WATCH OUT! Or a narcissist might DESTROY your career...

it feels too defamatory to diagnosis too clinical too judgmental too dismissive and ultimately too legally risky so folks don't call it out in the workplace instead they expect the people who have been abused to roll up with tons and tons of documentation that is often damn near impossible to get so here's the question I want to put to you have any of you ever worked someplace where what basically was happening was all the good people left because the narcissistic bosses the narcissistic managers the narcissistic colleagues were kept and enabled and you were like I'm none or other people near you were like I'm done and solely but surely all the healthy people left leaving sort of this critical mass of really toxic people if you've ever been in a workplace like that drop that in the comments I know I have and I was like yikes in some ways it's a bit of a Revenge fantasy right because now they're all left with each other it's like Jurassic Park at the end where the dinosaurs all kind of eat each other it's sort of that but um and I don't think the dinosaurs are narcissists but um if any of you have had that experience because that's what I'm going to talk about I'm going to talk about the talent drain that can happen in any kind of organization or institution of any size the talent drain that comes when we enable narcissists at work okay so let's talk a little bit about that because when you do this when the narcissist in the workplace get enabled you lose your real talent now anybody out there who has ever worked with a narcissist or narcissist knows the Havoc that they can wreak in the workplace triangulation harassment abuse they don't carry their load they accuse everyone else of having it easier than them they will backstab colleagues they will steal ideas they will pass rumors they will deny the things they say they will Gaslight everyone it can be a mess again any of you have had these workplace experiences and you can do so safely and confidentially drop it but don't do it if it's going to cause you problems at work people will report that after working with a narcissist it can result in workplace stress like no other kind of workplace stress I mean all workplaces are a little stressful and this is particularly stressful if you don't know what you're dealing with in terms of a narcissist if you also have Legacy issues related to narcissism such as a narcissistic parent these Dynamics can be even more activating for you or if you're in a narcissistic marriage and working in a narcissistic workplace you may even find yourself vacillating between feeling trauma bonded to your to your abusive colleague or boss or experiencing traumatic stress in the face of narcissistic abuse from a boss or even a colleague because it is the workplace you may minimize it you may Gaslight yourself and say uh it's just my job I need to stop taking it so personally but given how much of our Lives we spend working or in some cases in the workplace it can have the same level of physical and mental impact as an intimate relationship or a family relationship in some ways in some ways in most ways narcissists get away with way more nonsense at work their competitiveness their grandiosity their obsessiveness their entitlement their obsession with winning their willingness to brag about their accomplishments all of this can contribute to them actually climbing the ladder more quickly because many people may not see these patterns as toxic they may see them as hard working or focused or ambitious and narcissistic individuals are so skilled at looking good to those they need to look good for and to destroy those who get in their way that they often rather quickly ascend the latter into leadership and they may actually narcissists may actually crave leadership positions because they like the supply and the power that comes from being the boss whereas other people might say forget it I don't want the headache narcissistic individuals are about power and profit and that is a motivation that many employers can get behind narcissistic individuals are not team players until someone is watching and their Jekyll hide slickness means they can trick many people especially somewhat dull-witted people at the highest levels of corporate leadership who don't quite get these patterns so they climb to the top and are making other people's lives miserable but not all workplace narcissistic abuse happens from the top down sometimes it can be one of the rank and file workers the front line worker who was passive aggressive manipulative and may be a real handful for managers who treats clients badly and may be protected by workplace rules that make termination very difficult these Frontline workers may also make everyone's lives more difficult by fostering sort of a demoralized workplace and because people often just don't want to be bothered with the toxic Shenanigans of a difficult co-worker they just don't want to deal with them everyone else may be working harder so they don't need to take the difficult person on or ask them to do something many employers enable the narcissists in their midst HR departments don't know what to do about them HR is woefully unprepared in most organizations the fact is narcissists are geniuses at leaving the psychological bruises that nobody can see workplace reports about them when you do try to make change often devolve into he said she said they said and the absence of documentation not much can be done and I'm going to tell you even with documentation I cannot tell you how many times human resource