Enlarge image
For his photo series "success is just a smile away", the Berlin concept artist
Andy Kassier created
an ironic alter ego, which he has staged in countless self-portraits on Instagram since 2013.
With his pictures he tells the story of a self-made man driven by money, success and external glamor - a popular narrative of late capitalist society.
Photo: Andy Kassier
Tina Dreimann remembers the beginning of the end of her corporate career well. As a talent, it should be promoted in a training course for young female executives. The program stipulated that she should learn to communicate more assertively and aggressively. It should use status symbols in a targeted manner in the future. "The subliminal message was unmistakable: If you want to go up, you have to adopt the behavior of the classic male alpha leaders," says Dreimann. "I was shocked to have to give away my own values in order to be successful." The price of such a career was too high for her. She oriented herself in the start-up environment and most recently founded the early-stage investor Better Ventures with two partners.
Companies have a problem. This became clear to us when we examined almost 10,000 Germans to see how pronounced their narcissism is. The study confirms: Narcissism is widespread in management, much further than in the general population. And this tendency has by no means diminished with New Work and other modern management methods. Many companies condone narcissists and reward narcissistic behaviors. They continue to convey false ideals and thus create a toxic working atmosphere - with devastating consequences.
Another finding was particularly shocking for us: Narcissism is increasing enormously in the younger generation, and much more so than we had suspected.
Young people have the highest narcissistic scores of any age, higher than the generations before them.
The trend affects both men and women.
Companies must prepare for the fact that there will be more than fewer narcissists among applicants, employees and managers in the future.
They need to act and revise their management selection, recruitment and development tools.
Largest study worldwide
According to our research, our study is the largest single empirical study on narcissism worldwide to date. We surveyed exactly 9,918 people in Germany between May and November 2020, including 2,510 executives. In order to make the effects of narcissistic behavior on the part of executives more tangible, in addition to the quantitative study, we conducted 34 qualitative in-depth interviews with exposed top executives from German companies. All respondents - 100 percent - had had direct, negative experiences with narcissists in their own careers. They believed that leadership narcissism was devastating to businesses. We do not mention the names of our interview partners in this article,because many fear the negative consequences and vindictiveness of former and current superiors with narcissistic personalities.
Enlarge picturePhoto: ANDY KASSIER;
FEELING RAFFLED, 2015
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