June 1 is the yearly World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day. In 2012, we devoted just two pages in our book to this topic. But we received so many responses on specifically those two pages, that it was clear that narcissistic abuse is more common than we think and it is still taboo. Time to give it more attention.
Click here for the article in Dutch - Klik hier voor het artikel in het Nederlands
Narcissistic abuse is one of the most profound and traumatizing experiences a person can have. Recovery is not easy and takes a long time. Sometimes many years. With narcissistic abuse, you quickly think of abuse of one person by another, but organizations can also behave narcissistic as a whole. And abuse people, both inside and outside the organization. With all debilitating consequences. But trauma also creates an opening. Post-traumatic growth after narcissistic abuse can provide just the tool for the leadership that is needed to heal and put narcissistic organizations back on track.
Narcissistic abuse by individuals
Someone with a narcissistic personality disorder shows behavior that is characterized by an obsession with their own personality, their own appearance, status and their own needs. The behavior shows signs of selfishness, dominance, ambition and a lack of empathy. In other words, excessive self-involvement. The tendency to narcissism is not unknown to anyone and often is a contributing factor in achieving top performances.
There can be narcissism without greatness. But no greatness without narcissism. *
Narcissistic abuse, which this article is about, goes a lot further. It is the psychological, financial, sexual and physical abuse of others by someone with a narcissistic personality disorder. And that goes a bit further than being a "healthy" person with narcissistic traits. Making the distinction is not easy. People with narcissistic personality disorder are characterized by the following:
An exaggerated self-esteem
Feeling entitled to anything and everything and requiring constant and outrageous admiration
Expect to be immediately recognized as superior, even when performance justifying this is lacking
Exaggerating achievements and talents
Engage in fantasies of success, power, strength, brilliance, beauty or the perfect partner
Believe they are superior and should only be in the company of equally special people
Monopolize conversations and belittle people whom they experience as inferior
Expecting special favors and indisputable fulfillment of their expectations
Addicted to attention
Use others to get what they want
Inability or unwillingness to recognize or recognize the needs and feelings of others
Lack of remorse, repentance or guilt
You would think that you would automatically stay far away from such people. How is it that so many become trapped in the web of exactly such people? That's because narcissists have two (or more!) faces. They can be smart, talented and charismatic people at the same time, blazing with confidence. Instinctively they know exactly how to gain your trust and your affection. They have a nose for your weaknesses and dependencies and can manipulate you like the best. They quickly and smoothly switch masks to project an attractive image to perfection.
At first you mainly see the side that makes you like to be around someone. It is not uncommon for narcissists to court you, in a relational or business sense. They show a lot of patience and a feigned empathy. Once caught in the web, the game of emotional and energetic draining begins, often resulting in pure abuse. People often suffer completely mentally, physically and/or financially. They are left traumatized. In our book "Geef je organisatie toekomst", we give on page 155 these three tips for how to deal with this behavior, once you realize that you have encountered it:
Stop putting energy into the relationship over and over again. Only one-way traffic is possible with these people. Stop expecting any reciprocity. With that you exhaust yourself. Monitor and maintain your own energy.
Don't be put in doubt. Keep yourself physically fit and continue to rely on your own perception and intuition. Deep down, you know whether you are dealing with a reciprocal or a destructive relationship.
Accept that these "sick" people exist. When you are a positive person and like to contribute to the growth of others, the danger of crossing your own borders to save or please someone is lurking. Not all dragons are princesses to awaken with a kiss with love.
To save yourself frustration, it is good to continue to realize the following:
Narcissists eagerly embrace every lie about the other, but are unable to accept a single truth about themselves.
In the end, the best advice is: move far away from the narcissist and take time for recovery. Be sure to seek help with the latter. But what do you do when you have a permanent job and are dealing with narcissistic abuse at work? Organizations themselves can also have a narcissistic abusive character.
The narcissistic organization
An organization is more than the sum of its parts. It is a living entity with its own character that transcends the individual employees. We call this character the organizational culture. Under the influence of narcissistic leadership for many years, an organization can develop a narcissistic organizational culture. Or even a culture of institutionalized narcissistic abuse. Then it is no longer just about the customs and how one deals with each other or the customer, but the system contains many perverse incentives that encourage narcissistic behavior. In contrast to humanistic and empathetic behavior.