departments management and administration will soft pedal it into it all just sounds like a misunderstanding we can try to find common ground or some other consultant nonsense talk and they'll often try to dodge lawsuits and set with settlements and moving people around within the company so they may not know any longer need to work closely with each other but what none of these entities are ever willing to do with the narcissist is to pull the weed out by its roots the fact of the matter is narcissism is not against the law and because of that employers hands are often tied many times employers will also minimize and Gaslight it as a stylistic difference between two employees and if the narcissistic employee is profitable they may not want to either kill the Golden Goose or aggravate or piss off an antagonistic employee who they think is going to sue so the healthy people become the sacrificial Lambs one thing companies and institutions don't think about when they enable narcissists and when they permit the toxic workplace to just keep going is the talent drain that they're going to face it's my hope that as more people get educated about narcissism and narcissistic abuse that they recognize that they cannot win at this game some people really give it their best shot they manage expectations they radically accept they don't defend they don't explain they don't engage they don't personalize they follow all the steps they really try but the narcissist despite you figuring out the workarounds will still generate a toxic culture around themselves and it's just bad energy to be in that the possibilities for growth in these kinds of workplaces are often curtailed you may not feel like you can even be authentic in your workplace I understand it is a real luxury to be able to leave a job and most of us cannot leave a job unless we have another gig set up it's just the nature we've got to we've got to pay the bills every month right but once you realize that there is a narcissist in your midst start the job hunt it's often the best play because frankly the therapy bills even if the the new job doesn't pay as much still might outweigh the cost difference because even if not everyone can leave a toxic workplace over time there will be a talent bleed some of the good ones will leave the empathic ones the compassionate ones the ones who are gritty enough and willing to take on a little bit of an extra load because it's the right thing to do because they have a shared Vision with their employees and employer but it gets tiresome when you do these things and it's never reciprocated employers can lose productive productive people healthy people and the people with integrity and who are honest then when that happens and that Talent drain happens what you're left with is a critical mass of the narcissist and all of their minions the people willing to do the narcissist bidding and it becomes a big dysfunctional family characterized by triangulation and all kinds of ethical lapses and it feels more like the reality show Survivor then it feels like a workplace and when you get to that point it can be very difficult to keep your company or keep any company or for a company to keep going see it's the healthy people that kept that workplace going and Alive even as they were being jobs by The Narcissist many accompany institution or business large or small has been brought down by the hubris of narcissism and anyone could see it coming except for the enablers and the deniers on the inside the talent drains that come when a workplace is toxic cannot be underestimated some companies get to try at least try or something to achieve holding on to their good talent by overpaying them it's kind of like blood money for putting up with a toxic narcissists in their midst some hold on to jobs that are toxic because of handsome pensions or other golden handcuffs that will await them one day or that they're stuck into I should say but in a more Nimble economy and as the days of working 40 years for a pension and a gold watch Fade Into the history books people leave jobs more often Millennials for example are switching jobs quite a bit it's the nature of the new workplace I have watched people though try to make a toxic workplace work and one day it hits them maybe it's just an absurd staff meeting that that just feels like the theater of the Absurd maybe it's watching the most toxic person get Advanced and get accolades and watching the real workhorses remain unseen maybe it's watching a junior colleague enduring the same toxic hazing ritual you endured 25 years prior and it becomes that wake-up call that nothing ever changes in this place many times when people leave they just leave they never sit down with HR or management and say you know why I left I left because of the toxic culture that was allowed to be fomented here they just get out and try not to look back so reliable statistics about all of this can be quite hard to get but companies do lose talent and one day the people in charge who may be toxic themselves may look up and wonder what just happened and here's what's interesting they'll never see it clearly and in fact May label the people who left that company as ungrateful or weak people who leave toxic companies frankly often go on to great things they create their own firms which they really set up intentionally to be non-toxic they may be more Discerning and may choose a new job on the basis of the quality of the people who they get to work with and there's also a resilience that develops from working in a toxic workplace that you can bring forward as the world