Welcome to the most deadly personality in the workplace: the Narcissistic Personality. A supervisor or boss with a Narcissistic personality trait can cause real mental and physical sickness in those that work for them. Unfortunately, to the outsider, it is difficult to see and almost impossible to confront. This is because the Narcissistic person is a superior person, a mastermind, a rainmaker, and can produce in any environment. People who work for supervisors who are Narcissistic produce superior outcomes, or else.

The Narcissistic employee can be equally deadly. Any supervisor who has had to confront an employee with a narcissistic personality disorder (as opposed to trait) will immediately feel as though they are in the middle of a mythical battle with the gods. The primary feeling is the unbelievable experience that not only is the supervisor’s authority totally ignored, but also the supervisor is so wrong and off-base that the issue does not deserve discussion. A supervisor who reacts with irritation or anger will only confirm his/her incompetence to the Narcissistic employee. The employee’s resulting patronizing smile will only make the supervisor angrier providing important confirming information when the Narcissistic employee reports the incompetent supervisor up the chain of command.

The Narcissist understands themselves as superior, far more intelligent that the masses, they have a grandiose sense of self-importance, believe they are special and can only be understood by other special, unique people. They deserve and require admiration and exploit relationships to achieve their own ends. They lack empathy to the point that they do not identify with the needs of others. They exhibit arrogant and haughty behavior. In the workplace, they exhibit superior talent, a grandiose sense of self-regard and intelligence even in with poor performance.

The early childhood of the future Narcissist centers around unconscious defensive strategies to protect against strong feelings of envy, deprivation, fear, and rage in response to caregiver’s interpersonal behavior. The caregiver typically pampers, overvalues, and indulges the child with special treatment to the point that the child must respond narcissistically from that grandiose egotistical position to gain love and appreciation. In other words, they must self-fulfill the caregiver’s belief of the child’s specialness. (Jacques Lacan calls this the symbolic identification with the ideal; the child becomes what the parent prophesied). Narcissistic beliefs of being special can also be developed in an environment of rejection and exclusion (becoming the opposite of what the parent prophesied). The future Narcissist cannot be authentic without loosing adoration and nurturance from the caregiver. Therefore, being ignored or criticized is the greatest fear and threat to the Narcissist.

In the workplace, the Narcissist employee typically acts on the belief that his/her ideas are so much better and obvious to everyone that they tend to act unilaterally to implement them without any input from others. Co-workers are viewed as a problem because they are stuck in their old ways and cannot see the obvious workability of the Narcissist’s ideas. Being successful is the Narcissist’s destiny and anything that gets in the way is a barrier placed in their way by incompetents. The Narcissist’s conflicts with co-workers are rationalized as jealousy by others and other staff wanting to get him/her fired because the Narcissist is making the other staff look bad. The Narcissist feels they are being deliberately sabotaged.

The Narcissist has difficulty working in a highly regulated work environment, except at the very top. Their interpersonal difficulties eventually cause them to leave. Those with more flexible, less disordered Narcissistic traits, however, can adapt, however they still exhibit such a defended ego at the expense of others that even superficial respect in the workplace behaviors are ignored. They love pointing out other employee’s weaknesses, personal problems, sloppy dress, and any other personal or business issues.

If an organization uses self and peer reviews in the workplace, the Narcissistic employee will rate themselves superior on all scales and will become obsessed with who in the workplace was ignorant enough to rate them any lower even to the point of making assumptions of who it might be and aggressively attacking them through the ‘rumor mill’.

Any attempts by the agency to regulate behavior through new rules, procedures, training, or any other method is just more exciting opportunities for the Narcissistic employee to point out how stupid the rules are and how ignorant everyone is.

Narcissists tend to gravitate toward professions in law, medicine, entertainment, business owners, and other employment that allows more independence outside the interpersonal confines of the typical workplace.

With the less disordered Narcissistic employee, disclosing shortcomings and weaknesses in not productive. A better approach would be to work with the employee’s interpersonal dynamics and center on the three schemas of grandiosity, hypersensitivity, and empathy. For example, Stephen R. Covey’s Habit 1, Be Proactive and avoiding reactivity (countering hypersensitivity), Habit 4, Think Win-Win (countering grandiosity), and Habit 5 Seek First to Understand (countering the lack of empathy) are excellent ways to help the Narcissistic employee learn to find satisfaction in interpersonal relationships. This is of course the main premise of authenticity in the workplace: work toward creating authenticity and respect rather than trying to regulate behavior.