Laurie Cure, CEO of Denver-based consulting firm Innovative Connections and author of Leading Without Fear (Tate Publishing, 2012), offers a comprehensive list of red flags signaling narcissistic workplace behavior:
*Unwillingness to be challenged or questioned.*Requiring excessive levels of loyalty, praise and adoration.*Struggling to accept and incorporate feedback.*Not considering other people's opinions or not engaging them in conversations about problem-solving or changes.*Caring very little for the needs of others in the organization or on the team. (For example, saying, "It doesn't matter if you miss your child's game; work is more important.")*Often making decisions unilaterally and without involving other stakeholders.*Exhibiting signs of narcissistic behaviors, such as a grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasized talent or expertise, or arrogance.*Focusing on self-image and ensuring that others perform in a way that elevates one's own public image or reputation.*Demanding and seeking high degrees of personal and positional power to ensure control.*Spending a great deal of time and effort ensuring the ability to be with power players and high-status individuals in the organization.*Using fear, guilt, shame, punishment and manipulation to gain compliance and control.*Exhibiting extremely competitive behavior.*Taking personal credit for the work of individuals or the team.Establish strong and healthy boundaries. To prevent narcissistic behavior, managers need to define firm borders. "If you're clear on expectations, then the next step is to stand firm in those boundaries," Cure said. "That's especially important in not tolerating certain behaviors. Name-calling, angry outbursts, manipulation, dominating the conversation should never be encouraged or allowed."
" According to Sam Vaknin in his video “Narcissistic boss or Employer: Coping and Survival Tactics” employees become the property of the Narc and walk on thin ice around him due to his very fragile yet bloated ego. The only way to survive under his management is to constantly flatter him and obey his every command. Dare to have your own opinion or disagree with him, and you risk his violent wrath."
"They are also quite prone to name-dropping and buying their friends (they appear very generous and are keen to pay for people’s drinks when out socially as a way to impress and gain trust)"
" Now is the time to be vigilant because you can be 100% sure you are being discredited behind your back with vicious lies and rumours. The Narc wants to look good and to do that he has to make you look bad. Never, ever confront the Narc for you will be completely destroyed. "
" Do not expect a personal or business recommendation from the Narc if you worked for him. The only things you will get are vicious lies designed to discredit and destroy you. They use and viciously abuse people and you will always find a battlefield of victims in their wake if you look closely."
"The narcissistic leader
will also be prone to psychosis - imagining things that are unreal despite evidence to the contrary (Vaknin, 2017), to
establish unreliability and unethical practices on your part to destroy and tarnish your career"
" Recognize it is not personal: The narcissistic leader usually zeros in on people who are performing and or are better, or
more intelligent than them within the workforce environment. Hence, you may have the misfortune of being their
main target. The narcissistic leader hates anyone that is perceived as "better" than them." https://www.noveltyjournals.com/upload/paper/The%20Wrath%20of%20the%20Narcissistic%20Leader-1336.pdf
" Why did the Narc target me? If you are a warm, sensitive and empathic person who cares about others, and you're highly agreeable and conscientious, chances are you have been targeted by Narcs. Narcs will also specifically target people in vulnerable positions (single women with children, someone new in town who hasn’t yet made friends, someone recovering from a recent trauma like a death in the family, a personal accident, or someone suffering from depression, etc.)"
" These people are not operating in integrity or truth. There can be no joy gained from working with these types. Working with them while being targeted as their punchbag will not only harm your career in the long run, it will also harm your health."
"Because this is unfortunately, ‘standard’ behaviour of Narcissists. They are both malicious and vindictive. I’ve seen it and experienced it. It’s just ‘what they do’.
For any perceived slight, argument, disagreement or failing to give them their ‘narcissist supply’ you can quickly find yourself the victim of a ‘smear’ campaign.
And they will LIE. Even if it means turning the entire proceedings/story on its head. You will be the fall guy. The bad person. They will have been terribly done by.
You can’t appeal to them. Won’t work. They would just delight and get off on that.
All you can do is confront anyone who’s been a recipient of their malicious rumouring and tell them, if they’ll listen, your side of it. If they won’t then ditch them.
It may be that in time their lies will be exposed. I certainly had that. Some folk began to apologise and say they had actually seen what the person was really like. I still ditched them. Tough but they had actually revealed their real feelings toward me, earlier!
Difficult if at work or with family. Tough call. Keep your head up and press on. You know the truth. And as hard as it is I don’t think there’s anything else to be done, or gained.
There are some nasty bastards walking our planet. We pass them in the street, we rub shoulders with them at work and play. They exist. It’s very unfair.
But that’s the way it is.
Good luck…"
" They are immature and seems to be highly envious of you? Hence they need you to look bad. So they can look good it's a classic move"
" You inadvertantly provoke a narcissist in public by saying something that is likely to trigger narcissistic rage, such as questioning their talent or skills or openly criticizing them."
" The smear campaign is one of the most damaging and isolating experiences one can face. Don't respond. Stand in your truth, know your value and move forward in silence! Success is the sweetest revenge! "
" The narcissist will never accept their loss or feel remorse or apologize.It is pointless to argue or attempt to get them to come around and see your point of view. That will never happen. Your best bet is to skillfully avoid and / or navigate around them.Your best bet is to recognize the narcissism at play, and plan your boundary-setting. Control your own ego and your need to win. You can use these moments for personal growth by letting go of the need to be right or prove a point."
