Healing the Narcissistic Wound

Wrong perceptions about leadership tend to produce the wrong kinds of leaders. Never has this been more true than today.

In a recent edition of the Harvard Business Review, psychoanalysis and anthropologist, Michael Macoby writes:

“Today's business leaders maintain a markedly higher profile than did their predecessors of previous generations.  A growing need for visionary and charismatic leadership has brought to the fore executives of a personality type psychologists call ‘narcissistic’."

It was the Austrian, Sigmund Freud who first coined the term “narcissism” to describe a condition of an extreme and dysfunctional self-love. Freud used the Greek myth of Narcissus, who in his attempt to reach out to his own reflection in a pool drowned, to explain the destructive behavior of people who are caught in a whirlpool of self-obsessive focus.

Psychologist use this construct of narcissism to explore the often human attempt to compensate for the fragility of life and the emptiness that sin brings by constructing a false self in which the self is the primary ground of reality.

When it comes to leadership, narcissistic leaders are leaders that have decided to avoid experiences of emptiness, lack of worth and powerlessness by turning in on themselves and using their experience of power and influence as the primary focus of their existence – their flawed self-perception becomes the primary source of reality. 

The narcissistic leader avoids feelings of fragmentation and vulnerability by making the self the center of their existence; and in doing so choose illusive grandiosity and self inflation. They always make themselves bigger than what they are.

Narcissistic leaders are destructive to any organization. Kathy Schnure at the 2010 annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology made the following remark, a remark that clearly describes the devastating effect of narcissism to both the leader and the organization:

"Narcissists are intensely competitive, self-centered, exploitive and exhibitionistic. They tend to surround themselves with supplicants they see as inferior. When they are challenged or perceive competition, they often derogate and undermine anyone, even those closest to them, they perceive as threats (and unfortunately, they are vigilant in scanning for threats)…”

Can the wound of narcissism be healed in leaders who have fallen prey to unbalanced self-love? Jesus of Nazareth offered a redemptive solution to His own followers at the outset of their ministry of service: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23, NKJV).

According to Jesus, healing the wound of false self-love begins with a desire to follow the ultimate leader (“desire to come after Me”), continue on in learning to say no to our own destructive desires and flawed plans (“deny himself”), ever submitting to God’s purpose for us on a daily basis (“take up his cross daily”), and finally conclude in the quest to follow the gentle leading and guidance of Christ (“follow Me”).

Paradoxically, when we let go of our self-constructed ideas of self and look towards Christ, we find ourselves and our true identity hidden in Him (Colossians 3:10).

What would happen if leaders would allow the Spirit of Jesus to heal their wounds of emptiness and in the process find their purpose and identity in following God and serving others?

More from CBN.com's Christian Leadership Feature