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Experts share 11 signs your boss may be a narcissist, including lots of swearing and a love of being in control

Rachel Premack

Updated

2018-08-17T19:12:00Z

chuck bass — Watch out for a super-charming boss. Rotten Tomatoes

A narcissist at work may make your day-to-day difficult.
It's not much better if that narcissist is your boss.
There are many narcissists in power because of traits they're able to leverage, such as risk-taking and being charming.

Research suggests that you're more likely to find a narcissist in the corner office than just about anywhere else.

As psychoanalyst leadership expert Michael Maccoby has argued, that's because narcissists often thrive in leadership roles, since "productive narcissists" are super comfortable with risk and charming enough to get people's backing for their ideas.

"Narcissists have always emerged to inspire people and to shape the future," Maccoby wrote for Harvard Business Review. "Consider how an executive at Oracle describes his narcissistic CEO Larry Ellison: 'The difference between God and Larry is that God does not believe he is Larry.'"

But the problem, of course, is that narcissists are typically looking out for themselves, ready to cut down anybody who challenges them, and like to take credit for other people's work.

Here are eleven signs you may be working for a narcissist.

Drake Baer and Vivian Giang contributed to an earlier version of this article.

They like to put people down.

Narcissistic people intentionally put down others to maintain a high positive image of themselves.

"Seeking admiration is like a drug for narcissists," Mitja D. Back, a psychologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, told Psychology Today. "In the long run it becomes difficult because others won't applaud them, so they always have to search for new acquaintances from whom they get the next fix."

Needless to say, serious control issues and the need to build themselves up at the expense of others may not make for the ideal manager.

Even though they're often negative about everyone around them, they reject critiques of themselves.

A narcissist won't accept even the smallest piece of criticism, Karlyn Borysenko, principal at Zen Workplace, told Business Insider.

Any inkling that they're less than perfect will drive them over the edge.

They really, really love being in control.

Narcissists typically enjoy leadership positions since they can dominate others and fulfill their need for constant positive reinforcement.

They thrive in "leadership situations where they can dazzle and dominate others without having to cooperate or suffer the consequences of a bad reputation," psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman wrote on Psychology Today.

They are young and male.

After 34,653 face-to-face interviews, psychologist Frederick Stinson found that men tend to be more narcissistic than women across their life spans.

In addition, narcissism is believed to peak during adolescence and decline with age.

They swear pretty frequently.

Psychologists Nicholas Holtzman and Michael Strube from Washington University in St. Louis found that more narcissistic subjects are more argumentative and curse more than their nonnarcissistic counterparts.

They also tend to use more sexually explicit language.

Even though they're in charge, they might not be very effective.

Studies have shown that narcissists are more likely to assume leadership roles.

But while there are more narcissists in power, a study from the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign suggests that narcissists are no more effective leaders than nonnarcissists.

They hate emotions.

The "very fact of having a feeling in the presence of another person suggests you can be touched emotionally by friends, family, partners, and even the occasional tragedy or failure," Harvard Medical School psychologist Craig Malkin wrote at the Huffington Post.

That's why narcissists abhor them.

Feeling an emotion "challenges their sense of perfect autonomy," he wrote. "To admit to a feeling of any kind suggests they can be affected by someone or something outside of them."

As a result, narcissists tend to change the topic of conversation when feelings come up — especially their own.

Instead of listening, they just wait to speak.

Anita Vangelisti, a psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin, said that narcissists typically prefer to keep the conversation centered on themselves by "making exaggerated hand movements, talking loudly, and showing disinterest by 'glazing over' when others speak."

They dress better than everybody else.

Narcissists are generally rated as more stylish and physically attractive, according to a study conducted by Simine Vazire, a psychologist at Washington University.

They're more likely to look neat, organized, and don expensive clothes. Narcissistic women are more likely to show cleavage and wear makeup, the study suggests.

They love you in one moment, and hate you in the next.

Narcissists see the world in black and white, according to Neil J. Lavender, author of "Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal With Dysfunctional People on the Job."

"They will love you at first but if you disappoint them they will hate you," Lavender told Business Insider. "There is no middle-of-the-road."

They refuse to talk about anything other than themselves.

If your coworker is constantly gearing the conversation back to themselves, they might be a narcissist.

"They always want to be surrounded by their 'fans' and love 'holding court,' telling stories while others listen in a state of rapture," Lavender said. "Often these stories center around what they considered to be their 'amazing' accomplishments, usually overexaggerating their achievements."

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