Narcissism in Systems: Beyond Harm, Misunderstanding, and Missed Potential
Beyond the Buzzword
“Narcissist.” Few psychological terms have entered popular culture with such force. In workplaces, families, and the media, it has become shorthand for arrogance, toxicity, or manipulation. But this oversimplification creates far more problems than those it superficially solves.
The question is not only whether an individual has narcissistic traits, but how those traits interact with the systems around them; families, teams and institutions. Misunderstandings can lead to unnecessary harm, while informed approaches can protect and facilitate organisations for the long term. and sometimes even harness positive potential.
A note on language: “Narcissism” comes from one tradition within psychology (notably psychodynamic/personality frameworks). Not all psychologists or mental health professionals use or endorse the label. Similar patterns may be described without using that term - for instance as an imbalance of integration or of “agency” directed outward, rather than a fixed personality category. This article uses the term pragmatically, while recognising legitimate alternative formulations.
A recent New Scientist article, ”The truth about narcissists: How to handle them, and can they change?”, summarises some psychological research about pathological narcissistic traits. From my own practice and research, I believe the challenge lies not only in the individual but in the way the systems they are part of respond.
Before going further, it’s important to acknowledge that understanding the psychology behind narcissism never excuses abuse. Survivors of narcissistic abuse or coercive control often endure long-lasting harm. Empathy for those with severely narcissistic traits and compassion for those they have hurt are not mutually exclusive - but safety, accountability, and recovery for victims must always come first.
Narcissism as a Spectrum
We all sit somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism. Confidence, ambition, and charisma can be assets in leadership. Problems arise when traits are rigid, defensive, and blind to impact.
Some psychologists describe two broad styles of narcissism:
Grandiose narcissism: overt, dominant, seeking admiration.
Vulnerable narcissism: insecure, hypersensitive, quick to feel shame.
Most people can display traits of both at different times, particularly under stress. Traits don’t make someone “a narcissist”, and the binary label is misleading. Other lenses might frame these same patterns as dysregulated self-systems or imbalanced agency, rather than “narcissism” per se.
When organisations understand this spectrum, they can differentiate between the manageable, the workable, and the intolerable.
It’s also worth noting that gender, culture, and neurodiversity influence how such traits are perceived. Assertiveness in women or gender-diverse people may be read as arrogance; self-confidence in men may be praised in leadership. Direct communication styles common among neurodivergent individuals can be mistaken for lack of empathy when, in fact, empathy may simply be expressed differently.
When Systems Suffer
In organisations, narcissistic dynamics can destabilise when unchecked. When, for example:
Charisma is used to deflect accountability.
Blame is shifted downward.
Charm and manipulation override transparency.
At the sharper end, narcissistic abuse and workplace bullying are always corrosive. They undermine psychological safety, dissolving trust, and driving attrition. The damage is systemic: innovation slows, healthy risk-taking shrinks, and reputational harm invariably follows.
Developments in law over the last decade, and the legislation around coercive control, recognise the insidious harm of controlling behaviour in families and intimate relationships. Organisations increasingly benefit from acknowledging that similar patterns at work are not simply “difficult personalities.” They are systematically abusive dynamics that erode organisational health.
For leaders, it can sometimes feel like a fine balancing act: where to draw a line when a colleague initially seems to further organisational interests, but interpersonal cracks begin to show? Or when a highly effective colleague is bullying “just one” individual. This is where professional intervention becomes invaluable.
Unchecked narcissistic dynamics directly undermine psychological safety - the shared belief that it’s safe to speak up. When staff begin to self-censor, innovation and integrity decline. When compounded by bias or exclusion, the harm to minority and marginalised colleagues is magnified.
Three Zones: Mild -> Chronic -> Predatory
🔹 Mild/adaptive narcissistic traits: ambition balanced with empathy; confidence that still allows for feedback; charisma that energises rather than dominates.
🔹 Chronic self-protectiveness: an intensely uncomfortable state of ‘stuckness’, increasingly difficult in relationships, not necessarily abusive, but often interwoven with other behavioural complications, Highly workable in therapy.