A narcissistic culture is especially common in established organizations with a successful track record. They are so proud of their past and smug about their prestige that they fail to notice the signs of impending problems and a need for change. Complacency is everywhere. And just as psychotic organizations produce psychotic leaders, narcissistic organizations tend to have an unusually large number of narcissistic leaders who are fixated on issues of power, status, prestige and superiority. You can recognize a narcissistic organization by the following:
A grandiose self-esteem with excessive attention to PR and corporate image. They know how to sell themselves well and are willing to go the extra mile for that.
Preoccupation with fantasies about the strength of the organization and about success at the expense of attention to employees and day-to-day management (read: reality).
Management is convinced that the organization is 'special', preferably associates with well-known people and people with a high status. Only certain circles are good enough.
Excessive use of (legal) threat, discipline and lawsuits as a means of power.
The organization requires excessive admiration, loyalty and 24/7 dedication from employees and denies them balance (sometimes subtly) in their personal lives.
The organization acts with a sense of entitlement, expects unconditional obedience from employees and compliance with business requirements.
The organization lacks empathy. Policies and procedures are not flexible when it comes to employee needs. It treats employees as if they are replaceable parts.
The organization is overly jealous of other organizations, driven by underlying fears of competition and financial fears. This results in stagnant wages, large cuts in operating budgets and fringe benefits, while maintaining the high level of salary for senior management.
The organization displays an arrogant attitude toward employees and becomes harsh or vengeful when employees propose alternative approaches or question the status quo. Let alone when they fulfill a whistleblower role.
The organization is exploitative, capitalizing on employees through feelings of guilt, threats or "in the public interest" measures. Not infrequently, employees are manipulated into personal sacrifices that are disproportionate and have little to nothing in return.
An example
The recent Allowance Affair with the Dutch Tax Authorities is a good example of where all this can lead. People who were entitled to allowances have been wrongfully destroyed financially and emotionally. Homes had to be sold, marriages suffered and families were disrupted, because there was a culture within the organization that was overly involved in itself. Full of one's own right, no longer correcting itself and considering the outside world as hostile. It was not much better indoors: there was a culture of fear and whistleblowers were dealt with harshly. From the RTL news website (in Dutch):
Tax authorities more often identified duped parents as fraudulent without evidence. By default, duped parents were accused of "intentional" or "gross negligence" by accused parents, even without proof.
A confidential internal directive provides a very strict explanation of the law. The Tax and Customs Administration discontinued the payments of another 120 parents without a thorough investigation. That was the standard procedure of a special fraud team, according to a well-informed source. You were a fraudster for the Tax Authorities until proven otherwise. Florien Jansen quit her childminder agency years ago, after a long battle with the tax authorities. Now she finds out that she has been classified as a fraud all along. But the Tax and Customs Administration had no evidence of that at all.
The Tax and Customs Administration has ignored internal reports of abuses in the treatment of citizens up to the highest official level. An employee who rang the bell for years because of violations of the law and victims of civilians was not heard anywhere. This is evident from a letter that this whistleblower sent to the House of Representatives, in which Trouw (a newspaper) and RTL Nieuws had prior inspection. Colleagues warned him that his fight for justice was pointless: "You know how whistleblowers are doing."
There was a culture of fear at the tax authorities. Employees did not dare to contradict the leadership, fearing that it would damage their career. Achieving targets became more important than fair treatment of citizens. Niessen * (whistleblower, see video in the article) is still bothered that employees of the Tax and Customs Administration were instructed to act against the law: "Unacceptable and very inappropriate.”.
Another example
The internal reaction (in Dutch) of the editorial staff of Dutch broadcasting organization NOS to the controversy that had arisen around the Diversity Cup also gives cause for thought. It contains a closely concealed threat to its own staff, under the guise of "the general interest of the organization". Completely in accordance with the last point of the list above.
(…) Infuriated especially at the person who chooses to communicate this information in this public way. Whatever the underlying motive: it damages the NOS, it damages us as editorial staff and it is very annoying for everyone who is in it (internally and externally) because of all the reactions it can evoke. We want to be an open editorial team in which you must be able to discuss everything in safety and openness. In which you have to be able to say and exchange everything for the benefit of our journalistic quality.
