In this video, Mark Murphy—founder of Leadership IQ and author of Managing Narcissists and Working for a Narcissist—explains that both grandiose and covert (vulnerable) narcissism share the same core maladaptive traits: an excessive need for admiration, entitlement, manipulation, and deep insecurity. He contrasts how these traits manifest: grandiose narcissists display overt arrogance, aggression, and self‑promotion, while covert narcissists adopt a passive‑aggressive, victim‑playing stance. Murphy provides concrete behavioral examples for bosses, coworkers, friends, and romantic partners, illustrating how each type manipulates and reacts to criticism. He then presents data from Leadership IQ’s Narcissist Test, showing that people most often label bosses as grandiose narcissists (95% grandiose, 5% covert), coworkers as a mix (60/40), and friends/partners as predominantly covert. He introduces the concept of adaptive narcissism—high confidence that can be mistaken for grandiose traits—explaining why senior leaders may be misidentified. The video concludes with a warning to recognize covert narcissism, especially when someone appears anxious or victimized, and a call to subscribe for more strategies on handling narcissists.
Chapters
Covert narcissism is a form of narcissism with which most people just aren't very familiar. If you ask a random person on the street, what's a narcissist? Well, they're going to say things like, well, they have an excessive need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, like they deserve to have more than everybody else. There's going to be a manipulative aspect to that. And all of that is true. The problem is that most people think of narcissism as being very overt. I am amazing. I'm awesome. Look at me. I'm the best. What they often don't realize is that covert narcissism, also known as vulnerable narcissism, is driven by those same maladaptive personality traits. Just it comes out very differently. It can come out as playing the victim, as passive aggressiveness. And that's what we need to dig into and actually reveal here. My name's Mark Murphy. I'm the founder of the research company and training company Leadership IQ. I'm a New York Times bestselling author. And to 2 of my most recent books are called Managing Narcissists: Blamers, Dramatics, and More. So this is a book for leaders with dealing with narcissists. And then Working for a Narcissist, which is, you know, kind of for all the rest of us who are very likely to encounter at some point in our careers actually working for somebody with pretty strong narcissistic traits. So narcissism in general, we can think of it as this excessive need for admiration and really coupled with a sense of entitlement. I deserve special treatment. Treatment because I'm better. That of course leads to a big preoccupation with status. I need to know that I'm at the top, that I am the very best. All of this is of course driven by— no matter what kind of narcissism we're talking about— driven by a deep underlying insecurity. And that's going to lead to oftentimes a lack of empathy. I just don't care that much about other people's feelings except when, you know, I need them to worship me. But also a manipulativeness, a I'm willing to tweak you and manipulate you such that you give me the admiration, the recognition that I am entitled to. Now here's the thing, narcissism— two of the more common forms of narcissism are what is known as grandiose narcissism, which is what we typically think of as the very overt, look at me, I'm the best, and covert or vulnerable narcissism. So covert narcissism is again all those same traits, just it manifests in a much more passive-aggressive, subtle, I'm the victim, woe is me kind of way. And it's important to recognize this as a form of narcissism, as driven by the same things, because there are times you may see somebody who is evidencing rampant insecurity. We may think, oh, they're just anxious, I feel bad for them, but And they might be, but there's also a very high likelihood that they're actually a narcissist, just in a covert or vulnerable narcissist kind of form. Classic narcissist, the grandiose narcissist, this is the person who's gonna say, you know, I built this company. If I'm the boss, I built this company. Everybody else just sort of along for the ride. I'm the one who did everything. Whereas the COVID narcissist, much more likely to say something like, you know, 'Just nobody really appreciates how hard it is being the boss. It's just, it's so hard. It's so lonely. Nobody really appreciates all of the stress that I am under.' That is driven by the same sense of entitlement, the same need for admiration, same manipulation. It just is manifesting in a more passive-aggressive kind of way. Let's dissect some of the key differences between grandiose narcissists and covert, or again, The technical term in the psychological literature is often vulnerable narcissist. Just covert narcissist is actually a little easier to understand and kind of pinpoint when you see it out in the world. So again, they both have the same need for admiration, just with the grandiose narcissist, it's gonna manifest as like this huge ego. Like, I can't fit my head through the door 'cause my ego's so big and you know, I'm amazing and everybody needs to look at me. Whereas with the COVID narcissist, it's gonna come off much more as a woe is me kind of attitude. So for the grandiose narcissist, it's gonna be things like, you know, I'm the best at this job and everybody knows it and you all have to just appreciate how awesome I am. Whereas with the COVID narcissist, it's likely to be more like, you know, I just wish people would appreciate who really does all the work in this department. Nobody seems to appreciate how awesome I really am. Behavior. Again, they're both going to be manipulative. It's just the grandiose narcissist is going to put themselves out there. It's much more overt but also assertive into aggressive. It actually goes beyond assertive into aggressive, and it's like, I'm gonna shove myself in your face and tell you how awesome I am. Whereas the COVID narcissist is going to be a lot more passive-aggressive. So the grandiose