🔹 Predatory abuse: manipulative, controlling, or bullying behaviour. Gaslighting, coercion, intimidation. Preying on the strength of others; reducing them to feel ‘lifted up’. These behaviours quite rightly attract social-media attention, and they can never be acceptable in an organisation.
Like coercive control in families and relationships, these behaviours are only ever destructive and must be rejected by organisations, not managed. The psychological underpinnings are typically far beyond what can be effectively addressed internally. At this level, internal processes must shift from management to protection and accountability - safeguarding everyone involved, including those harmed and those whose behaviour is causing harm.
The Risk of Mislabelling
Trauma, grief, or acute distress can make someone intensely reactive, self-focused and defensive. What looks like narcissism can be an adaptive temporary defence, not a personality structure. In reality, and taking into account ongoing demands, this may reflect realistic vulnerability, exhaustion, or survival mode.
Labelling or treating such individuals as “narcissists” compounds distress. Ironically, at such times, they may be most at risk of manipulation by those with entrenched predatory behaviours.
It’s also important to recognise that neurodivergent communication styles or cultural norms can be misinterpreted as self-focus or emotional distance. For instance, someone processing sensory overload or systemic discrimination may appear withdrawn when they are, in fact, overwhelmed or cautious.
The underlying motivations behind the behaviours are key, and healthy organisations lead with curiosity rather than judgement - supporting colleagues, resourcing teams, and signposting appropriate therapeutic help before a professional crisis emerges.
But Can ‘Narcissists’ Really Change?
Let’s take the chronically self-protective individual. While extreme narcissistic traits are relatively stable, often leading to a feeling of hopelessness, they are far from hopelessly entrenched. Studies show that perspective-taking, structured reflection, genuine moments of empathy, and respectful enquiry can soften responses.
Long-term change requires motivation, accountability, and often therapeutic support and guidance, but it is certainly possible.
Those with predatory or abusive behaviours are statistically highly unlikely to engage with psychotherapy unless they feel they have no choice (for example, they are about to lose their job or career, a particularly necessary relationship, or even their life - due to unhealthy behaviours that originate in the natural need for connection and stability that they might find in an appropriate therapeutic setting).
In chronically self-protective individuals, a crisis usually precipitates first contact with therapy, and they are right to sense that therapy carries risk - because it does. However, the risk being sensed is the risk of change, which is inevitable in an authentic, attuned, and supportive therapeutic experience. Such individuals do not trust easily, usually for quite understandable reasons, and need to feel psychologically safe before they will share what they truly think or feel.
For clients from marginalised, or gender-diverse backgrounds, therapy must recognise that stigma, invalidation, or systemic exclusion may have contributed to defensive adaptations that resemble narcissistic traits.
Many would argue that narcissism in itself is an adaptation following trauma.
Views can be extreme, and at times offensive, sometimes deliberately so, to maintain emotional and psychological distance. Emotional numbness often precedes feeling; cognitive fog or racing thoughts often precede clarity.
What follows is often anger, then anxiety. At every point, it is tempting to point the finger at the behaviour of others to explain the challenges they face. But to acknowledge the co-creation of difficulties, whilst keeping the focus squarely on their own area of control, tends to produce the most satisfying and effective results. At times, and depending on the degree of narcissism, a form of psychological breakdown or breakthrough might occur as they cross the Rubicon towards empathy and authentic connection. This can be an intensely self-reflective time and the importance of having a supportive and genuinely interested ‘other’, whoever this might be, cannot be overstated. This does not necessarily need to come from therapy — but, strategically, this is the least risky option. Though therapy will be less dramatic than other relational encounters in which narcissistic individuals may try to meet their needs, and therefore potentially less fulfilling at first, it stands a far higher chance of being effective without causing further harm to self or others.
With the right therapeutic experience - and a therapist who reliably maintains boundaries while earning trust - change and growth become possible, and, after the initial upheaval, often interesting and enjoyable.
In fact, given that they usually have to work hardest in therapy, there is a certain poetic justice in the fact that those with pronounced narcissistic traits often experience the most profound and rewarding breakthroughs; not just in therapy, but in every area of their lives.
A predominantly client-centred psychotherapeutic approach, informed by developmental neuroscience, and held within a predictable and reliable frame, tends to work best for these clients.
