Such “narcissistic” leaders are essential during times of transition.
Charisma, vision-and, yes, big ego-define many larger-than-life leaders-Jack Welch, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs-who adorn today’s business-magazine covers. “What’s the difference between Larry Ellison and God? God doesn’t believe he’s Larry.” So quips an executive about Oracle’s larger-than-life leader. Another is to take a leap of faith and go into psychoanalysis, which can give these leaders the tools to overcome their sometimes fatal character flaws. One solution is to find a trusted sidekick, who can point out the operational requirements of the narcissistic leader’s often overly grandiose vision and keep him rooted in reality.
Narcissists who want to overcome the limits of their personalities must work as hard at that as they do at business success. They didn’t get where they are by listening to others, so why should they listen to anyone when they’re at the top of their game? But recommendations about creating teamwork and being more receptive to subordinates will not resonate with narcissists. Most business advice is focused on the more analytic personality that Freud labeled obsessive. It’s not always true, as Andy Grove famously put it, that only the paranoid survive. But narcissists can also lead companies into disaster by refusing to listen to the advice and warnings of their managers. Narcissists are good for companies in extraordinary times, those that need people with the passion and daring to take them in new directions. Such love of the limelight often stems from what Freud called a narcissistic personality, says psychoanalyst and anthropologist Michael Maccoby in this HBR classic first published in the January–February 2000 issue.
These were a different breed from their counterparts of just ten or 20 years before, who shunned the press and whose comments were carefully crafted by corporate PR departments. In the winter of 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, business leaders posed for the covers of Time, BusinessWeek, and the Economist with the aplomb and confidence of rock stars.
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