A Personal Essay on Organisational Narcissism – Part 1

What is it? Does your organisation have it? Is there a better way?

‘Narcissism’ is one of the most widely used words of our times, a word offered to describe a pattern of being in relationships which, after a phase of showered promises and enthusiastic love-bombing, becomes defined by the controlling, manipulative, devaluing behaviours of the once so ‘loving’ party on the now rejected other. These relationships are also known for their dramatic and callous end in the form of the signature clinically despatched narcissistic discard. 

In the turbulent wake of narcissistic hurt and abuse, those caught up in its devastating maelstrom often make an appointment with Dr Google to try and understand what is happening to them. Upon typing in words such as ‘not being heard’, ‘feeling devalued’ and ‘am I being gaslit?’, the online patient will find themselves bombarded with video reel after video reel explaining in the bluntest terms the abhorrent nature of their ‘narcissist’. In these pseudo-educational videos, the narcissist is portrayed as a person who prioritises their own needs over others. The description provided then adds that a narcissist has an inflated sense of self and an incapacity for empathy, as well as a harrowing list of associated behaviours: that high need to be in control, that way of manipulating others and situations to elevate self-image, that personal sense of superiority they exude, that need to blame and belittle others whilst holding tightly onto the role of a victim for themselves. The narcissist often has an effective cloaking mechanism of charm and competence too that denies others the truth of who they really are and what they are really capable of. If I could sum this all up from my experience, I would describe narcissists as having a contemptuous disregard for all matters of the human heart.

I know that this description of narcissism will ring true for many of you reading this. Such is the prevalence of narcissism it is likely you have experienced such people and such interactions in your life. I certainly have had my fair share of narcissistic encounters. I know what it means to be pulled all too willingly in by that attentive charm, only to be spat out by the devaluing and discard phases that invariably follow. When it has happened, in order to soothe my battered heart, I have soaked up every bit of content to be found on social media. And, if I am being honest, it was very tempting to stay in that easy place of affirming self-validation offered by these videos, all stating how wronged I had been by the ‘uncaring’ other party. But as much as I relished placing all the blame on the narcissist, there was a part of me that didn’t want to luxuriate in this seemingly indulgent narrative. Instead, I found myself wanting to find out the truth about what goes on in a narcissistic relationship, whether or not I liked what I would find out.

This interest led to a personal journey of investigative study into the world of narcissism – and it has proved a fascinating body of learning, far more than I will be able to capture in this essay. What I can share though is that my studies helpfully took me back to the first written mention of narcissism thousands of years ago in Ancient Greek times. Guess what, narcissism is not a new thing at all!

Drawn in by the sage wisdom of those great Greek philosophical minds, I was struck by the extraordinary depths of insight into the human psyche that can be found in such ancient texts. It was like our elders long departed were doing their best to pass on all the knowledge a multitude of well-lived lifetimes had already taught them. I found myself really wanting to listen and learn from these historical storytellers.

This all brought me to the story of Narcissus and Echo, the origin story of narcissism, which lies at the very heart of the Greek literature. Here we are introduced to Narcissus, a man of extra-ordinary beauty, born to the River God, Cephissus, and the beautiful nymph, Liriope. At the time of the birth, Liriope was warned by a wise seer, Tiresias, that Narcissus would have a long life as long as he ‘never comes to know himself’.  Why this was the curse, I defer to better informed scholars than I. However, its impact was devastatingly tragic for Narcissus, as his parents removed every mirror and other form of reflection from around him. With only love in their hearts, they denied Narcissus all knowledge of how he was seen and who truly he was.

The story of Echo is one less told and for me a beautiful complement to the tale of Narcissus. Echo was an enchanting wood nymph, whose melodious and loquacious voice would captivate all those she met, including the mighty Greek gods residing on Mount Olympus. In order to explain the plight that befell her, it is important to understand how she was once used by Zeus, the God of Greek Gods. Zeus, notorious for his admiration of the beautiful women of Earth yet keen to keep his indulgences out of sight from his fiesty goddess wife Hera, hatched a plan to ensure his wife would not find out about his earthly dalliances. Knowing of the beguiling effect of Echo’s words, Zeus arranged for Echo to befriend Hera, captivating Hera with her mesmerising stories. Zeus’ plan worked well for a while, but as is the way with lust-full affairs even divine ones, Hera eventually found out about Zeus’ indiscretions and was filled with anger at Zeus’ betrayal of her. In her rage, Hera punished Echo for her part played by taking away her beautiful voice, cursing Echo such that she could only repeat the last couple of words spoken to her.

The now tormented and lonely Echo took to walking the shadowy woods of Earth and this was where she came across the magnificent form that was Narcissus. Echo fell instantly in love with his physical beauty. Such was the strength of passion now evoked within her, Echo found the courage to step out of the shadows and approach Narcissus to declare her love for him. Confused by Echo’s unusual way of speaking, Narcissus rejected Echo coldly and without any thought for her experience, breaking the sweet nymph’s heart in an instant. Echo left this encounter destroyed by Narcissus’ blunt rejection of her. She retreated into a dark cave with only her shame and pain for company. Her appetite failing, Echo’s fate was to fade slowly away, her only trace left being her echoing words that can still be heard in quiet corners of our world if you allow yourself to listen.

