على الطريق .. لماذا ينجح النرجسيون أحياناً في الوصول للمناصب القيادية ؟

Peace be upon you and the mercy of God. How are you all? I hope you are well. May God protect you. I have a thought that I would like to share with you and hear your opinions. I have wanted for a while to create thoughts or share some ideas. So I said, let's start now, as I am on vacation, by sharing some thoughts. This is a trust. The first thought that was on my mind, and I believe that very few, if any, talk about it. So I said, why not start with it? It is the issue of why narcissistic personalities, or those with narcissistic traits, or those full of narcissism, sometimes reach high positions and top leadership in countries. What prompted me to think about this topic was Donald Trump's rise to the presidency of America, his personality, the nature of his personality, his dealings, and the nature of people's dealings with him. Especially since he is a personality that is almost a prime example of narcissism. But honestly, if you go back and think about it and look at the 20th century and all the personalities who reached the seat of power in their countries through revolutions, whether you are talking about the Arab world, for example, in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, or other countries like Mao Zedong, Stalin, or others like Che Guevara and others, they are all prime examples of narcissistic personalities. They all possess the characteristics and manifestations of a narcissistic personality, not just a spectrum of narcissistic personality traits, but the full qualities of a narcissistic personality. And a narcissistic personality is generally not a likable personality. So you wonder why these personalities can reach the seats of power. I have a desire to discuss this topic. I will give you some opinions if you would like to hear my opinion on the matter. I believe there is great benefit. First, the narcissistic personality. Few people know it and understand it concisely. In my estimation, simplifying the matter always makes it easier to understand. If you break it down into two or three points, it becomes easy to grasp. I see the narcissistic personality as being summarized in three main points. The first point is an inflated view of oneself. This person has a high view of themselves. They see themselves as bigger than their reality, their size is bigger than their actual reality. And they imagine that the people they interact with, or the people who interact with them, interact with them according to this inherent view of themselves, that they truly see them as something amazing, something exaggerated. So this is the first point. They do not see themselves realistically, nor humbly at all. And if they find that other people deal with them with a degree of realism or normal interaction, they do not accept it. They do not accept this. So this is the first point. The second point is the love of praise, the love of people praising them, and of being the center of their attention, and of always being in the spotlight, and of being the center of attention. If they find that people are criticizing or condemning them, of course, they cannot tolerate this and may immediately confront others. So, in the beginning, this is a person with an inflated view of themselves, who loves themselves and desires others to make them the center of attention, always focusing on them and praising them. These are the two main points. The third point is that they do not have a strong moral compass to reach these high social ranks. They might do anything just to reach this social position, to become the center of people's attention and have a high social status. This is generally in public relations. If you have a relationship with a narcissistic personality, you might notice these traits and be able to easily distinguish a narcissistic personality in this way. People like these who reached the seats of power and leadership positions in the 20th century, you wonder, if this personality is unlikable and generally people do not prefer to deal with them, how do they reach these leadership positions? I believe the reason is related to the nature of leadership work. The nature of leadership work, leadership positions, and high positions require something of the traits of narcissism, or a spectrum of narcissistic traits. Self-aggrandizement helps the person to be bold. Their image of themselves is very high, and they have a kind of disregard for others and for the difficulties they will face. This makes them very bold in facing difficulties and taking risks. This is one point, in contrast to other competent individuals who may have a high degree of humility, also a high degree of appreciating difficulties and respecting others, and therefore their initiative is less. This is one point. The second issue is the love of praise. This is related to marketing. Any leadership work, in high positions, in high hierarchies, requires a high degree of self-marketing. You must know your strengths and display them, and know your weaknesses and hide them. And you should not have that degree of sensitivity in attributing these actions and achievements to yourself, or at least presenting yourself when achievements occur. Narcissistic individuals generally love this area, or they have a real obsession with self-marketing, so they go into it instinctively and master this work. They have no embarrassment or feeling of vulgarity when they market themselves, and therefore they can attract a high public momentum around them through this work, which presents them as having a highly charismatic personality. While in reality, they may have great internal emptiness, but people only see the outward appearance. What does a person know? In contrast to competent individuals who have a high degree of humility, self-deprecation, and respect for others, they are shy to attribute credit to themselves and to display their achievements to others, and therefore they do not achieve that momentum, and people do not know them. So this is the second point: the narcissist succeeds in contrast to the competent, superior, or morally upright person. The third point we mentioned is high pragmatism or immorality in dealing with others. The narcissistic personality is willing to do anything, really, to achieve their goal. They might pit people against each other, they might lie in wait for others, they might lie to them, engage in gossip, they might steal, they might do anything. There is no strong moral compass. High leadership work and the struggle for leadership positions, whether you are talking about politics or economics, involve a high degree of pragmatism and high competition. These positions generally attract individuals with high ambition, they attract individuals who disagree with you, they attract individuals who see you as incompetent and believe they, or others, could reach these positions, or they want to steer the organization in a direction they deem more suitable. Your inability to confront these people and harm them, or to expose them early and remove them, this emotion and strong desire for justification for every action you take towards others prevents you from performing leadership work correctly. These individuals, by their nature, do not have that high moral inclination, and therefore they have no objection to pitting people against each other, to devising means of harm, or to practicing correct action whenever needed. Thus, their ability to, let's say, get rid of competitors or enemies is high. All of this allows narcissistic individuals to reach high positions. However, despite their success, they fail to maintain the spirit of the organization, high social relationships, and high morals within the work. Consequently, the work fails in the long run when there is a weakness in the social structure within this organization or within this country, and there is great conflict between several poles. The opportunity arises for such individuals to appear. Why? Because they appear as strong individuals, rather than individuals who market themselves well, rather than individuals who are truly infatuated with themselves. People generally justify their actions, or people who look at these individuals see their actions as justified due to the circumstances they are in, that the circumstances require extreme, harmful, and immoral actions because reality cannot tolerate morality. Thus, this justification occurs, and individuals like these reach these positions. They may even achieve great benefit in the beginning because they indeed eliminate competitors and unify the word. But in many cases, they paralyze the entire society's work and make everything revolve around them. Because in the end, they are individuals incapable of transcending the self. They do not have that real desire or interest in the public interest, and they do not have that real ability or self-endurance to see others receive more praise and admiration than them. The narcissistic personality is a personality infatuated with itself. Everything must revolve around them. So, even if they achieve something, even if they manage to unite people, even if they manage to lead them, the nature of their personality leads to the corruption of what they had previously achieved. This is the nature of the narcissistic personality. But, in my opinion, in short, you benefit from this by knowing that the nature of leadership work itself requires personality traits that do not align with general personality traits at all. And that things you might consider immoral in general dealings are actually necessary in leadership work. Among the most prominent of these things I mentioned to you is the issue of narcissistic personality traits. A degree of narcissism is important because when you lead an organization, you will find many competitors and doubters of your opinions. It is not enough to trust yourself; you must have a high degree of self-inflation to truly withstand these shocks and convince others to follow you. And so on, in confronting others, and in self-marketing, and all that we have mentioned. So, I believe this is a good perspective for one to consider, because honestly, some narcissistic traits succeed not only in institutional and leadership and political work, but even in business. Even in social relationships, many individuals with this narcissistic spectrum succeed even in attracting women or gaining their admiration because they display a certain excessive confidence in themselves, and therefore they can convince others of themselves. So, I believe this narcissistic personality, in general, is honestly a personality worth considering and contemplating, because there are many things that make you reconsider many situations. Some situations do not tolerate, and normal, usual dealings as in general social interactions are not appropriate. I ask God for success for myself and for you. I hope it was a good thought.