You joined an organisation to work for an amazingly charismatic, high achieving and powerful Boss. They made you feel special, making great efforts to get you on board and sharing their ambitious vision for the future with you. You were flattered, even a little surprised, and hoped that some of their radiance would rub off on you.
Everything is fine in your probation period, but once you get your feet properly under the table, you have a hunch that something is going wrong, although you can’t put your finger on exactly what. It is difficult to explain this feeling to anyone else without sounding paranoid.
- Their mood becomes unpredictable and you don’t know how they will respond to you. You don’t want to upset them with bad news.
- You feel they are never satisfied with your work, that it’s not quite good enough. You don’t get feedback on what they want you to do differently.
- There are some occasions when you know your ideas are on the right track but only because your Boss takes the credit for them. If you point this out, they turn on you, accusing you of being over-sensitive or not being a team player.
- They fuss over the newest member of the team and at the same time start to devalue the work you do, perhaps in public.
- They blame others for their own mistakes. They have extreme feelings about other people too – they are either flawless or written off as useless/evil/enemies. People are either with them, or against them. Leavers who resign from their team are discarded, even disconnected with on LinkedIn. You feel guilty if you stay in touch with them.
- They remember situations and conversations in a different way to how they occurred, rewriting history. You start to question yourself, repeatedly thinking ‘is this me, or…?’
- They start to cold-shoulder you, cutting you out of projects and taking you off the list for meetings and emails. They deny it and roundly criticise your behaviour, even suggesting that you are a bully.
- Everyone else appears to idolise him or her. You fear you are going a little crazy.
If this sounds familiar, then please realise that It is Not You. You are most likely working for a Narcissistic Boss. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is more prevalent in males than females. Although NPD is thought to occur in less than one per cent of the general population, highly functioning narcissists appear to have leadership characteristics, so it is not uncommon for them to crop up in senior and entrepreneurial roles. Most won’t have a formal diagnosis but lack of self-awareness and empathy are hallmarks. Of course many of us have some healthy narcissistic tendencies that enable us to push ourselves forward and survive corporate life. However, working for a true narcissist can put you in an extremely unpleasant, emotionally abusive relationship. If you have experienced this, you will know exactly what I mean.
Here’s what you can do about it:
- Try not to take things personally. It won’t be the first time things have played out this way with him/her; there will undoubtedly be other people who have similar experiences as you although they might not openly admit it. One of the consequences of this kind of relationship is that we often feel we are to blame; it triggers our own sense of shame which can be lurking not too far from the surface. However, if you look closely enough you will realise that the narcissist doesn’t really have close relationships; merely people that hang round, flattering them to achieve their own ends. The really strong ones move on sooner or later.
- Keep up the pretence. Don’t let them know you have seen through their mask of grandiosity and exaggerated talents. They rarely change. so you have to change your response to them. Narcissists have a strong vision of who they think they should be and are controlled by the shame of not living up to this ideal. Bursting their bubble is the worst thing you can do. Their response to any challenge will be aggressive and vengeful. Instead, let them live up to their false view of themselves and even keep the image going by stroking their ego as much as you can bear. This is for your own self-preservation. Best of all, encourage them to move onwards and upwards. You might be surprised at the allies you have in this. How many times do we see this happen? People get promoted out of the way, to become someone else’s problem.
- Take responsibility for your own behaviour. Co-dependents are people who allow themselves to be controlled or manipulated by others. They are natural magnets for Narcissists. Narcissists can’t survive without people to feed their ego and co-dependents give up their own needs to fuel the needs of the narcissist. A perfect match. If you have a tendency to put others’ needs before your own and feel guilty when you stand up for yourself, then you are displaying the co-dependent behaviour that makes you the natural other half in the narcissist relationship. You may have had similar relationships elsewhere in your life. Get help to establish boundaries and drop your need for acceptance. The narcissist will quickly find someone else to firstly idealise, then devalue and ultimately discard: the classic three stages of a narcissistic relationship.
- Get out of it. Even if you successfully use these tactics, working for a narcissist can lower your self-esteem and make you feel isolated, stressed and anxious. None of these are good for you, your career or your other relationships. Carefully consider whether you want to continue working for this person, particularly if their behaviour appears to be escalating. If they remain a popular figure in the organisation – or one not to be crossed -your concerns might not be taken as seriously as they should be. Sending you off on sick leave with ‘stress’ solves nothing but I see this happen often in these circumstances. You are not sick! Emotional abuse like this is damaging and often taps into earlier patterns, becoming entrenched. Find professional support to get yourself in a healthy frame of mind so you can take back control, call a headhunter and move on.
I would love to hear your coping strategies for working for a Boss like this, in strict confidence of course. Feel free to share this with your networks.
Always delighted to talk to you about coaching and speaking events (on confidence and ambition).
More next month about my first book, Mind Flip, which will be published in May and a huge thank you to everyone who has endorsed this already. Here’s a taster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDpuj8IE1Ns.
Warmest wishes
Zena