An headline in the Motley Fool entitled Value-Destroying Villains: Narcissistic CEOs caught my eye. Motley Fool's (MF) article first cited the case laid out by Donald C. Hambrick and Arijit Chatterje from Penn State University. Hambrick and Chatterje's paper will be published for Administrative Science Quarterly is entitled: It’s All About Me: Narcissistic CEOs and Their Effects on Company Strategy and Performance. MF then went to cite specific examples in the markets today.

MF noted that narcissists may do well for a time, driven by their egos and will to shine, but tend later to come crashing down.

This topic finds its echo in two books we've previously reviewed, From Good To Great and How the Mighty Fall, both by Jim Collins and his team of some 20+ university level researchers. Level 5 leadership (which some may call servant leadership, humble leadership, self-less organizationally focused leadership) was analyzed in Good to Great as one of the keys that marked long term, highly successful performing companies. In How the Mighty Fall, hubris, vanity, over-confidence and the like were among the factors cited for the tumble from greatness into a corporate downslide – or even extinction.

As the link above hints, this topic has been on my mind for some time, as it is my view that team work is what routinely accomplishes winning performance and a lack of team work (me-itis, private agendas, etc.) that disrupts or causes a good operation or plan to fail.

We all have to make a living. We all have a certain level of 'self promotion' that can be useful or necessary. As any leader of a company, organization, team or project can tell you, there is a delicate balance for a leader between the needed ego drive to get something good done, but also the humility to listen to others and to include others. So the long term successful leader is neither a door mat nor a narcissistic personality.

Dictionary.com defines a narcissist this way:

Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity. 

The definition above itself suggests there is a healthy self-love, a healthy ego drive, but that the narcissist goes beyond the pale and is self-absorbed to a level that is destructive.

Humility – the 'opposite' of narcissism – is often mis-understood. Humility is not a false modesty or self-effacement. Humility is an acknowledgment of reality. We all have strengths and weaknesses, it is wise to acknowledge both. Humility is defined as “the absence of pride or arrogance; meekness.” It is interesting to note that meakness comes from a Greek root that means “restrained power!” So the meek can be powerful, the humble can be strong, without tumbling into arrogance, excessive pride or narcissism.

What Jim Collins and his researchers described as Level 5 leadership, that ability to create and lead a healthy team effort, therein lies the path from 'Good to Great.'

What myself and others in our Industry believe is that we need to use the tools and resources to positively bring people together. We need to tap the talents, time and treasure of those committed in a fashion that propels each ahead at a pace they would not achieve individually. Just a a flock of geese goes farther and faster when traveling together than one goose flying alone, so too is the potential power of team work in a company, or between various firms and operations.

 

Experts say that by flying in formation, the flock experiences less wind resistance,
thus allowing the flock to fly farther together than they would be able to do individually.
The lead goose periodically changes.

 

Associations are one vehicle for accomplishing such a mechanism. So too effective communications and actions between Industry professionals.

An example of successful team work was the 2012 Louisville MH Show. Members of the team were not all in the same company, or working for the same organization. They may not even have thought “I'm the member of the Louisville Show team.” But because each was doing his or her part, a collective accomplishment was achieved that benefited all involved.

The more the power of team work can be tapped, the better the outcome could be for future shows, symposiums or events in Louisville or elsewhere.

The self-absorbed personality often has no room for accepting new faces or new ideas. Vanity often is manifest as a type of elitism. The narcissist may reject good efforts primarily for the (typically unstated) reason that the idea or effort is not their own. If the narcissist is not center stage, there is something missing (in their own mind).

MF cited the example of the late Steve Jobs at Apple as someone that may appear to be self-absorbed, but in fact exhibited qualities that were not narcissistic at all, quoting:

“But that's not so — at least as far as narcissism was measured here. (Steve) Jobs was rarely in conference calls, didn't insist on being in press releases, had a succession plan in mind (even though we weren't aware of it), and most important, he surrounded himself with smart people. "Most narcissists feel threatened by having people around them that are smarter than them," Forbes' Jackson notes.”

Let me recommend anew the Jim Collins books 'Good to Great' and “How the Mighty Fall.” There is much to learn that could help us move our career, company and the factory built housing Industry ahead. # #

post by

L. A. “Tony” Kovach, MHM

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