increasingly keeps enabling toxic and narcissistic behavior always remember there is a toll you can keep pretending like all the gaslighters do oh come on it's not that big a deal he's not that bad but as more people understand this phenomena they will leave and trying to run a company that's populated by only narcissistic employees and their enablers well that's a Fool's venture the enablers are too busy validating The Narcissist to really do their jobs and the narcissists are too busy manipulating everyone and Burning Bridges to do their jobs in a sustainable way as a business model it may work for a little while but in the long term all those burned Bridges means that there is no way to keep moving forward listen I hope someday we see a world and sort of alternate universe in which the healthy people will finally Prevail that we will have reasonable workplace policies that can actually call people out for toxic behavior that we don't guess like people who are saying this doesn't feel okay by saying oh just don't make such a big deal about it that's just how he is I do hope that day comes I'm not holding on to it the idea that that might happen in my lifetime and so we may not see massive corporate institutional or large business change but for those of you who are running smaller to medium-sized businesses take a good look around and really sort of do I don't know just like you might do quarterly reviews do a quarterly sort of assessment of the level of toxicity in your workplace ask yourself if you're keeping someone around for reasons of nostalgia misplace loyalty and not really accounting for how they're treating other people because one day you're going to look up and I promise you the good people will leave it's my goal through the work I do in education is to give the good people the wake-up call to leave the toxic spaces that the people who are in the toxic spaces don't want to fix they're in there's an incentive to doing it better it's on all of us to see if we can hold up that sort of that kind of standard for employers to engage in but until then plan on watching the talent just bleed right out allow me to set the scene and tell you a story so this is a workplace where everyone walked on eggshells around the division director his explosive rage unreasonable demands and then the other issues the triangulation the moments of charm moments when people would let down their guard and think they were a really good person and then boom more rage people clamoring to be in the good graces of this division director and people in the workplace were not only afraid of this director but they also knew that there was a fair amount of paranoia in the workplace with people always wondering who was even safe to talk to people in this particular workplace setting were having trouble sleeping they were always on edge they were being asked to do more and more with less and less and they were getting concerned about safety lapses especially since quick decisions carried tremendous risk in this environment if they were wrong this job that they had in this particular industry and in this particular company was considered a great job a real stepping stone a sort of reputation maker and it even paid well so a lot of people were thinking nobody screws this up all jobs are tough but this is actually one that people want but on one particular day The Perfect Storm finally hit the division director was walking around incensed budgets were getting cut everyone was already stretched thin and tired two of the managers who who reported to the division director walked out there was a major deadline that Friday and everyone assumed that the fix on the computer system that they required had been addressed by someone else but they were also aware that getting this thing fixed was coming in over budget and everyone was too afraid to tell the division director by the close of business Friday the entire system had been breached and the result of this failure was actually some decisions that were made by different people in this group that resulted in massive liabilities and such high high Financial costs and loss of reputation that the company ended up crashing and everyone lost their jobs so here's the question and you can drop your hands in the comments who was to blame this story is a composite of multiple workplace examples and yeah culminates in a slightly more dramatic example but this kind of issue repeats in small and big ways in every day in workplaces all over the world when we talk about narcissistic workplace issues we often talk about communication and self-protection and workplace gaslighting one thing we often miss is the danger of the anxiety about setting off a narcissistic boss and the associated fear and eggshell walking and the Damage that does in the workplace to work with a narcissistic colleague and definitely with a narcissistic manager or boss is psychologically difficult in every way it is associated with fear anxiety depression exhaustion anger social issues such as familial disruption often because people are so distracted and preoccupied workplace issues are actually quite unique a lot of people will often give the simple suggestion just like they tell people in relationships get out of the relationship for people in workplaces the simple suggestion is often well just quit but that may not be easy or even possible for example for people who are living paycheck to paycheck and who haven't found a new job or people in small Industries where it is hard to look for a job without everyone knowing or people working in more highly salary jobs that