Brant discusses three ways to deal with a narcissistic boss. If you have one, this conversation will be helpful, empowering and encouraging.
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Transcription:
Brant:
It is time for Brant’s, “Three Things.” Today, it’s three ways to deal with a narcissistic boss, and by that I mean somebody who’s on, like, has narcissistic personality disorder. And that, by the way, it’s in the diagnostic manual, but it’s an actual disorder to the point where all they can think about is themselves, and their own need for attention, and their grandiosity, and they have to be the star of all that sort of stuff. It can be really hard to work in that environment, but a lot of people have. Unfortunately, people within PD populate fields like ours, they populate pastoral jobs. there’s a problem with a lot of management jobs. I’m speaking from experience and also having to had learn about this. Number one, recognize what’s going on. Learn about it. If you suspect that this is a possibility, because what they’ll do, I’ve seen this happen repeatedly. They’ll come in with love bombing, so they’ll tell you, you’re awesome. You’re amazing, you’re incredible and win. They have to win people over so that they can control you. And then their opinion may start to change and how can I please this person? What happened? Then they’ll tell you they’re disappointed or something, but they’re all about controlling you. So, I would say step one,
Recognize that’s what you’re dealing with and then do some research on this.
The first thing is to recognize this is the real thing. Here’s the next thing I would tell you. Once you realize that this is the situation,
Try to extricate yourself from that relational situation.
You can’t control them. You can’t change them. They will want to control you. And unfortunately, if they sense that you are moving away from them, or you’re starting to have some second thoughts about how awesome they are something, or once they sense, they sense you’re not on their team, they will come at you guns blazing. And they’re not going to have any mercy.
Sherri:
And you can’t even do honest critique.
Brant:
Oh no. It’s like, look out. How did that person flip so fast? That’s probably what you’re dealing with. The critique thing can’t happen. So just sharing this from hard one experience, but also from reading a lot about this, this is a real thing, and again, you can pray for ’em, but there’s no way that you are just going to step in and then talk them out of who they are now. It’s best to get out before there’s a lot of damage done. Here’s the third tip I would pass along.
Make sure you have friends around you who know what you’re dealing with and can speak truth to you about who you actually are because they’re so good at manipulating your emotions.
And
Sherri:
The boss,
Brant:
your self-image. Yes. Okay. If they have this narcissistic personality disorder, because they’ll convince you if you’re not doing what they want. If they can’t control you, they’re going to try to convince you something’s really wrong with you, and you can start to believe them because they’re so talented or they’re so respected or they’re so, they’ve got all this attention and it’s very intimidating. So to have people around you that go, Hey, hey, hey. That’s not true what they’re saying. You need people to check on that because they are so good at charming people and so impressive outwardly that they can snow you. Do all sorts of things, make you feel terrible, but you need people who are humble around you, who are really your friends.
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