Root out narcissistic behavior"

CEO’s famously possess strong personalities with compelling, charismatic personal characteristics and exude the utmost confidence in making big decisions and in taking weighty business risks.?However, when these positive traits are overdone, they lead to self-absorbed, arrogant and narcissistic behaviors such as:

• Excessive self-admiration
• Hostility to criticism
• Exaggerating self-importance
• Inability to work with other leaders
• Intolerant of lesser performing or less capable leaders
• Few trusting relationships – only relationships based upon positional power

Narcissistic leaders endanger their organizations through flawed decision making and excessive risk taking which is often coupled with unethical behaviors.?For example, leadership with these self-absorbed traits make sub optimizing decisions such as paying too much for an acquisition, spending inordinately on advertising or wasting money on showcase buildings.?Further, narcissistic leaders are prone to abuse business expenses such as travel, meals and entertainment.?Even more impactful than the dollars involved, CEO expense account transgressions set an unethical tone for the organization and legitimize an entitlement environment.?

Leadership and organizational development is also impaired as narcissistic individuals generally have little concern for others and are not effective in building mentoring relationships.?Critically, transformational leadership which requires a high degree of trust and cooperation is impaired.?Further, narcissistic leaders generally provide little positive reinforcement, leading to less recognition for their team’s special accomplishments which is essential to maximally motivating team members. And finally, subordinate leaders when associated with narcissistic bosses, tend to adopt their own narcissistic behaviors further weakening the organization’s performance.

One of the most important tasks for a board of directors and for high performing leaders is to root out and rid their organizations of narcissistic behaviors.