How to deal with narcissistic, toxic leaders

Every organization has them: toxic leaders who sacrifice others for their selfish needs. At the very least, these managers can make our jobs difficult or derail our investigations and, at worst, commit fraud. Here’s how to deal with them.

As fraud examiners, it’s inevitable that we’ll encounter many types of difficult people over the course of our careers — not only those whom we’re investigating but also our co-workers and bosses. This can be especially challenging when we’re dealing with toxic individuals who demonstrate undesirable personality traits such as narcissism and even psychopathy. Many of these people become leaders. To be successful, we need to be able to deal with those who have these unusual inclinations.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes in his 2019 book, “Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders (And How to Fix It),” that people who are “… self-centered, entitled, and narcissistic … tend to emerge as leaders and take control of resources and power in a group. …” These traits occur more in men than in women (hence his book’s provocative title).

Such toxic leaders are “… overconfident … and very much in awe of themselves, particularly in light of their actual talents. … Yet these flaws seldom hamper their career prospects,” Chamorro-Premuzic writes.