Taking Back Yourself From Narcissistic Leadership

Whether it’s toxic leadership in religious communities and churches, companies or politics more and more people are finding a voice to call out these ways and say they are not okay. To take back yourself from narcissistic leadership we have to start with understanding what does that term even mean. Really it is a description of trauma that was never helped and so created a pattern of coping that became habit which became personality.

Trauma specialist Peter Levine defines trauma in many ways but one of them is “incomplete self protective actions waiting to complete”. When we get overwhelmed and there is no one able to help us we freeze. Freeze is the highest level of activation (not fight or flight). In freeze we experience terror, helplessness, and we shut down to cope. This is natural however what is not natural is for this biological emergency break to stay on for long periods of time. Levine discovered that most animals in the wild do not get PTSD despite going through life threatening situations (like almost being eaten). This is because they allow their nervous systems to complete the fight, flight and freeze impulses their body initiates when threatened. As humans however we often don’t allow ourselves to complete fight, flight or freeze (due to a ton of different reasons). This means that the enormous amount of energy that is initiated in the fight, flight or freeze reaction becomes stuck in our bodies. We do all that we can to not re-engage that energy because it’s overwhelming. We don’t want to feel the fear, rage, helplessness, isolation, chaos, etc. of those states especially if we don’t understand why we are feeling that way. Problem is the incomplete past won’t stay in the past.

When we experience something that has similar enough feelings, events or pieces to our original painful experiences that we are still holding our brain does what it’s supposed to do. Which is to re-engage how we survived (coped) last time. Meaning, it says something like, “I know what this moment is because I’ve lived a moment similar to this before. It’s a threatening moment and I remember how I survived last time so I will re-activate all those ways to ensure survival again.” So the way we looked away, tightened our lips, clenched our jaws, the ways our muscles tighten in our legs, gut or chest, the way our bowels felt, the feelings we had, the meanings we made about the moment, all re-activate to attempt to adapt and keep us alive and keep the feelings and survival mechanisms from completing.

Part of that will be to dissociate from those bodily awarenesses. To do that we may use outside things to distract us (e.g. needing things to be super exciting or interesting or quick hits of novelty, needing things to be zen and not upsetting at all, needing things to not be about anything meaningful to keep it surface level and superficial) or we may use inside things (becoming hyper sexual, arrogance, becoming hyper rational, staying in go mode for longer than normal, thinking everyone else is at fault, thinking everything is our fault, needing to be around powerful or attractive people, getting depressed, getting anxious, etc.). Of course we often use outside and inside distractions simultaneously. Over time this creates a pattern of feeling/thinking/behaving that is automatic/unconscious and so frequent that it becomes a part of our personality.

So what happens when this is in the background of a leader, especially a founder? Often what happens first is the company gets set up so that it’s difficult for there to be accountability for the leader. This helps the leader continue to use the original ways they have coped (e.g. maybe they become manic and make a bunch of changes really quickly - emailing late into the night, maybe they become critical and bully-ish, maybe they say sexist things or really vulgar jokes, etc.). This could look like the HR department is non existent or is hampered in some way. Or perhaps a co-dependent culture is cultivated from the start so that everyone knows implicitly you don’t cross them or you get fired. Or there is little to no Diversity, Inclusion, Equity or Belonging initiatives.

It gets so complicated when money, security and livelihood feels on the line. We stop listening to our guts and our authenticity. We utilize our own distractions in order to calm our reactions to what doesn’t feel right in order to not feel anxious about losing our jobs or causing problems in an area that could affect our ability to earn and provide. Or in the case of religion we potentially fear disconnection from the Divine.

Really, the strongest thing we can do is become more conscious. The more conscious we are of our feelings and convictions the more we can make a conscious choice as opposed to an automated one that is based on a past survival strategy. We may choose to stay somewhere because it feels worth it to us and learn to adapt through having other support systems. We may choose to confront problematic people and systems. We may choose to leave. Or something else. It’s not about right and wrong, healthy or unhealthy. It’s about being able to stay in touch with your own built in value system that lets you know what feels life giving and what doesn’t.

So how do we become more conscious? Well the first steps are to get in touch with what the signals are that we don’t feel okay. Ask yourself:

When something is off/when I don’t feel safe/when I feel uncomfortable I:

Feel what?

My muscles, bowels and visceral do what?

Dream what?

Think what?

Say what?

Do what?

Don’t feel what?

My muscles, bowels and visceral don’t do what?

Don’t dream what?

Don’t think what?

Don’t say what?

Don’t do what?