Did you hear this word “Narcissist” before? Do you know what “Narcissism” is?
www.mayoclinic.org says about “Narcissistic personality disorder” : One of several types of personality disorders which is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.
In a single line, Google says:
You must know how to detect a Narcissist as they are extremely dangerous, can cause you any sort of professional harm for their own benefit and they lack a few very important human abilities.
Let’s learn how to detect them:
They will always talk about THEMSELVES:
There is no room for others in their conversations. They are all about “me”, “mine”, “myself” and everything related to them.
They will always focus on their OWN SUCCESS:
Narcissists won’t ever talk about other people. It’s like “others” do not even exist to them. If your team leader is a narcissist, he/she will never talk about your contribution to the success and will always highlight his/her portion.
They NEVER LISTEN to other people’s opinions:
As they are the supreme in their eyes, they do not even bother to listen to your opinion. Even if they have the patience to listen to you, they will always push things to be done in their way in the end.
They NEVER fail (at least that is what they think. Stupid! No?):
They never fail in their eyes. Even if they fail, they will always try to draw their failure as a success in your eyes. Like a guy bowls 10 wide balls in the same over and tells you, “Look at me and you will know how NOT to bowl a wide ball”.
They will NEVER APOLOGIZE to anyone for anything:
Because they think they never make mistakes OR their mistakes are greater good, they will never apologize to you or to anyone for anything. If they apologize, you must know they have a hidden agenda behind this apology in the long run.
They are NOT doing anything for you, it’s always about THEMSELVES:
Even if you see a narcissist helping you or doing you a favor, you must know they have enough amount of benefit in that deal. They are never doing it for you and it always has something for them in it.
They are NOT team workers:
They will never say, “We did it”. Rather you will hear them saying, “I did it” or “I took this initiative” etc. This is one of the key features of narcissists and they are easy to detect when you are talking about a team or team’s effort.
They UNDERESTIMATE almost everyone on this planet:
They don’t even know you and they will end up thinking or even saying, “You will never win a battle against me”. Silly! I know, but yes, such silly people exist.
They are usually RACISTS:
They are either proud of their position or their high salary or their grade at work or something that they think they have achieved well in life. Worst is when they look good and they take this whole thing to a whole new level where they end up humiliating others for not achieving things or even for not looking good.
They try to play the “Leader” role but they end up playing the “Dictator” (Aladin Moth******):
In the name of leadership, they will usually intimidate other people, create big mess and try to frighten them to get their job done, will never care about their team. They will try to do everything themselves so that they don’t have to share the success with anyone else. In this process, they end up dictating people rather than leading them. They will always criticize their team for not being able to do things but won’t even mentor them to do or be better. Even if they are mentoring the team, it is NOT for team’s betterment. It’s often about showing off his/her own skills/knowledge.
In a nutshell, a narcissist is a person with a very poor mindset and personality who carries a strong and confident attitude to intimidate other people and press them to comply with their wishes/opinions. I guess now we have fair amount of idea of how to detect a Narcissist.
To be honest, I have worked with a few extreme Narcissists in my life. They used to irritate me in the beginning. By the time I grew older and gained more wisdom, I started feeling pity for them. Now they are a big joke for me and it’s really easy to deal with them. More importantly, I can now detect narcissists in less than a week.
In my next blog, I will explain how I deal with narcissists at work.