The gods were angered by Narcissus’ cruel and dismissive treatment of their once-favoured muse and sought to punish him by sending down Nemesis, the Goddess of Vengeance, to serve up some heavenly justice. Disguised as a huntress, Nemesis lured Narcissus deep into forest where she took him to the edge of a secluded lake and, here, he cast his eyes for the first time upon his own image. At the sight of his reflection, Narcissus fell instantly and deeply into an inextricable self-admiring trance, experiencing for the first time what he understood to be love. Not knowing the reflection was his own, every time Narcissus reached out to touch the mesmerising image before him, the water tormented him by rippling and keeping the source of his desire painfully just out of reach. Finally, like Echo, Narcissus knew what it was to experience unreturned love, and he too was unable to remove his gaze from this focus of his affection. And, like Echo, Narcissus found himself becoming weaker and weaker consumed by his source of admiration. Eventually his limp form fell into the water, the crystal clear liquid receiving his body and extinguishing his life as the prophecy had once foretold. At this point of death, Narcissus’ once strong and athletic body transformed magically into a beautiful yellow flower we now call the narcissus.

What a multi-layered story! And I am sure you will have already started to extract for yourself some of the teachings from this ancient tale.

We are being taught the danger and damage of living from a place of singular-selfish-self-love as embodied by story of Narcissus. Through Echo’s story, we are also taught of the tragedy of losing yourself to love of the physical form of another, ignoring the importance of another’s inner beauty and ability to love back. There is much to be taken from this tale of passion and loss but there is even more wisdom to be found in the depths of this ancient story if we take a further look.

For me, although Narcissus and all those narcissists we continue to come across in our lives can feel like easy villains of the story as we react to their blatantly cold rejection of innocently given love, I find myself also feeling compassion for Narcissus’ plight. What a lonely and unfulfilling existence it must be to never experience the joy and wonder of mutual, shared love. What an empty place Narcissus and all narcissists must find themselves in.

But there is even more tragedy in Narcissus’ story. Think about it. Because of the loving actions of his parents, he was denied the experience and opportunity of ‘truly knowing one’s self’ and, therefore, he was denied the conditions we all need for personal improvement. The ability to see yourself with open eyes and a courageous heart full of vulnerability and humility is essential for our growth in this life. We all need to see the dark within ourselves to be able to find and choose our light. The thought of such self-knowledge being denied anyone makes my heart ache for what narcissists may never know or have. I wouldn’t want that curse to be served upon anyone, not even those who have hurt me the most in my life.

And then there is Echo’s deeper story. Not only did she endure the torture of giving love so fully only to have it ‘returned to sender, far worse for me is that she was also condemned to a fate where, in this place of pain, her voice was not to be heard and she was unable to have her truth spoken. It is so hard to heal from any relational hurt in life when your story remains untold whilst other’s untruths are freely spouted. I know from personal experience how this is the worst thing to endure. I truly believe this act of silencing someone in their time of pain is one of the most abusive acts we can condemn others to, and yet it is a strategy too readily deployed.

So, in reflecting on this story of Narcissus and Echo and what it teaches us about narcissism, I find myself contemplating the following:

Although it is often written in medical texts that diagnosed narcissists are incapable of the kind of self-reflection needed to change and are, therefore, condemned to a life without being able to experience meaningful personal relationships, it feels such a fatalistic and self-fulfilling prophecy for our society to hold. If we accept this outcome as the only destiny for all narcissists, we really are sentencing those in most need to a life half-lived. The ‘ever hopeful’ within me wants to believe that there must be ways to change the fortune of those defending themselves in life through narcissism. We just need to find what will make it possible for the narcissist to look into that mirror and feel able and safe enough to grow from all that they see. I don’t profess to know what the answers are here, but it feels that it must start with holding onto compassion, love and respect for all the Narcissus-like people we encounter, however hard that might be.

For those of us wanting a different fate for the ‘Echoes’ out there, all those people experiencing relational hurt, whose voices are also being silenced and they are fading in front of our eyes, what can be done to strengthen their spirit in these moments of such devastating rejection? Once hope and self-belief starts being rediscovered, how can we give the Echoes back their platform to be heard once more, so as to continue their recovery? Again, these are questions to explore in future articles, but my instinct is that it starts with focussing on ways to grow a person’s sense of self-identity and self-worth, whilst helping them to find wider sources of meaning and perspective in their lives.

This has been quite a long preamble to get to the heart and purpose of this essay so thank you for taking the time to read this far. I hope you have enjoyed the back story as much as I. And, as a quick reminder, the questions being asked and hopefully in time answered in this 2-part essay are ‘What is Organisational Narcissism? Does your organisation have it and is there a better way?’.

