Narcissistic leadership

Narcissism and groups

A study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that when a group is without a leader, a narcissist is likely to take charge. Researchers have found that people who score high in narcissism tend to take control of leaderless groups. Freud considered "the narcissistic type... especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to... impress others as being 'personalities'.": one reason may be that "another person's narcissism has a great attraction for those who have renounced part of their own... as if we envied them for maintaining a blissful state of mind—an unassailable libidinal position which we ourselves have since abandoned."

According to the book Narcissism: Behind the Mask, there are four basic types of leader with narcissists most commonly in type 3 although they may be in type 1:

1. authoritarian with task oriented decision making
2. democratic with task oriented decision making
3. authoritarian with emotional decision making
4. democratic with emotional decision making

Michael Maccoby stated that "psychoanalysts don't usually get close enough to narcissistic leaders, especially in the workplace, to write about them."