In this instructional video, Mark Murphy, founder of Leadership IQ and author of several leadership books, outlines a framework for recognizing narcissistic behavior in the workplace. He organizes the 12 characteristic traits into four categories: the obvious "Big Three" (grandiosity, attention‑seeking, arrogance), more subtle traits (entitlement, exploitative behavior, superiority), hidden traits that narcissists actively conceal (lack of empathy, manipulativeness, fragility), and underlying drivers that fuel the other traits (self‑absorption, hostility, insecurity). For each trait, Murphy provides concrete workplace examples—such as dominating meetings, taking credit, or reacting defensively to feedback—to illustrate how these behaviors manifest. He emphasizes that these traits exist on a spectrum and should be assessed as patterns over time rather than a binary checklist. The video concludes with a call to action to like, subscribe, and consult his books (Managing Narcissists, Blamers, Dramatics, and More; Working for a Narcissist) for deeper guidance.
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Hello there. In this video, we're diving into something that sadly impacts all of us. I'm going to break down the 12 traits of a narcissist that are going to help you identify narcissistic behavior. We're going to look at the big obvious traits, the more subtle ones, the traits that narcissists actually try to hide from us, and then, you know, the traits that underlie all of those other ones, because there are traits that make up and drive all of those traits. My name is Mark Murphy. I'm the founder of the research and training company Leadership IQ. I'm a New York Times bestselling author. You can see my research, my firm's research, all over the place. Two of my most recent books are Managing Narcissists, Blamers, Dramatics, and More. That's obviously a leadership book, as you can tell by the title. And then there's Working for a Narcissist. This is basically a book for all of us who have ever had or will ever have had a narcissistic boss or will ever have a narcissistic boss. And Bad news is that's pretty much going to be all of us, you know, at some point or another. So let's dive into the big 12 traits of a narcissist. Let's start with the big 3, and they're the big 3 traits of narcissists basically because they're the ones that most people tend to notice first. Number 1 is grandiosity. So if you think of somebody who constantly talks about how they're the best at everything, uh, you know, anything they touch, they're always the best at it, they're usually going going to have like elaborate stories about their achievements. Like, you know, it'll always be amplified, you know, be way better than it is. You know, if they completed a big project, for example, it's how they saved the company millions, they rescued the entire organization. Generally speaking, with grandiosity, everything is exaggerated to kind of make it seem a lot more important than, you know, probably is in reality. Attention-seeking, and this goes way beyond just being outgoing. We're talking here about somebody who can't stand when the spotlight isn't on them. If it's during a team presentation, they're going to find a way to dominate that presentation. Company meetings, they're going to make sure they are heard, even if they're not particularly good at the thing we're talking about. It doesn't have to be their, their area of expertise. They're going to derail meetings just so they can be at the center of attention. Very related to both of those, of course, is the third big three: arrogance. This goes way beyond confidence. It's essentially a genuine belief that they are superior to others. They're often going to talk down to colleagues, to even their boss sometimes. They're going to dismiss expert opinions. They're going to treat the people around them as beneath them. Their ideas are always the best. Everybody else's ideas are always inadequate or subpar. And, you know, those are the ones that for obvious reasons kind of stand out as the big traits that when people think of narcissists, those are the big three that generally, you know, stand out. The ones that are more subtle, however, and these aren't quite as obvious— you can see them if you look hard enough for them, uh, but they don't stand out quite the way that grandiosity does. Number one is entitlement. This is essentially expecting special treatment even if you didn't earn it. You know, they're going to want priority for all of their projects, for their work. They're going to expect others to work late while they leave early. Oh, another big one is they're going to assume that they're kind of exempt from standard procedures. You know, that just applies to the people, you know, it doesn't apply to me. Exploitativeness. You can see this when you look at how they treat people at different organizational levels. You know, they could charm the top executives or the board while they're mistreating everybody else in their team. Or they could be kind to somebody until after the project is completed, right? They'll be kind while the project is being worked on, while they need that person, but then, you know, they, they dismiss them, they take all the credit for them. It's essentially