Narcissists in Business: Gaslighting

The term “narcissist” has become quite trendy in recent years, although many people do not fully understand what it means and how these types of people can make your life a living hell in business.

I have a tremendous amount of experience working with (and suffering) at the hands of narcissists over the last couple of decades. I worked with a therapist for years who specializes in helping women who were abused by narcissists. That said, narcissists come in all shapes and sizes - women can be extremely dangerous narcissists too!

I will write many posts about narcissists in business, and how to deal with them, but today I will focus on one important behavioral trait to watch out for: gaslighting.

The definition of gaslighting is the following:

Gaslighting is a type of psychological abuse that causes someone to question their own reality, memories, or sanity. It's often done through repetitive and brazen lying to manipulate and control someone. The goal is to make the victim feel uncertain and doubt themselves, which can be harmful to their mental health.

Gaslighting is abuse. Full stop. There is no excuse for it and it must be recognized immediately before it can cause serious harm.

The narcissist is an expert in gaslighting, which may cause you to feel one or more of these things when you are in a business situation:

- There is something wrong with you

- You are wrong and they are right

- You are crazy

- You are misreading a situation

- They are better than you

- You need to listen to them or else you will suffer terrible consequences

When you are gaslit by a narcissist, they make you feel so insecure that you question your own wisdom and reality, and thus allow for their reality to take over. Initially, you may question them, but then they ultimately overpower you and you lose your sense of reality and adopt theirs.

Unfortunately, gaslighting happens very frequently in business. I’ll give you an example.

Last week, a CEO of a startup tech company called me and told me that he was excited to share that he had secured a potential investor. For context, the last time we spoke (about a month ago), he told me that he didn’t have a budget to hire me. I made it very clear (several times) to both him and his executive team that I did not work for free, and to help him secure talent or pitch anyone about the platform, I would have to be paid for my time as a consultant. I would be happy to accept equity in addition to some kind of fee to cover my time. The company also needed loads of help with their messaging and branding, which I would also need to be paid to work on.

On this update call, he said that the potential investor required at least 2 celebrities or influencers to agree to join his platform before he could commit to investing. So my natural reply was to ask the CEO if he now had the budget to retain me so that I could help him secure the talent. I made it clear, again, that he would need a budget to pay me so that I could formulate a pitch, reach out to a wish list of talent, and then educate them (and/or their reps) about this platform in order to convince them to join. This would be a process and take some time.

In response, the CEO started raising his voice, very upset that I was requiring compensation, stating I didn’t have “the vision” for the platform.

I then responded and said: “You are gaslighting me. I said nothing about ‘not having the vision’ for your platform. I am only explaining again that I require payment in order to do work on your behalf. I do not work for free.” This was obviously not new information – he just didn’t want to hear it.

He then yelled at me again, raising his voice even louder and repeating himself over and over saying “You don’t have the vision! You don’t have the vision!” and soon after hung up on me.

This is a textbook example of gaslighting:

- An attempt to manipulate me to see his version of reality to get me to give in and do what he wants

- An attempt to make me feel crazy

- The repetition of certain phrases to achieve the desired manipulation

- The yelling and verbal abuse- Hanging up and disconnecting without warning (the discard phase - I will get to this part later)

Here’s the interesting part: when you call out a narcissist on their lies and abuse, they short-circuit. Because they are so used to successfully manipulating people into doing their bidding, they get extremely upset when someone does not relent and listen to them. He was clearly not used to someone pointing out his lies and manipulation so he got very irritated and did not know how to respond, which resulted in him hanging up on me mid-sentence after yelling at me. Most of the time when I call out gaslighting behavior, the narcissist seems to magically disappear.

Watch out for this abusive behavior, and when you sense that you are being gaslit, do the following:

- Listen to your intuition

- Stay calm

- Stay present and watch the situation unfold from a detached observer point of view

- Don’t get emotional whatsoever or match their erratic energy

- Stay in your wisdom and power

- Be confident in what you know is the actual truth

- Stand up for yourself

- Detach from the situation and exit it as soon as possible

- Above all, don’t be afraid

I’m not saying this is easy. It is very difficult and traumatizing to be in these types of situations. Many of us are used to being abused and manipulated. Over time it will get easier and you will learn how to recognize and avoid these situations as much as possible. It is so important to stay in your truth and not let people manipulate you.

Stay tuned for more information about narcissists in future posts. As always, send me a message if you need help with a specific narcissist or toxic situation and I will be happy to help you find a solution.

- Dian