" your'e being accused of all the things the narcissist has done and has projected on to you.. they want to bury you, they want to destroy you, because they want to kill these parts off in themselves"
" It is so incredibly hard to accept, but the devaluing the narcissist is demonstrating is truly not personal - even though it feels COMPLETELY personal! The narcissist doesn’t care about you in that way. They care about themselves. Hurting you is just a byproduct of their actions. They MUST devalue you in order to deflect from their own shortcomings and faults. However, because of this, a narcissist on the warpath is EXTREMELY dangerous! I say that because they do NOT care about you, so they will do some of the worst things imaginable to destroy your reputation without a care or thought as to how it may affect you later on down the line! "
1. You give more in your relationships
You have a hard time saying no, often stifle your thoughts or opinions for fear of disturbing the peace, and your thoughts and actions are often with others in mind (not your own wants and needs.)
2. You are a People Pleaser
You feel compelled to take care of others. You have poor boundaries and often feel taken for granted. You may feel hurt or resentful if you are not appreciated for all that you are doing for others (especially if you feel you are making many sacrifices for others).
3. You find yourself needing to be needed
Your partner/close friend/family member is struggling in one way or another (addiction, illness, constant drama, etc.) Their need for you makes you feel valued, wanted and important.
4. You are emotionally reactive
Your emotions come to the surface quicker than you have time to think at times. This leaves you feeling out of control when your emotions have hijacked you.
5. You need to feel in control
This could be over-controlling emotions, deciding how you feel rather than tuning into the emotions that are coming up for you (often referred to as “Toxic Positivity”). This could also mean trying to control the actions, opinions, or emotions of someone else.
6. You avoid conflict
You don’t express your own thoughts or needs because you are afraid that if you do it will upset other people. You put your own values aside to make other people happy. And you set your own problems aside to focus on the problems of others.
7. Low Self Esteem or Low Sense of Self
When your purpose comes solely from pleasing others, it is easy to lose sight of yourself or feel lost. When you put others first you are sending a message to yourself that you are not important or worthy. This can make you dive deeper into the above behaviours.
Earlier I mentioned Empaths. The term is very “New Age” and many Codependents can be considered Empaths and actually share many of the same traits. According to an article in PsychAlive “Psychologists may use the term empath to describe a person that experiences a great deal of empathy, often to the point of taking on the pain of others at their own expense.” The article goes on to describe the pros and cons of being an Empath in more detail.
“There are many benefits of being an empath. On the bright side, empaths tend to be excellent friends. They are superb listeners. They consistently show up for friends in times of need. They are big-hearted and generous. Empaths also tend to be highly intuitive and emotionally intelligent.
However, some of the very qualities that make empaths such fantastic friends can be hard on the empaths themselves. Because empaths quite literally feel what their friends are going through, they can become overwhelmed by painful emotions, such as anxiety or anger. Empaths have a tendency to take on the problems of others as their own. It is often difficult for them to set boundaries for themselves and say no, even when too much is being asked of them.”
Sounds exactly like a Codependent to me!
If you do happen to embrace the label of being an Empath, just be aware that, like with Codependency, I believe it’s a mental health issue that requires intervention and constant self-reflection and self-work to manage.
In my 20’s and married to an alcoholic who was in and out of rehab, I was recommended to join AlAnon, an organization that has a recovery program for Codependents who basically practice the same 12 step recovery program that alcoholics do at AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I literally had no idea I was a Codependent at the time. Once I understood this I began to understand why I kept attracting abusive people into my life.
My recovery journey has literally been a lifelong one. Today, decades later, I still struggle with setting healthy boundaries and I still get manipulated into compromising my boundaries at times.
It took many run-ins with vicious Narcs for me to finally wake up and realize that it was my Codependency that was inviting the constant abuse. If I wanted to stop being abused by Narcs, I would have to work even harder on healing myself. Very recently I plucked up the courage to distance myself from certain family members who refused to stop bullying me, despite several requests for them to treat me with more respect.
I honestly believe that we teach people how to treat us. If we accept even just a little bit of disrespect, that disrespect can easily grow into abuse.
One of my greatest challenges in life, besides learning to maintain healthy boundaries, has been to practice assertiveness. I’ve had to learn how to communicate to people what my boundaries are and when they are crossed. And I often have to do that a few times with the same people until they get it. I learned that it was ok to let people know what behavior I was not willing to accept and I learned that communicating my boundaries would make some people very angry. I also learned that I didn’t need to manage anyone's feelings about my personal boundaries. If you feel taken advantage of and abused a lot, perhaps it’s time to look in the mirror and own your “stuff” and recognize the reasons why you are a soft target for abusers. These days I have fewer run-ins with Narcs because I can see them coming from 100 miles away.
I hope this article helped you recognize how you might be unconsciously inviting abuse into your life. You are not alone. There is help out there and you can become stronger and more assertive with therapy and counseling to the point where you begin to have fewer run-ins with Narcs.
 |
| copyright MB |
 |
| MB |