In considering these knotty questions, the thing I want to share first is why did I find myself entertaining the idea of an organisation having narcissism in the same way an individual can be diagnosed?  Well, ‘Organisational Narcissism’ as a term came to me when I realised my personal trauma responses when exiting certain organisations (and I would qualify here that this is not all or indeed many of the organisations I have had the privilege of working with over my 30+ year career) felt identical to those visceral trauma responses I had suffered when experiencing romantic and personal narcissistic relationship discards. The broken sleep, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance to threat and tortuous over-rumination I found myself experiencing leaving these organisations were identical to what I had suffered coming out of narcissistic personal relationships.

So, if my responses were the same, the next question I found myself asking was - were the triggers for my trauma responses the same? As I reflected on this, I could see that they were. What both experiences had in common were:  I felt unseen, I felt my contributions were being unfairly devalued and sometimes conveniently airbrushed out of memory, I felt my emotional needs were being ignored or worse weaponised. Most painfully, trauma would surface for me most when I felt my voice was being silenced.  

Therefore, if we allow ourselves to agree that ‘Organisational Narcissism’ is indeed a thing, it is worth considering what are the likely costs to an organisation of having it. I would suggest that the costs of organisational narcissism are the same as the costs of narcissism in the world of personal relationships. Those organisations meeting the criteria of narcissism are likely in the first instance to be denied the ability to see themselves with the clarity, honesty, humility and courage needed for performance improvement and growth. They may be able to hold for a while onto the façade of performance but it is fragile and limited. Those narcissistic organisations, like individual narcissists, also struggle to form healthy and sustainable relationships with their workforce, necessary for the highest levels of loyalty, engagement and commitment sought. As with personal narcissism, it can also be surmised that the self-awareness needed to admit to being narcissistic is likely to be hard to secure in these organisations as they are with narcissistic individuals.  But I do hope not impossibly hard for such narcissistic organisation to find.

Another marker of a narcissistic organisation is the silence that it can impose onto its workforce – the ‘Echo Effect’ as I now like to call it. This silence is often stubbornly embedded because of the lack of faith and trust of the narcissistic organisation’s people in how they believe they will be treated should they speak out. This silence is often held even when all the invitations to speak out are communicated by the leadership. For without the necessary belief that their words will be received with the respect and personal safety required, the silence will continue to be the only way people know how to survive within such organisations, however much the organisation proffers and protests otherwise.

In preparation for a part 2 for this essay where it is my plan to discuss more how to diagnose organisational narcissism as well as the possible interventions that might be of help, I want to position the idea of building a list of ‘red flags’ we should all be looking out for as predictive risk factors for an organisation becoming narcissistic: Are there common performance demands faced that give rise to narcissism? Are there identifiable societal backgrounds that favour narcissism? Are there environmental factors which predispose an organisation to defend itself narcissistically? Are there particular leadership constructs and traits that, if present, may give rise to narcissism?

And if we are to become experts in spotting organisational narcissism as it surfaces, what are the diagnostic markers to look out for? What are the behavioural ways that feel narcissistic? How do narcissistic organisations control their teams, apply governance to their processes and manage their external reputations?  It would be so empowering to agree a widely accepted list of criteria we could all start using to hold ourselves to greater account.

At the same time, let’s also start to explore together what interventions there could be to rehabilitate a narcissistic organisation. There is so much I think we could be doing to make a difference. Instinctively, I anticipate many of these solutions would involve finding ways to give the Echoes within our organisations back their voice, with all that that would raise.

From my own time spent reflecting on these questions, I have started to build up my list of answers. They are thoughts and ideas I would like to share with you in the next instalment of this essay. But, in the spirit of making this a movement we commit to together, I would prefer that these are lists we co-create. So, ahead of the publication of part 2, I would like to send out the invitation to you to get involved by sharing your own personal experiences of organisational narcissism and what you think should be in the lists of predictive features, diagnostic criteria and remedial interventions to be implemented. I would truly love to hear from you.

The ambition forming here is that, by seeing this as an important subject for all people leaders out there to consider, we can start to deal with this very real, I believe, debilitating condition suffered by a number of well-intended organisations, a condition that not only causes pain and hardship to your workforces but also sets limits to your organisational performance. For it is only through such honest self-introspection and brave acknowledgement of what might really be going on that we can start to improve matters by seeking out those interventions that will finally break that fatalistic prophecy once served upon Narcissus. Through such courageous honesty to truly ‘know one’s self’ and wanting to do something about it, we can finally have a way to work towards a better future for our organisations and all those wonderful people who work for us.

So, as I wrap up on this part 1 of the essay, I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to organisational narcissism and are feeling suitably inspired to get involved. At Uplift Consulting, we pride ourselves on raising these challenging topics, encouraging growth and change that will help to generate heightened levels of human energy within an organisation, channelling this towards extra-ordinary performance. We recognise that sometimes these topics can be difficult and a bit uncomfortable, but we truly believe it is in these places of discomfort that breakthrough lies. What makes it possible to venture into these choppy waters is to have a partner and coach that is willing to be alongside you as you do the hard work to address your internal barriers to performance and unleash your potential. If this is something you want for your organisation, then I also extend a further invitation for you to reach out to us to have wider courageous conversations about your organisation’s culture and practices. There’s a brave new world out there and we would be honoured to partner with you on that path.

By Kate Noakes - Uplift Co-Director & Consultant