can be harder to replace or people who live in regions of the country or of the world where there aren't a lot of employment options or people who have put in 20 or 30 plus years and have earned into a pension or something a system like that or people are staying in a job for insurance benefits for them and for their families so people can't always just quit most of us need to work and pay the bills so as a result many people stay a long time in toxic jobs but this video is meant to take on something very specific the stress The Strain exhaustion bandwidth depletion anxiety helplessness and hopelessness induced by narcissistic abuse from working with toxic people that it can actually be dangerous so I would love to hear from you drop a comment have you ever been in a toxic workplace or had a toxic boss how did you feel while you were working there and do you think it Ever Raised issues around Danger now in high risk professions where one error could result in direct physical harm to people like medical professions people working with Firearms people working with Machinery that could be dangerous certain military roles in those situations being anxious or on edge or feeling that if a question was asked that that would be met with rage and abuse or triangulated workplaces where the chain of command is unclear or it brings up anxieties because of the narcissistic person's Shenanigans or the greed of a narcissistic person who won't put the right amount of money into a problem in any of these conditions rather deadly consequences can potentially occur honestly from a straight danger standpoint addressing narcissism in the workplace becomes key people in narcissistic workplaces aren't typically making their best decisions they are sometimes just trying to avoid abuse or they are not given sufficient guidance or support or they are degraded or they are devalued if they ask for guidance and if you haven't watched it or and while it might be a slight reshaping of the actual events watch the series Chernobyl this was a great example of horribly narcissistic leaders in the workplace that led to workers who raised real concerns being compelled and screamed at to do something they they were that they were under qualified to do in a rather authoritarian regime and that ultimately had some rather tragic consequences that's a sort of a cinematic dramatic but historic example and this story has replayed many times around many tragic situations narcissistic people do not think about consequences and that's one of the things that makes them dangerous they do think about consequences only for themselves but not for others and on top of that they also do not care about the people around them which also makes them quite dangerous this means not only bad or sloppy Decisions by narcissistic leadership but also compelling others who work with or under them to act on these bad decisions and people who do not feel safe asking for or getting the support or guidance they need and then perhaps engaging in behaviors or having to do things that they can't or shouldn't be doing narcissistic people are also notorious for blaming other people in the workplace so there's always this Menace hanging in the air that the careless narcissistic person's errors that could be quite harmful will result in you or someone else being blamed so you are not only working under terrible conditions but also living in fear that you will be blamed for the errors of the narcissists or their enablers it's a bit like living in a spy novel but not in a good way and as a result for those who are stuck working in narcissistic workplaces I always encourage trying to keep as much documentation as you can because when you are blamed at least you have documentation that might give you a tiny opportunity to push back it may not work but it beats not having any documentation to make your case but frankly it's even more subtle than that narcissistic workplaces are confusing hostile unrewarding and abusive so people in these workplaces just feel bad they feel anxious and sad and helpless and disgusted and tired these are not exactly conditions for cultivating Peak Performance people in narcissistic workplaces are working defense not offense they are trying to avoid being yelled at they're trying to avoid being fired they're trying to avoid being blamed and when we work from a place of avoidance and exhaustion and fear we make mistakes scared people are distracted people in these workplaces are often ruminating worried monitoring hyper Vigilant on edge and under those conditions mistakes get made and these are often more than just safety issues these can also be clerical errors which may mean that money gets lost or computer errors which may mean that confidential or financial information gets leaked these may be communication errors which may mean that new clients or opportunities get missed the list of issues is endless narcissistic workplaces aren't just about people being frustrated by working with an abusive entitled manipulative person or people it's about real psychological harm that can result in real errors that can destroy careers destroy workplaces or actually bring real physical harm to other people so to every workplace out there that is complacent and keeps enabling the toxic abusive and arrogant people in your midst and you hope that somehow magically the narcissistic workplace situations will work themselves out or you don't want to do the complex HR dance with the narcissist in your midst I can only promise you one thing this will come back and bite you let's just hope that nobody gets hurt I'm