narcissist is going to be like, if you don't do it my way, then you all stink, you're all stupid, uh, because I'm the one who knows everything. Whereas the COVID narcissist is like more likely to, you know, get passive-aggressive, play the victim. I guess nobody cares about my input as usual. Nobody really listens to the one person who actually knows what's going on around here. But no, go ahead, it's okay. Just, just ignore me like you always do. That is the same manipulation. It is just manifesting passive-aggressively rather than aggressively, aggressively, right? So they're also both of them grandiose and covert, pretty emotionally unstable. If you criticize either of them, the overt narcissist, the grandiose narcissist, is going to attack the criticizer, right? Or attack the criticism. Oh well, you're just criticizing me because you're jealous. Oh well, I didn't get the award because, you know what, they're just jealous of me because they know that I'm so much better than them. Um, whereas with the COVID narcissist, they're much more likely to pull off a fishing for compliments. You know, I can't believe they'd say that about me. It's— nobody seems to appreciate me. And oh, it's just everything I do gets overlooked. Because what are they hoping that everybody else around them says? No, no, you really are the best. No, we, we really wanted to give you the award, we just couldn't this time. But really, everybody thinks you're amazing. That's again how it's gonna— you can get the sense here as to how this plays out. Same basic maladaptive traits, just manifesting in very different ways. Neither of them are good at forming deep personal connections, deep human interactions. Why? Because you need some empathy to do that, right? To really have a deep friendship with somebody, a deep relationship with somebody, you need to be able to, you know, listen to them and empathize with them and listen to their perspective and go back and forth and have interaction. Narcissists aren't really good at that, right? So, you know, the grandiose is going to— well, everybody wants to be around me just because I'm the best. They don't really care if you like them. They just want the adoration. Whereas the COVID it's going to be, you know, it just feels— people just don't see how much I'm worth. Nobody really appreciates what I do. And so, you know, the— there you can start to see a pretty clear pattern in between these two kinds of narcissists. Again, I cannot stress this enough, they're both driven by the same things, same traits. It's just they manifest radically differently. And one is just much more aggressive than the other. The grandiose narcissist, I'm going to take the lead on this project. We really need somebody who's awesome in charge. Whereas it's going to be much more passive-aggressive with the COVID the vulnerable narcissist. I hope somebody notices, you know, how much work I actually do on this. One interesting thing when we look at the data, so this is data from the Narcissist Test from Leadership IQ's Narcissist Test. And In the Narcissist Test, you can rate your boss, you can rate a coworker, you can rate a friend, romantic partner. One interesting phenomenon that takes place and that comes about is that when people flag their boss as a narcissist, the vast majority of the time, the kind of narcissism they're flagging is grandiose narcissism. When you're talking about, especially the higher up in an organization you get, the more likely you are to see somebody as being a grandiose narcissist than you are a covert narcissist. Why? Well, one reason why is that there's another form of narcissism called adaptive narcissism. That's actually the good narcissism, right? So adaptive narcissism is supreme self-confidence, right? Like, I am really good, I am in charge, and that's— but it's driven by something. Think of it as kind of the classic quarterback mentality, like, listen, I'm the leader, I run the huddle, I'm— I got this, everybody hop on, we're gonna do it. Okay, that's called adaptive narcissism, and it's actually a, you know, can be a pretty good trait, and it's a pretty common trait amongst a number of high-ranking executives. The interesting thing though is that it's hard sometimes for people to tell the difference between— especially if they're just doing this quickly and they're not really paying that much attention— it can be hard for them to see the difference between adaptive narcissism and grandiose narcissism. So they can look the same if you deal with somebody for only 5, 10 minutes. Yeah, you might not be able to tell if this is good narcissism or grandiose narcissism, which is bad. So that's one of the reasons why sometimes we promote people, you know, and the boss is very likely, if they are narcissists— not all are narcissists, but if they are a narcissist, they're more likely to be the grandiose because it's sometimes hard to tell, is this good or bad? But when we're dealing with co-workers, people are much more likely to flag a covert narcissist there. So it's like a 95 to 5 split between grandiose to covert when you're rating your boss, but it's more like a 60-40 split when you're rating a co-worker. And then when you're rating a friend or romantic partner, oh, those numbers flip entirely. And so you are much more likely to see covert narcissism in more casual friendships or romantic relationships, uh, and you're more likely to see it in a co-worker kind of relationship as well. So something just to be on the lookout for. Sometimes that person who seems like they're very anxious and insecure, it may not actually be truly insecurity and anxiety. It may be a form of COVID narcissism. If you see somebody who is constantly playing the victim, well then, uh, you know, there's a very good chance that what you are in fact dealing with is a narcissist, and we need to be mindful of that. Listen, subscribe, like this video, subscribe to the Leadership IQ channel. There's going to be a lot more videos on how to deal with narcissists, all of the various kinds of techniques you can do to— whether they're your boss, whether they're a colleague, etc. So like, subscribe, and check out the books. The links will be in the description.
