Have you been experiencing a lot of friction between you and your boss? Do you feel like your manager constantly looks down on you? Chances are you might be dealing with a narcissistic boss or manager.
Dealing with someone who has a narcissistic personality disorder is extremely difficult – The worst-case scenario is when this person turns out to be your boss. A narcissistic boss is often recognised by their lack of ability to empathise with others and have little to no regard for other people’s feelings. Working alongside a narcissistic boss can have its toll on your day-to-day activities, including your happiness at work.
Sounds familiar? Here are a few signs you might need to look out for:
Lack of empathy
One of the signs of a narcissistic boss is their casual disregard for your feelings and needs… or that of any other employee as a matter of fact. For example, you might have been showing up to work completely stressed and overworked due to your workload. When you express these concerns they seem to care less.
Unfortunately, a narcissistic boss has no problem seeing you work your tales off while you’re ‘sick’ behind your desk – Just so you get the work done.
A great boss, however, is able to demonstrate good leadership skills which include showing empathy to their employees and team. A great boss cares about your health and mental well-being and won’t hesitate to send you home when you show up sick to work.
Secretly lazy
You might often find a narcissistic boss trying to ‘pick your brain’ (or that of others) because they really don’t feel the need to crack their own brain. Why should they come up with the ideas, when they have you and an entire team to do that for them?
The narcissistic boss often lacks leadership skills or the ability to inspire or genuinely motivate people, as they essentially love to dictate and sit back and watch while their team does all the work.
Easily takes the credit
As previously mentioned, a narcissistic boss might try to pick your brain so that they can take whatever idea you have and RUN with it. Unfortunately, they are extremely comfortable with taking other people’s concepts and ideas and present or pitch them as their own.
Additionally, they are mostly concerned about what people think of them and how they look in front of others. So if they need to take the credit for something they did not have any involvement in they will not think twice about doing so.
Lack of responsibility
Not only does a narcissistic boss take credit for other people’s work, but they also have little or no sense of responsibility. When things are great it’s because of the role they played in it, but when targets and goals aren’t met it has nothing to do with them. They tend to blame others for their own mistakes and will not take responsibility for their actions, especially when it doesn’t enhance their own image or reputation.
What’s your experience with a narcissistic or toxic boss? Feel free to share your story/experience in the comment box below.
1 comment
one day, In free time I was scrolling Social media in office while talking to my spouse and I was so engaged in on phone call conversation I couldn’t see my boss is standing behind me, He yelled and disrespected me among many people and asked me to leave company ASAP, it was harrowing experience in my LIFE. He didn’t give me a second chance whereas I noticed during many people used to watch not work related stuff on yt but they were clever enough, they always pretended to work in front of boss, once boss gone, they again start their past time but why only me framed guilty??
anyway I have moved on..but as they say:
“AXE CUTS BUT TREE REMEMBERS”