going to put this to you as a question have you ever said to a narcissistic person hey you know like um can you can we like pull back a little bit or you whatever it is you might say and they'll say something hey when you work at my level you expect no less from others and now you feel like the person is not working hard enough so let's take on this excuse that narcissistic people make for their behavior right because I've been talking about these excuses and this has been a short series I've been doing of videos that take on all of these various excuses that narcissistic people make for their abusive behavior in some ways they're sort of self-enabling let's face it narcissists are clearly at some level aware that not everyone is okay with how they conduct themselves but that said they don't change their behavior instead they provide all kinds of excuses and justifications and rationalizations for their behavior now today we're going to talk about a common excuse that they often pull out of their hats for their often abusive Behavior in relationships in the workplace Etc it is when you work at my level you expect no less from other people now I'm going to be honest one of my hobbies is actually to read the news as much news coverage as I can of bosses and boss type people celebrities and other people who have a lot of power and who publicly then ultimately get called out for their abusive treatment of those who work usually in a more subordinate position to them oftentimes these are people in sort of high visibility or high power professions like entertainment Finance politics high visibility slick Industries now in the vein of me too we now see that there's more of a voice and someone will finally speak out and then we finally hear in the news the stories of harassment assault people throwing electronic devices at other people's heads and people slamming stuff down obsessive compulsive control of the office environment public humiliation and degradation employees quaking in fear and living with a Litany of health issues after having had to work under these conditions then the whole post-mortem begins right and the layers of the onion begin to get peeled back there will be those who were abused by this narcissistic person and who come out of the shadows and share their stories and there will always be that small pocket of enablers who will defend or slightly defend what happened saying things like well like all right let's face it this company was so big because they had exacting standards and they held themselves to these standards and had the pressure of carrying this Excellence on them which means that sometimes they were less than graceful well that's a nice spin on it the enablers would come up with gentle ways of framing the abuse again putting lipstick on a pig abuse is abuse but when it comes to the narcissistic abusers themselves that is where the excuses become most fascinating I have said this time and time again on this YouTube channel part of the reason we have such a systemic and Global issue with narcissism is because narcissistic people are often extremely successful they are often obsessive and exacting about details and work and even about their work ethic because frankly for narcissistic folks work is a much easier more consistent and more predictable way to get narcissistic Supply money and power than human relationships are and if all of that goes well if their work goes well work brings money which brings power and as a result they will rise to the top of organizations or begin their own organizations and as Leaders they really work within the cult of personality people are drawn to that and they tend to build cult-like structures around them there is sometimes a sort of culture that is characterized by revering and pushing for who can work the hardest like I work 20 hours I work 22 and these are often workplaces that have sort of hazing rituals naturally built into them but the narcissistic person's success is often something that they hide behind and sadly is something that often draws people to them sort of like one of those big risk risky things that I hear like a little like red flag I hear about was when people when it comes to people who get harmed by extreme workplace narcissism is to draw that they initially may have had to working in a prestigious or promising or otherwise fancy place whether it be a company or a startup or a hospital or university there must be the hope that that fancy job might launch their dreams make them rich or prepare them for bigger and better things they'll be able to say hey look I worked at fancy place and too often in these places there are difficult toxic folks yeah they get the job done but with a body count now when the narcissistic abuser in these big cases or honestly even in the small cases finally gets called out they will issue an apology maybe or at least in May a culpa right because they're attorney or their publicist tells them to do so because it's better Optics and say something like quote I recognize that some of my behaviors may have caused discomfort for staff and employees it was never my intention this is a competitive industry and I felt I was never asking them to do anything more than I was doing but I can see now that my behavior was not considered acceptable that kind of sort of canned apology but stuck in there is that idea that I expected them to do to work the way I was doing it work as hard as I was doing it at the standards I was now before people get caught in their behavior let's say you actually try to take this up with a narcissistic person who's behaving