Jesse Pujji says the traits you hate in narcissistic CEOs are parts of yourself you haven't accepted yet. He offers two approaches: integrate your own selfish impulses so they stop triggering you, or play to their ego strategically and watch them bloom under the attention.
How do you handle CEOs that have narcissistic personalities?
You're talking about CEOs who you genuinely feel repelled by, and it makes you smaller when you're around some narcissistic CEO. Imagine there's nobody else in the world. Every single person is just a reflection of you. The people you like are things you like about yourself, and the things that you don't like in others are things you don't like in yourself. If you see someone selfish, there's a part of you that wants to be selfish. So when you see a trait in somebody else that you're like, oh, I'm repelled by that, it's usually a part of yourself that you're like, I haven't fully integrated that part in me. Because once you've integrated all parts, everyone can be anything at any time they want. So this is something that sounds like you X out and you're like, oh, I hate that personality. I'm not like that. And the actual work, if you really want to get spiritual, is there's a part of you who actually wants to be like that. How can you accept that part of yourself and start to integrate it? That's the spiritual version. The hustle version, I think, is more like you play to their personality. You gotta make them feel important, repeating back what they're saying, hyping them up. But I think there's probably something more, a bigger opportunity for you here.
