Unfortunately, corporate management, which rewards managers for personal achievement and results, tends to attract people like this, according to the authors. More importantly, it offers strategies to employees for keeping their own careers on track, even when narcissistic bosses threaten to sabotage them. These include documenting behavior, forming alliances with others who can help, building an information network within the company and developing and refining individual career plans. They maintain that many of the best leaders have some narcissistic tendencies and offer Southwest Airlines, Virgin Group and Harley-Davidson as examples of companies with charismatic and powerful leadership. A race car is a good metaphor for measuring narcissism, McFarlin said.
Speed wins races, but only to a point.
Above a certain speed threshold, drivers invariably lose control. Their own image or a greater good. Often, narcissist tendencies are found to be rooted in the leader's childhood and certain negative aspects of parenting. A child who is shown conditional love, for example, may later have a need to establish power and dominance using exploitation, manipulation and ruthlessness, he said. Either way, they end up with an inflated self-esteem and an inability to see their own imperfections.