when they build relationships, it's often kind of for their own advantage, for their own advancement. Superiority— this goes beyond arrogance. They generally can't imagine anyone being better than them at anything. If somebody else has success, they're going to dismiss that achievement or claim that, you know, they could do it better if they really tried. Or, you know, if somebody gave them the opportunity, then everybody would see how awesome they are at that particular thing. Now, these are still in the realm of traits that are out there, right? They're, they're obvious. The big 3 are really obvious. The more subtle ones are still highly visible if you go looking for them. But there are traits that narcissists— of the 12, there are 3 that narcissists will actually try and hide. Number 1, lack of empathy. Um, you know, when a team member, when a colleague of ours is struggling with the workload they don't have genuine concern. You know, they might express impatience with the new employees. They might express impatience with this person not getting the work done, but it's not— it's not concern. Um, they're going to be annoyed, irritated when somebody else's problems start to impact them. And if you think of it like this, they kind of see other people as tools, not really as people. Manipulativeness. They're really good. Narcissists tend to be really good at office politics, right? They could use guilt, they could play the victim. They're generally going to try and twist situations to their advantage. So if they say something like, well, I thought you were a team player, I thought you were supposed to be highly collaborative, doesn't seem to me like you're coming to bat for me. Or, or, you know, if they get some criticism, well, I guess I'm just not good enough. You know, they will play whatever card they need to play to deflect attention away from their mistakes but get attention on them for, you know, what they think are good reasons. Fragility. One of the funny things about narcissists is that even though they try and craft a kind of tough exterior, they are incredibly sensitive to feedback, hypersensitive to feedback. You know, a minor suggestion in a product review could— is going to trigger usually a pretty big defensive kind of response. They tend to hold grudges. Even about the smallest little critiques, things that other people would just see as like normal feedback. Oh yeah, you know, need to use a bigger font. They will hold on to that stuff pretty much until, you know, what freezes over. Then we have the final traits, and these are the— we think of them as the underlying traits because they are generally the traits that kind of drive all of the other 9 traits that we've talked about so far. Self-absorption. Everything is about them, their projects, their deadlines, their stress, their work, their career path. You know, if you're talking about a challenging client situation you had, they're going to interrupt with their own story that is of course going to be more important than yours. It's going to be better than yours. You tell a story about a cool experience you just had, they're going to have one that, that tops it, that is better than yours. It's generally everything is about meeting them, their needs, their priorities. Hostility. When their facade starts to crack, and it, it will crack, no narcissist can— generally speaking, they do not maintain this perfectly forever. So the facade will crack at some point. Um, anything, criticism, feedback, disrespect, what they see as disrespect, it's generally going to trigger intense reactions or even retaliation. You know, they could withhold information, they could sabotage projects, they could actually go after people, make complaints, spread rumors, all of that. And then insecurity. And I hinted at this a little bit a minute ago. The thing about narcissists is that beneath all of that bravado is a really deep insecurity. They're essentially— their entire performance professional persona is built to protect the very fragile self-image. That's one of the reasons why they need that constant praise, why they can't handle feedback. It's the confidence they seem to project is actually just paper thin. Here's the thing that's important to remember: these traits, they, they exist on a spectrum, right? This is not a checklist where if you don't get all 12. I only got 10 out of 12. I guess this person isn't a narcissist. That's not how this works, right? You can— you may not be able to see some of these traits, right? Some of these may not be instantly visible to you. You may only see a couple of them because you may only interact with this person in a couple of different kinds of scenarios. So really what we're looking for is different patterns of behavior over time. That's the thing that that we're really going for. When we pay attention to people, we want to look for the, A, the things we have visibility into, but B, look for those patterns of behavior over a period of time. Thanks for watching this. If you found this helpful, you know, please like and subscribe. Subscribe to the Leadership IQ channel, like the video, and be sure to check out the books as well. The links are in the description below. Look forward to seeing you on some of our upcoming videos.
