“Narcissism has become a contemporary pandemic that seems to have been normalized, accepted, and even celebrated, both in society at large and by some of our political and business leaders.” This sentence from the description of Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries’ recent book Narcissistic Leadership: Narcissus on the Couch holds true – you just have to take one look at some of the most powerful leaders in the world right now. “When people get into a situation of power, unfortunately, narcissism is a very heavy drug and many people cannot handle it,” he remarks.

A keen observer of human psychology for several decades now, Kets de Vries, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organisational Change at INSEAD, sat down with Think:Act to discuss narcissistic leadership – and what to do about it.

How do narcissism, hubris and Machiavellism manifest in leadership?

In the literature you hear about a dark triad, a combination of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism are very much related. There are leaders who are combined narcissistic and also have psychopathic tendencies which you call malignant narcissism, the worst form of narcissism.

We are all narcissistic to some extent. It makes for a sense of achievement. It's the question of the excess. When people get into a situation of power, unfortunately, narcissism is a very heavy drug and many people cannot handle it.

And then there is hubris, excessive pride, a condition wherein people start to live in an echo chamber. People have a tendency to tell people in authority what they like to hear. In Paris a mayor was running as a candidate for president. The people that she talked to told her that she was the greatest. But she only got 1.2% of the votes.

I sometimes joke that the moment a person becomes the businessman or businesswoman of the year, it would be better to start selling the shares of the stock because it might go to their head.

And what can we do about it?

Very few people can keep their head when in a situation of power. So what is needed is a culture where you have a healthy disrespect for the boss. If you are a leader and you start to foam at the mouth when you get bad news, you will not get bad news anymore.

Not many people have coaches, but the worst you can have is a hungry coach, meaning the coach becomes dependent on the income of this particular organization. In my role I tell the coaches I've educated you should become an ‘insultant’, not a consultant. You should be a little bit like the fool in Shakespeare's King Lear, to show the king the reality. But it's very hard.

Narcissistic people are very good in taking credit for other people's work, very good in managing upward. But the people who get their venom are the people below. So if you have a 360 feedback system in organizations where people are not too scared, you might tease them out before it's too late because the moment they are in top positions, it becomes quite hard.

How can we identify narcissists in organizations?

I use a two by two diagram of results and values. People who have no great results and no values should be out of the organization. Those who have great results and great values, are the stars. People who live the values but don’t have great results, you give them a chance. But the real danger is the toxic people who have great results, but don't live the values. Many organizations let it be and it has a toxic effect: “We have this managing director with great results, but nobody stays there.” There is a high turnover of people and you need to read in the riot act and say unless you change your behavior, you get out. But very often people wait too long.

Through 360 feedback, you might have a chance that you find those people. Furthermore, if you have a high turnover of people in certain departments, something is not right. It sometimes helps to have better sensors. In certain industries, for example, in investment banking, where the greed factor plays a big role, the amount of psychopathy is probably higher than other organizations.

How can organizations foster a culture that discourages unethical behavior and promotes ethical leadership?

Fish starts to smell at the head. The role of the board of directors is to hire, fire and monitor CEOs and top executives and as you know, very often they bend over backwards before they do anything. It's another problem.

Also, are the leaders good role models for everyone else in the organization? That role modeling is extremely important because like it or not, organizations are not democratic institutions.

And something to discuss: What kind of values in your organization, if they are trespassed, would cause you to quit? Coming back to my quadrant of results and values: if people don't live those values, they need to shape up or they ship out. Unfortunately, corporate cultures are quite flexible about those people.

Blood pressure is important for your health and it is invisible. It’s the same about things like trust. Organizations are in a way, centers of depressing and paranoid anxiety. So the containment function of leadership is how to deal with it and create a culture of trust, that people feel they have voice, that they can speak their mind. It all starts from the top. If leadership starts to get very upset when they hear something they don't like, they will never hear it again.

Leadership is a team sport. We have a tendency to have this macho model of leadership where we put a person on the pedestal. But that's not how reality is.