Understanding and Confronting Vulnerable Narcissism
You’ve heard of narcissism. Have you heard of vulnerable narcissism?
It’s something I’ve seen in organizations, communities, and family systems dozens of times from people at all levels and roles, whether clients, executives, managers, or individual contributors.
When you call them out for something or bring up something that might help the organization, community, or system, or offer feedback genuinely intended to be helpful, they lash out, retaliate, talk about how you’re criticizing them, why you’re attacking them, etc.
They’ll cut off access to your credentials without warning, fire you and find reasons to blame you, talk about how you're attacking them and burn you at the stake while claiming how the world has wronged them, and generally stir emotional and interpersonal conflict, often while performing with the guise of emotional intelligence.
(How do you distinguish a positive disruptor from a negative one? A positive disruptor illuminates truth and increases collective clarity and integrity, even if it initially feels disruptive. A negative disruptor erodes clarity and destabilizes the environment while appearing insightful, performing emotional intelligence while obfuscating truth, deflecting accountability, and sowing confusion.)
For many organizations and social groups, this can get confusing and complicated quickly and create drags in performance and retention. In cultures where there is a high value for trauma-sensitivity and care, this can get particularly manipulative unless the individuals involved have a high level of experience, skill, and capacity for identifying and bringing an end to this pattern.
What’s the difference between vulnerable narcissism versus popular understandings of narcissism?
The popular imagination thinks of narcissism based on what most people understand as malignant narcissism. Part of what's known as the dark triad, this behavioral trait often expresses itself through grandiosity, egotism, and self-orientation, and the signs are usually quite obvious. While it doesn't mean it's easy to handle, it's at least fairly easy to identify.
Vulnerable narcissism can be much more difficult for the average person to identify. It comes from a person’s individual lack of security and their expectations to have you address their security needs far beyond what is reasonable and while the signs aren't as evident to the untrained observer, the behaviors are equally damaging. A few examples:
An executive hires you to work on a campaign, then doesn't let you make decisions that would help them, saying that they want the campaign to come across a certain way. What they're really saying is that they're afraid of losing support, but when you challenge them to rethink it, they attack you, obstruct you from doing the job they hired you to do with little explanation, then blame you when the marketing campaign doesn't work out. You simply can't win.
A teammate starts asking you for many meetings in which you're resolving some kind of conflict, but the conflict never seems to end. They're “saying all the right things” and performing cooperation and agreement, but you have a lurching sense that something isn't right and become increasingly stressed. Soon enough, no matter what solutions you offer, they provide roundabout responses and remain in the same state. Nothing solves the problem.
A client or vendor bristles or complains about how you're inflicting harm for doing something professional. When you ask for specifics on what didn't work or what they need, they make unreasonable, nonspecific requests; when you make specific requests, they disassociate and barely hear the message. You spend time chasing the client or vendor, and despite your many attempts to resolve the situation, there remains a sense of unease. The situation runs in loops. The person pretends that everything is fine or remains vulnerably antagonistic.
If any of the above are happening, there's a good chance you're dealing with vulnerable narcissism.
Vulnerable narcissism quickly creates an abusive dynamic in which nothing you can say or do is enough. Their unconscious needs run the show, particularly when they feel righteous, activated, or—and this is the key—vulnerable. They manipulate and sabotage the team or organization, project their needs onto you, drag everyone in their orbit into their personal problem, and if you can’t fix it, the message they send is that it’s your personal failing.
Believe me, it’s not. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Remember, people’s behavior is a function of how they feel within and about themselves.
What causes someone to express vulnerable narcissism?
There are many reasons a person would express traits of vulnerable narcissism, as everyone's psychological makeup and complexes differ. But there are some common patterns:
They perceive most things in their environment as threats to their sense of worth, and they feel vulnerable enough that they don't perceive other ways to respond to situations. The problem is not their feeling of vulnerability, but how they respond to that vulnerability and lack of safety.
They were already narcissistic at some level (e.g., someone trained to believe the world centers around them), but also have an aspect of vulnerability in their character makeup. The latter feature becomes an easy way to cover the former trait. To prevent others from detecting these traits, they adopt behaviors that appear kind, playful, and cooperative.
They're already aware that there are issues around how they communicate and treat others, but they simply haven't found the tools for ultimately addressing the behavior or pattern. Often, they don't want to. They may say they want to, but then show no signs of improvement or change in the behavior, and lack regard for interpersonal justice.
At the core of every form of narcissism is a failure to acknowledge the realities of others or take personal responsibility for themselves. It doesn't have to be considered a judgment on one's character or inherent value, but an observation that can lead us to learn to take responsibility for ourselves and improve how we engage with others.
Vulnerable narcissism almost always comes from a victim narrative
Typically, a vulnerable narcissist needs to do a tremendous level of inner healing and alignment work to find a level of security that allows them to operate in harmony with others and stop being one. The people they target often need strengthening as well, figuring out how to stand up to abuses of power and understanding which aspects and forces within them prevent them from handling the situation effectively. Until core issues are addressed, the behavior usually tends to repeat.
Don't let these unconscious forces, whether yours or someone else's, stop you from thriving. Regardless of what kind of situation or position you might be in, there's always hope. When we do the work of self-unfoldment and development, we usually find that the problem not only goes away, but that we get peace, productivity, and prosperity in its place—and that’s the exhale, whether we like to admit it or not, that we’re all searching for.