Of note, people rarely present saying “I’m a narcissist”. They only tend to be objectified in this way by others who share a system with them and (often quite understandably) find their behaviour intolerable. The task is to understand how their strategies for survival have become limiting. The underlying causes of that behaviour are rarely detectable on the surface, meaning that, outside of therapy, there is little sympathy for those who suffer with chronic self-protectiveness, regardless of how miserable they may be at times. It is also likely that they may have encountered someone arguably more narcissistic than themselves, who they experience as the problem. So a binary approach to narcissism is typically unhelpful, as they may also have been subjected to abusive behaviour. Issues may include mood instability, addiction, anxiety, relationship or work difficulties, but progress is usually consistent and rewarding once they engage with the necessary work and begin to experience its benefits.
In-person work tends to be most effective, certainly initially, and therapy typically unfolds as a collaborative exploration of whatever aspects of life the client finds relevant, with practical discussions about causes and solutions, paced by the client. Internal changes can occur alongside professional work, which often supports and accelerates the therapeutic process.
In Organisations: Constructive Channels for Narcissistic Traits
In organisations, mild or moderate narcissistic traits can be channelled constructively when:
Individuals develop self- and systems-awareness.
Boundaries, reflection, and accountability are modelled by leaders and upheld across the organisation.
Teams are habitually resourced, supporting wellbeing and inclusion.
Cancel Culture and the Rise of Labelling
Social media has normalised cancelling, unfollowing, and unfriending, but in real life, systems are stickier. You can’t mute a colleague in a meeting or delete a family member from the dining table.
Cancel culture’s binary view obscures a simple truth: every human being is a mix of traits that fluctuate depending on context and system. Modern science supports what relational psychotherapists have long witnessed in practice. Research in interpersonal neurobiology, neuroplasticity and epigenetics shows that authentic relationships can transform the self.
Binary thinking is the enemy of systemic understanding.
Practical Guidance for Systems
Resource and protect the system: establish clear governance, supervision and feedback loops.
Strengthen boundaries: empower individuals and teams to say no when appropriate, and create clear channels for escalation.
Acknowledge power and bias: understand how culture, hierarchy and identity affect perceptions of behaviour.
Don’t rush to label: Distinguish narcissism - or, in other models, imbalanced agency/integration - from acute distress or neurodivergent presentation..
Support reflective practice and 360-degree feedback to reduce scapegoating.
Safeguard the vulnerable: grief, trauma, and minority stress require support, not pathologising.
Zero tolerance for abuse: coercive, bullying, or controlling behaviours must be addressed swiftly and firmly.
Healthy boundaries benefit everyone - including those with narcissistic traits.
Embed psychological literacy in leadership: normalise conversations about power, responsibility, and relational impact.
A Systems View
Narcissism is not a binary concept. It is a spectrum of traits and defences shaped by both individuals and their systems - or, in some models, patterns of agency and integration that become dysregulated in context. If narcissism were binary, then for every “just a narcissist”, there would be a “just a co-dependent”.
Systems can even benefit from narcissistic traits, though often at an organisational cost later, like an interest-bearing loan.
Handled poorly, these dynamics corrode trust and fuel manipulation. Handled wisely, with boundaries and accountability, certain traits can be channelled into resilience, vision, and drive.
Think of the mildly manic, ‘charismatic leader’ who always seems confident and entertaining - possibly great for business, but sometimes difficult interpersonally. Someone’s “narcissist” can be another’s mentor, yet another’s boss, and the love of someone else’s life. Human nature is complex, and it is evident that no-one is just a narcissist.
Ultimately, it falls to the individual affected by these dynamics to evaluate what course of action - if any - feels necessary. Therapy can be a good place to begin.
The real task for leaders, families, and organisations is not simply to identify “narcissists,” but to understand the dynamics that allow narcissism to flourish, destroy - or contribute, and to take responsibility accordingly.
When organisations understand manageable narcissism not as pathology but as feedback - information about boundaries, culture and relational dynamics - transformation becomes possible.
I work with individuals, leaders and organisations navigating these dynamics: locating boundaries, building resilience, and restoring clarity, responsibility and agency.