are dealing with tends to have these patterns in their sharings with you:

• Excessive gossiping about other people that does not paint others in a flattering light but paints the sharer positively

• Has a pattern or habit of accusing others of misconduct, bullying or being too hard, too unforgiving.

• Hearing the same “I am always the victim” “I am always misunderstood” “I am always suffering such injustice” narrative again and again in different forms with different characters

• react with sullenness when you ask them to respect a very reasonable boundary (“I am not comfortable hearing that. I’d rather you not share that with me.”)

• withdraw when you challenge their narrative or show any sign that you are not very malleable.

FEEL // 2 links to help you feel less alone

WATCH  Dr Ramani Durvusala shares how to spot signs of narcissism at work in this video. Navigating narcissism at work is an entirely different beast than handling narcissism in our personal lives. Additionally, narcissism in leaders is very common. Dr. Ramani shares her strategies for navigating narcissism at work which is a fundamental area of our lives.

READ Lee Simmons’ essay on how when the person at the top is malignant and self-serving, unethical behavior cascades through the organization and becomes legitimised.

DO // 1 strategy to try this week

Reflect on whether you’ve met any one with narcissistic tendencies. If so, recognise it and draw your boundaries.

Do they display the 4 core pillars of narcissistic behaviour?

• Lack of empathy

• grandiosity

• a chronic sense of entitlement

• a chronic need to seek out admiration from other people and validation

Do they use any of these 5 strategies as far as I know?

• gaslighting

• love-bombing

• future faking

• DARVO

• triangulation

Do they show any of these red flag behaviour in conversation?

• Excessive gossiping about other people that does not paint others in a flattering light but paints the sharer positively

• Has a pattern or habit of accusing others of misconduct, bullying or being too hard, too unforgiving.

• Hearing the same “I am always the victim” “I am always misunderstood” “I am always suffering such injustice” narrative again and again in different forms with different characters

• react with sullenness when you ask them to respect a very reasonable boundary (“I am not comfortable hearing that. I’d rather you not share that with me.”)

• withdraw when you challenge their narrative or show any sign that you are not very malleable.