Narcissism! The Cambridge dictionary defines narcissism as “a personality disorder in which someone has too much admiration for him/herself and too much concern with his/her own importance.” Since my teen age I have come across many narcissists. Such people are often involved in self -gratification. They are frequently obsessed with their own physical and mental attributes. Most of the time they owe their intelligence to the people they meet or get acquainted to during their walk of life. Trait of Narcissism if nurtured leads to unethical acts and immoral behavior. These are the people who judge others negatively and exhibit high level of anti-social behaviour. Often these types of people perceive others as worthless and untrustworthy.
Lust for success, power, control and wealth has fueled narcissistic life style. Such people are found in numbers at many urban offices. These people construct an idealised version of self to get distracted from the intolerable fear of not being good enough. An acquaintance I met recently feels he is destined for greatness and believes he deserves only the best. People who meet him, he makes them feel as if they are very important. The charm that he throws has a reciprocity message attached with it. The minute they disagree or critically analyse some of his views/decisions he is in tantrums and never misses an opportunity to back stab and bring these people under his control. His relentless actions are not to learn something but rather to prove his superiority over his own colleagues.
Recently, at an international conference his traits like non-apologetic to committed mistakes and always being Mr. Right were witnessed. A vendor who was to take care of the management of the event missed his flight for reasons best known to the vendor. This person asked the vendor to fly the same flight on a fake identity. The vendor did reach but the trouble that was building up at the airport was not known to this Narcissists. Later as the water reached the nose; he refused to accept his mistake and flipped the scene on to the airlines. Though an offence was committed; the security let them go off with a stern warning.
He had risked three of his employees in this incident. Lives of these three employees were almost shattered. These employees were in psychological pain. Their dreams were shattered, morale was down and were defamed in a limited social circle. My acquaintance Narcissists was using his own employees without considering the cost of committing an offence. These employees were subservient and hence could not resist his orders. Moreover, after they reached the conference venue the Narcissists hardly had any feelings for them. Instead he dumped shame on them and with his egoistic arrogance made them toil day and night as the conference was important than health of anyone else.
The office bearers of this organization too fall in the same category. The office bearers expect the employees to revolve around their needs; but will hardly give a damn to the personal world of the employees. Nothing is more important than the needs and wants of these office bearers. The Narcissists traits within the office bearers and the principal manager of the office have yielded short term gain; but have dragged down individual employees.
Kaustubh Kulkarni
Writer is a journalist with over twenty year experience. He has covered business and commerce, foreign relations and socio political factor. kaustubh2@gmail.com Twitter: @holybeed
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