like this you may actually be hit with colleagues or leaders who will say I'm not asking you to do anything more than I am but these toxic leaders missed the point maybe these leaders are in fact working as hard or even harder than the other people the difference is is that these toxic people that that they are that the people who are getting hurt by this are having to work while being abused the toxic leader has the luxury of working hard without a person invalidating manipulating and humiliating them they get to be in control of how the workplace runs many of these stories will involve toxic leaders who are Up Before Dawn and do some sort of weird pre-dawn rituals around eating bizarre things and insane workouts and they send emails pre-dawn as well and they're angry that people aren't responding even though it's four in the morning they're angry that people aren't showing up and being available to them around the clock and that aren't maintaining the narcissistic leaders obsessive Zeal and Devotion to this bizarre level of work and discipline but this narcissistic excuse is not limited to the workplace it is also an issue in families and relationships a narcissistic person for example May shame their partner and say hey when you work as hard as I do I expect nothing different from you and this and they that sort of rhetoric will be an excuse for them making unreasonable demands around the household a narcissistic parent may have some sort of bizarre calvinist work ethic and constantly invalidate and berate their children their partner or both for wanting to pursue their own interests or at a minimum to just spend time in a more balanced manner or have some Leisure Time and tell them hey I expect you to do as much as I do and that will then become an excuse for their verbal abuse that you aren't working as hard as I do I'm not asking you to do anything I don't do because narcissistic people are so outcome focused for example money power dominance and they're very egocentric they tend to take impeccable impeccable care of themselves but at the expense of the others around them they can be obsessive in everything they do whether that's work or Leisure and because they view others as objects that exist for their gratification or for their needs they do not take note of how their behavior is impacting other people's health and well-being shaming people for not producing not working not doing becomes their way of rationalizing abusive Behavior in all kinds of relationships this pattern also explains why many people will equate working hard with getting love this idea of trying to measure up to an impossible and almost abusive demands for productivity and then having that behavior excused by The Narcissist proclaimed hard work hey I work as hard as you do is often just too much to bear but maintaining that sad and hopeful belief that if I just do enough uncomplainingly they will finally love you they won't for narcissistic people all of us are just means to an end it ends up becoming an abusive stew of shaming they're excusing of their own behavior and magnifying our own sense of not being enough that makes this excuse uniquely painful so the next time they say hey I'm not asking you to do anything I do and then that becomes the excuse for their abusive treatment abusive words invalidation throwing things screaming at the workplace again all things unreasonable it's it's again there are no excuses for abuse so when you hear this one this idea well I'm doing it so you should do it doesn't excuse the abuse maybe that they've set a tone for a work ethic that tone can be set without harming other people but let me tell you why I think narcissistic abuse in the workplace is never going to end I read a really solid article in the New York Times that came out on July 28th the title of the article was you're the problem when they spoke up about misconduct they were offered Mental Health Services the article was focused on HR policies at a massive incredibly well-funded company and the major up thrust of the article was that when people brought complaints or reports of workplace harassment or toxic Behavior they would offer the employee counseling and not address the larger issue of toxic workplaces and even worse the counselors were bought and paid for by the employer raising conflict of interest issues in essence this employer was paying lip service and using sort of cover their ass strategies really to the detriment of the of the needs of the person being abused as part of a risk management strategy drop a comment if you think this is a problematic policy and if you do find end up finding this video to be helpful please give this video a thumbs up please subscribe I could use the validation and it helps this channel get suggested and reach other people who may not know about it and as always a reminder to click that Bell to be notified when I upload new content daily just a friendly reminder to get your little antidote of narcissism every day now it gets real messy doesn't it this whole thing one really good point that they made in the article is that if a person was in therapy before working in this kind of toxic situation and the therapy records if the person chooses to let them be seen show good mental health and then there is a drop in mental health upon taking the job it sort of does bolster the argument that the workplace is actually what the issue is but as you can imagine lots of people for good reason don't want their mental health records shared with their employer or anyone else I'm a therapist I would really caution a client of mine ever