I’m using the term “narcissism” to describe some of the most important business leaders in the world; but how could a word that’s become synonymous with all sorts of self-centered behavior -- a sense of overall superiority and entitlement, a lack of empathy or understanding of others, the need for constant attention and admiration, and overall arrogance -- apply to them? These days, in both the psychiatric field and in colloquial conversation, “narcissism” has become a term for egoism, egocentricity, or just plain bad manners. But I believe the concept of narcissism has been widely misunderstood ever since Freud coined it after Ovid’s pathologically self-involved creature from Greek mythology. I want to bring about a radical new definition of the term and the way we think about leadership, and show you how your understanding of productive narcissism can help you.
This is a tall order. He wants us to understand, but he’s deliberately confusing us by using a word that means something different than what we have come to understand. Regardless, here is Maccoby’s definition of the word.
A true narcissist is the kind of person who (1) doesn’t listen to anyone else when he believes in doing something and (2) has a precise vision of how things should be. A narcissist possesses this dual combination of traits, not one or the other; plenty of people who aren’t narcissists never listen to anyone else (they are negativistic, closed-minded, or arrogant), and plenty of people have an idea of how things should be (they are often just know-it-alls or big-talkers). It is the combination of a rejection of the status quo, along with a compelling vision, that defines the narcissist.
Then he gives us some examples of successful narcissists.
If you look at some of our most productive narcissists, the ones who have built highly successful and sustained businesses, you’ll find that they score very low on emotional intelligence. Just a few examples make the point in a dramatic way: Anne Jardim, a Ford biographer, wrote that Henry Ford’s “attitude to the men around him at times bordered on the sadistic.” Craig Venter’s wife and business partner told me that he is “not as diplomatic as he might be. He’s always pissing people off.” Bill Gates is known for his put-downs in meetings. Steve Jobs has brought subordinates to tears during business meetings. And compare the qualities of emotional intelligence with [Jack] Welch’s description of his own managerial style: “I was blunt and candid and, some thought, rude. My language could be coarse and impolitic. I didn’t like sitting and listening to canned presentations or reading reports. … And I never hid my thoughts or feelings. During a business discussion, I could get so emotionally involved that I’d stammer out what others might consider outrageous things, [such as] ‘My six-year-old kid could do better than that!’”
This is part of a section where Maccoby is deriding the value of emotional intelligence for leaders, but still, it doesn’t paint an attractive picture for this reader. Isn’t the challenge of leadership to accomplish great things through building people up, not by tearing them down? Too often, the Cult of Results cavalierly dismisses things like emotional intelligence as “touchy-feely,” and pretends that nothing matters more than “highly successful and sustained businesses.”
But then, Maccoby reminds us that he is not really talking about narcissism, but something he’s calls productive narcissism and, more than that, really productive narcissists are those who have learned to temper their narcissism with something else, something called strategic intelligence.
While strategic intelligence may help any [personality] type, it is essential for productive narcissists to work on their strategic intelligence. A narcissist who is productive can make it to the top of a company or have an impact in the business world; but I believe that only a productive narcissist with developed strategic intelligence can stay on top, can sustain success. This is because the narcissist, more so than any other type, is susceptible to a quick rise and a precipitous fall: if the stories of Michael Armstrong, Jean-Marie Messier, and Bernie Ebbers teach us anything, it’s the importance of connecting vision to implementation with strategic intelligence.
And what is strategic intelligence? Maccoby breaks it down into five essential elements:
1 - Foresight - anticipating how current movements, ideas, forces will play out in the future, driving changes in technology, products, the global marketplace, competitors, and customer needs and values.
2 - Systems Thinking - the ability to synthesize and integrate, to conceptualize the whole rather than a collection of separate parts.
3 - Visioning - combining foresight and systems thinking into a holistic vision, then creating that vision in the real world of business.
4 - Motivating - the ability to get people -- a social system -- to embrace a common purpose and implement your vision.
5 - Partnering - making strategic alliances.
Which, if someone is successful in doing, I would claim, no longer makes them a narcissist. How does a narcissist look outside themselves and their own needs enough to do foresight, systems thinking, and visioning? Where does she get the empathy necessary to motivate and partner with others? Telling a narcissist to act with strategic intelligence strikes me very much like telling an asshole to no longer be an asshole. But that analogy is actually too simple to capture Maccoby’s central point. He’s not telling the narcissist to stop being a narcissist. He’s telling them to go right on being a narcissist, but to stop being so narcissistic about it.
Taking the Test
Maccoby’s book includes an 80-item questionnaire, the responses to which are designed to determine which of his four basic personality types (Marketing, Narcissistic, Erotic, and Obsessive) dominates in the responder. Although I struggled with Maccoby’s central premise, I was curious enough to take the test, even though I have long tired of these kinds of personality tests.
There were eighty items, each phrased in the “How well does this statement describe you” model, and each scored on a scale of 0 to 5, in which 0 = Never, 1 = Almost Never, 2 = Seldom, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Frequently, and 5 = Almost Always. Peeking ahead to the score sheet I could see that the items had been somewhat randomized, but 20 of them were aligned with the Marketing personality type, 20 were aligned with Narcissistic, 20 with Erotic, and 20 with Obsessive.
The instructions, of course, were to add up your scores in each group of 20, and the one with the highest score shows you what personality type you were. Everyone, Maccoby was quick to caution, is actually mixture of all four personality types, but usually, one will dominate over the others.
So what were my scores? Get ready:
Marketing = 62
Narcissistic = 65
Erotic = 61
Obsessive = 61
Does that make me a narcissist? I don’t think so. Although 65 is certainly a larger number than either 62 or 61, it’s not like it’s an order of magnitude higher. With a possible range of 0 to 100, having all four types clump together between 61 and 65 tells me that either Maccoby’s survey instrument is broken, or I am.
It gets better. In addition to the four dominant personality types, the same questions, sorted in a different order, can tell you which secondary type you are. There are four of those, too, and when used in combination with the dominant ones, provide 16 different personality combinations. My scores on the secondary personality types, which could have ranged between 0 and 25, were:
Self Developing = 16
Visionary = 16
Caring = 16
Systematic = 16
No kidding. I guess I am broken.
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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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