Is Your Leader a Narcissist? The Psychological Traits Defining Current Affairs
When I think about leadership, I am increasingly interested in what happens when the person in charge gets something wrong.
Do they acknowledge the mistake? Can somebody explain why a decision was unsuccessful without fearing retaliation? Is there a procedure for correcting it?
I'm not necessarily trying to decide whether a leader has a narcissistic personality. I am more interested in what an audience can reasonably conclude from what it sees versus what it hears.
A convincing performance can demonstrate communication skill without establishing the quality of a decision.
Why confidence attracts attention
A meta-analysis of narcissism and leadership found a positive relationship between narcissism and leadership emergence, but not leadership effectiveness overall.
I find that distinction interesting because the abilities that attract an audience are not necessarily the ones that produce good decisions.
A person might speak fluently, project authority and appear completely certain. None of those qualities independently tells me whether the proposed policy is practical, proportionate or supported by reliable evidence.
When the image becomes the evidence
Research on historical assessments of US presidents found associations between grandiose narcissism and both favourable and unfavourable leadership outcomes.
That complexity makes me hesitant about stories that reduce leadership to an attractive or alarming personality profile.
An experimental study of group decision-making found that narcissistic leaders could appear more effective to observers while inhibiting information exchange within their groups.
The finding cannot automatically be transferred to political institutions. Still, it suggests why a leader's public presentation may give an incomplete picture of how decisions are reached.
A news camera can record an impressive speech. It cannot, by itself, show the quality of every consultation, the treatment of dissenting advice or the consequences of a decision.
Keeping the interpretation proportionate
The word narcissism can make commentary sound psychologically sophisticated. Yet a review of narcissism research explains why traits, presentations and clinical diagnosis require careful distinctions.
I do not think a speech provides enough evidence to settle those questions.
What it does provide is material for examining communication: the claims made, the evidence presented, the emotions invited and the treatment of competing explanations.
That gives journalism an important role. It can examine the gap between a leader's promises and their actions without relying on speculative descriptions of personality.
I would rather see a report test what a leader says than merely show how forcefully they say it. It's also a lot more useful to give audiences the tools to clearly see whether a leader's authority remains open to examination or not.