It is base and cowardly to bring it out at the expense of others. It gives a feeling of insecurity and that is extremely bad. What I said earlier applies all the more: if you do these kinds of things you don't belong at the NOS. If you have any questions about our journalistic course, you can start a conversation at the editorial office.
Of course, the last thing you will want to do after receiving such an email is start a conversation at the editorial board, and this is where the potentially abusive character lies. The feel of this email speaks volumes, even more than its content.
Any organization that puts you in a position to choose between honesty and being true to yourself or your job is an abusive organization.
When onboarding becomes a mental car wash
The onboarding phenomenon has boomed in recent years and that is understandable. You want new employees to feel at home as soon as possible, familiarize themselves with the organizational culture and prepare them for their work. Onboarding programs are an ideal instrument for achieving this. But there is a danger in narcissistic organizations that such a program becomes a mental car wash. Compare it with the hazing programs of some student associations, which as an organization would also score high on the narcissistic organization list.
In the mental car wash, the complex individual is transformed into a template personality. The socialization process ensures depersonalization. The "desired" thinking and acting are instilled in all. The enforced compliance, because you avoid expressing your doubts in order to avoid the pain of exclusion, puts the individual in a split state. The inner truth can not be expressed. So you are going to live a lie. And exhibit inauthentic behavior. And that is pre-eminently narcissistic abuse: self-alienation.
In extreme cases you get a self-gaslighting, in which the abuse is internalized, so that the desired message from the victim is actively propagated and confirmed. When pointed out, the responses are usually a rationalizing away, minimizing and denying the abuse.
It’s easier to manipulate people,
than to convince them that they have been manipulated.
But in the meantime the individual human being dies little by little on the inside.
The danger to the organization
Self-alienation is a phenomenon that also poses a risk with the creation of so-called corporate tribes. The dividing line between a tribe and a cult is thin. It is better to leave tribal thinking in the pre-corona era. Because tribal thinking easily promotes narcissistic leadership. The chief elder is in charge and many customs prevail over individual diversity. The risk for the organization is that group think arises. The result of this is that there is no longer any opposition, a tunnel vision is created with wrong decisions as a result. Wrong in the sense that it can harm the organization itself.
A narcissistic organization seems strong but lacks a core ingredient to be future-proof. Namely: learning ability. This requires genuine self-reflection that you are only able to muster if you are not alienated from yourself. In addition, psychological safety is an extremely important condition for openly applying self-reflection in an organization. In a healthy organization, people are approached as adult individuals and there is room for difference and different perspectives.
Turning the tide
Since we all have a narcissistic streak, it takes a lot of self-knowledge and honest self-reflection to perceive it. Those who are best able to recognize and defuse the insidious poison of narcissism have themselves been the victims of narcissistic abuse. But on the condition that those who have integrated the experience at all levels. This requires self-examination. You have to shed light on exactly what made you "susceptible" to the narcissist, such as self-confidence crevices, old unhealed wounds, or emotional dependence. Therein lies the key to integrating the experience and healing can begin.
Only when you stand on firm ground and there are no more blind spots, you have a new and important instrument in your hands. You are able to recognize narcissistic abuse and to change the organizational climate.
Those who have experienced narcissistic abuse themselves can free an organization from narcissistic abuse, or establish organizations that are free from that abuse.
Having experienced narcissistic abuse yourself, you know what others need. Examine the practices in the organizations and get rid of unhealthy habits. Say goodbye to narcissistic leaders and start at the top. Help the organization in forming new healthy habits, but not before you have given the organization the space to become aware and to restore confidence by giving it room for healing.
Much has been written about the traumatized organization in terms of the neglected organization. There are many useful angles to handle this phenomenon. However, they only work if carried out by leaders who have experienced post-traumatic growth. Because then you cease to be chased by trauma and instead become an asset in building a renewed healthy foundation of the organization.
We are curious to learn your thoughts on the matter.
Dirk Anton van Mulligen and Kim Castenmiller
Are you running into narcissistic abuse yourself? Or do you want to build an organization that is free from this, e.g. through leadership development? Please do not hesitate to contact us.
*) Quote from: Emotional vampires: dealing with people who drain you dry - Albert J. Bernstein