Detchana Wangkheeree:123rf.com
For those of us of moderate or liberal persuasion, the attraction many have for the fascinatingly distasteful Donald Trump is a mystery. And yet, if one thinks about it, perhaps not so much …
A recent Harvard Business Review article by leadership expert Michael Maccoby explored the charisma of narcissists in leadership positions. Trump, he says, is a man who can legitimately claim to be unbought by political interests. The real clue to his appeal, though, is his personality. In a world of dissembling and frequently mealy-mouthed behavior by public figures—my thought, by the way—“No one pushes Trump around, and no insult goes unanswered.”
Trump, though it may be hard to believe, is in distinguished company. Freud spoke of normal narcissists—Maccoby refers to them as productive narcissists—and saw them as strong and independent people who are driven to lead and change the world. Examples: Carnegie, Ellison, Gandhi, Ford, Jefferson, Jobs, Lincoln, Napoleon, and Rockefeller. Perhaps you could add Hillary Clinton to the list.
According to Maccoby, these folks run into trouble when they begin to lose touch with reality. When they become “self-important and thin-skinned.” When they don’t partner with people who can keep them grounded or when they end those partnerships.
All of this is interesting, and I recommend you read the article, which will take 5 minutes or less. What is most fascinating, though, is Maccoby’s take on us, the led. “Narcissistic leaders can create companies like Apple or those like Enron … In the final accounting, a large part of the credit for their successes, or blame for their failures, belongs to the people who followed them.” Think of Adam and Eve. For millennia, women have been taken the blame for having so temptingly offered the apple to Adam. Time for Adam to step up and admit to a failure of good followership.
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