releasing their mental health records into the workplace but with the human resource recommendation of counseling for the employee who brings the complaint about a toxic workplace and then the person takes the therapy sessions to address how they're feeling they're likely having multiple mental health issues like we would see in somebody experiencing narcissistic abuse including anxiety sadness confusion helplessness problems with concentration rumination and all of that can mean that if the employee pursues legal action and those therapy records get subpoenaed they will show an employee with mental health issues and then the person who brought the complaint may be pinged as the issue this right here is the story of every narcissistic abuse Survivor in the world by the time the story is told and the Survivor has been through it the story gets shifted to the Survivor being the one with the problem and the narcissistic person blithely getting to move into the future and harm more people I guess who will end up getting recommended to get more counseling so this really begs the question of why are employers so afraid of managing toxic cultures why because management c-suite senior Administration and human resource folks do often tend to be enablers and Company people one could argue that they've benefited from the structure of the company and don't want to kill the Golden Goose and in this way all of these structures are like the enablers in a toxic and narcissistic family instead of being willing to see the narcissistic family members or the family Dynamic clearly they would rather pathologize and Gaslight and scapegoat the people who are the survivors of the abuse are getting the worst of the abuse in that system in this way in the workplace the leaders in that industry can benefit financially and professionally and live in a state of denial and the people being abused are in essence left to fend for themselves basically the leadership and toxic workplace cultures and the policies that that leadership puts forward often have no teeth because they choose not to understand narcissism toxic cultures and what they do to people now interestingly there is research out there that suggests that narcissistic people are actually more naturally drawn to leadership positions that means that implies then I should say implies that equally competent or far more competent people who happen to not be narcissistic may not feel the need to want to be in charge of everything but narcissistic people need to be the boss it helps them offset their sense of insecurity and inadequacy and it feeds their power and dominance motivation and it gives them a sense of control so that means a disproportionate percentage of people in higher leadership positions will have narcissistic traits do you really think then if they're the leaders they're going to be able to see toxic workplace situations clearly now there's also an unwillingness to call narcissism out for what it is in our world and especially in the workplace it feels too defamatory to diagnosing too clinical too judgmental too dismissive and ultimately too legally risky so folks don't call it out in the workplace instead they expect the people who have been abused to roll up with tons and tons of documentation that is often damn near impossible to get unless you are walking around with a body Cam and a voice recorder at all times which probably isn't legal in most workplaces you can document what happens to you the best that you can But ultimately a person being narcissistic per se isn't in violation of a workplace procedure or policy it's the behaviors that would be the violation but you got to document them and I got to tell you one of the narcissistic person's greatest and most diabolical abilities is their ability to fly right under the radar of what is considered enforceable abuse people then write off the narcissistic and toxic employees as somewhat difficult outspoken impulsive but not as what they are which is frankly abusive and chronically fostering a Culture of Fear triangulation Menace and discomfort for colleagues and then they will be given some sort of anemic recommendation like getting anger management or sensitivity training please now drop a comment too here if you have seen this Tale As Old As Time unfold in a workplace and if you feel if you're comfortable and want to sort of even and take out the details maybe share some of your experiences with other others as someone who's been through at the workplace trust me the more we recognize we're a community the better it is now remember that narcissistic people are much much more litigious than those people who have been narcissistically abused narcissistically abused people in the workplace and in other parts of their lives they're exhausted they feel powerless they have been jerked around by management by Administration and by HR they are often scared and their reputations are sometimes harmed most survivors are too tired and sometimes too financially wrecked to push a lawsuit that frankly they're not always very likely to win but those narcissistic people out there oh they love suing people they love lawsuits they love litigation they love sending emails and letters on lawyer letterhead and if the employer actually really tries to come down on toxic or narcissistic workplace Behavior they are more likely to be sued by The Narcissist whose Behavior they are trying to address than by the survivors of the abuse so the bean counters and the risk management wonks they all do the math and they leave the survivors out to twist in the wind because it's a better