Narcissistic Leadership!

A Greek myth tells of the story of the handsome Narcissus who, despite repeated advances, rejected Echo the nymph. He was then cursed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Of course, this ends as an unfulfilled love and he literally whithers away.

This story surfaced to my consciousness when I read about a recent research that identified one of the factors that 'pushes' people to become leaders : Narcissism – a total and absolute self absorption of one’s own grandeur. Tongue in cheek, this study raised the question that is it ever possible that any one who is not a narcissist would ever want to be the President of United States of America?

Although narcissism may push one to be a leader, it will not make him or her an effective leader. To become an effective leader, one needs empathy, self-control and the ability to see goodness in others and weaknesses in one self. An effective leader must be able to see the bigger picture, hold steadfast to good values and exemplify these values in his own way of working and relating to others.

I have attempted many times to pin-down what actually makes someone a good leader but the goal-posts seems to be moving all the time that it seems to be a futile attempt.
However, I suppose I will not go wrong to say that there are probably 5 key factors that contributes to great leadership. I call these the 5 Sense Approach :

1. A Sense of Destiny : The lives of great leaders are driven by their sense of destiny. Some of them have been thrown into a set of circumstances while others have knowingly got them selves into circumstances that allowed them to show their greatness. Examples : The Wright brothers, Alexander the Great, Hitler
2. A Sense of Carelessness : This is going to be though to explain. What I mean is this….when you become a leader you put your head on the chopping block. You may even put other people’s heads on the chopping blocks. You have influence over others’ lives while simultaneously loosing grip on yours. So, it takes a little bit of devil may care attitude to actually take the risk of becoming a leader as there is much to loose. Examples : Che Guevara, Malcolm X.
3. A Sense of Greatness : Unlike a Narcissistic leaders, a true great leader has a sense of greatness instead. He measures his success not only by what he has gained and accumulated but also by what others have gained and benefited from his leadership. He feels great about him self vis a vis the greatness achieved by his people through him. Jack Welch,Tun Dr. Ismail.
4. A Sense of Humbleness : If you read the stories of some of the world’s greatest leaders from all areas of human endeavors be it in nation building, science, teaching, healing and even religion you will find that these people have very extreme weaknesses and human failings. In my own search for role models to emulate I used to be often disappointed when I come across pieces of information about particular leaders which was very troubling. Sexual addiction, drug abuse, depression, matrimonial violence and even incestuous relationship. In some of the autobiographies that I have read, these leaders who have openly admitted to these failings which they know will somehow diminish their luster, have done so with a sense of humbleness. Yet, with my own humbling experiences I have come to ignore these and just focus on the essence of what makes these men and women great. Examples :Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, Tun Ghafar Baba.

5. A Sense of Helplessness : Deepak Chopra might call this syncro-destiny or letting the universe take care of the details. The greatest leaders the world has ever seen are also some of the most insecure people. Outwardly they appear to have planned and thought about everything but inwardly they seem to be engulfed in a sense of fear and helplessness. They, despite what the world thinks of them, often allow the universe to take care of their destiny. Their bravery and courage pales in comparison to their private fear and insecurity. Gandhi, despite his heroics in going against the mighty British empire, had always doubted about him self and often resorted to prayers to calm his troubled soul. It is not surprising than that the current blue-eyed-boy of corporate Malaysia, Idris Jala, never fails to make the point that after all said and done, one needs to pray to make a business successful!.


Having worked out the 5 factors above, I still feel a sense of vagueness as to what constitutes good leadership. I often come across ‘leaders’ who alienate others through their ineffective communication style or those who show a lack of empathy. Of course there are those who are almost empty drums. They keep repeating their few and far in between success stories in the hope of gaining respect from others. Then there are others who are either too arrogant or too pleasing. Each time, I tend to think that one or two factors make a great leader only to change my mind when I meet another ineffective leader.

Maybe leadership is situational. Yet, I am not totally convinced by that paradigm either.