BET right they avoid going after the narcissist and the more expensive lawsuit that could come and then hope that the Survivor shuts up or goes quietly to another place in some cases companies to make it all go away they use the ultimate tool of the narcissistic employer and of the narcissistic abuser the NDA or the non-disclosure agreement the Survivor may get a settlement but with the stipulation that nothing can ever be said and the narcissist can never be named because if they ever did the Survivor would then need to pay Financial damages for breaking the gag order so the narcissistic abuse and the toxic situation continue that one Survivor may get out of the situation but no one else in the workplace is protected no one can be told to protect themselves against this person and The Beat Goes On now some workplace situations are a little bit more clear for example someone not getting a promotion because they didn't sleep with the boss and somehow it got documented or a person getting assaulted in the coffee break room and it's all captured on video or clear email showing that someone was chosen for a promotion because they were buddies or in an intimate relationship with the narcissistic boss but the under the radar stuff the invalidation the gaslighting the triangulation the smear campaigns the manipulation the cultural workplace impact of low empathy the narcissistic employees stealing credit for other people's work favoritism in the workplace the walking on eggshells all of that is much much harder if not impossible to document in a way that would actually have an impact in any kind of HR or legal proceeding so we go back to that New York Times article it is much easier for the employer and HR division to have a feel-good moment and offer the person experiencing the workplace narcissistic abuse some free therapy sessions which could run the risk of giving the company a little bit more Intel which they could also use against them by the way I don't mean to sound too paranoid but you have to keep that in mind and this can also leave the person experiencing the abuse feeling as though there is something wrong with them not address the toxic situation and doubling down on the harm being done to the abused person basically it is employer-led and employer sanctioned gaslighting narcissistic employees are often quite profitable for a company or an institution they need lots of validation so they will do what they need to do to make things happen to get Awards to earn profits workplace success is very important to narcissistic people so as a result they are willing to be perfectionistic Workaholics bend the rules and ethics and do whatever is necessary to get ahead which often can be quite good for whatever organization they work for personally I worked in Academia for years and the shadiest people were often the ones who were best able to take advantage of people and situations in a way that made them look like the greatest and smartest Scholars of all all the while looking great to everyone else but they were abusing students fellows and staff who were doomed to work with them because of this most employers are loathed to call the narcissistic people out let them go or address the toxic culture ultimately the toxic culture works for the powers that be and the Shady professors would get the awards and the honors and the promotions and the raises and the ceremonies And The Beat Goes On the way this story ends most of the time is that the healthy people end up leaving toxic organizations the healthy folks really often do try their very best to make it work they do get therapy they figure out the workarounds they count the time and one day from a place of disgust or downright trauma despite the risks they leave and it may mean they leave well-paying positions accumulated retirement benefits health benefits all kinds of things but over time this means that an organization can start to deteriorate down to just being made up of toxic people and their enablers and when you get to critical mass like that then the organization basically stops working or stops working well I have seen this happen countless times I have heard many stories in a variety of Industries stories about people who leave and years later when they look at the workplace they left they see that not only are they still toxic they might even be more toxic these patterns don't change some employers have enough money to fight the various harassment lawsuits some smaller companies and institutions if they get to this level of toxic overload the smaller ones may fold But ultimately it will never end the enabling systems are designed to protect the abusers and they will always protect the abusers because of this it is critical that you learn to protect yourself in these situations and understand narcissism so you do not allow these systems to pathologize and Gaslight you if there are other topics you would like me to cover related to narcissism in the workplace please drop them in the comments below we take all of your suggestions very seriously I'm sure many of you is like hey wait a minute she did make a video about that and if you did find this video helpful please subscribe to this Channel or give it a thumbs up it helps this channel get suggested reaches other people especially people who might not know about it and again it creates a wider conversation about narcissism

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 47,948

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Id: xtMHaW5y3mQ

Length: 55min 58sec (3358 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 08 2023