Suzanne Harrington: 'You’d rather a psychopath be in charge than a malignant narcissist'

The malignant narcissist is so fragile, paranoid and insecure that their behaviour will be wildly volatile, unpredictable and incoherent. Sound familiar?

According to Forbes, between 4% and 12% of corporate bosses exhibit psychopathic traits — calm, charming, power hungry, ruthless, no empathy — compared with 1% of the general population. Picture: iStock

In the early noughties, in a Covent Garden hotel, I interviewed a former New York Times journalist who had written a book called True Story, later made into a film, about a malignant narcissist.

It was an insane story involving the malignant narcissist murdering his family before going on the run and impersonating the former New York Times journalist while on the run. 

What was most eye-popping was learning about the lengths a malignant narcissist will go to in order to preserve their fractured, fragile sense of self. Nothing is off limits. Nothing.

Malignant narcissism takes the basic ingredients of narcissist personality disorder — entitlement, grandiosity, an incessant need for flattery and admiration, mixed with zero empathy — and stirs in some toxic extras.

Vengeful grudge-bearing, hypersensitivity to perceived criticism, sadism, blackout rages, and — crucially — an all-consuming need to appear successful and ‘winning’ at all times and at any cost. Sound familiar?

The malignant narcissist in the True Story book is serving life imprisonment without parole for the premeditated murder in 2001 of his wife and three small children, who were aged five, three, and two when he killed them.

Fleeing bankruptcy and keen to reinvent himself in Mexico, this loser needed to rid himself of any inconvenient reminders of his old life — in this case, his wife and kids — so that he could move into his next self-invented chapter and carry on ‘winning’. 

He literally killed children — his own — rather than face the chaos his malignant narcissism had created.

At least with a psychopath, you know where you are. We might still broadly associate psychopathy with Chianti-quaffing liver-eaters like Hannibal Lecter, but they’re just as likely to be lunch-skipping corporate psychopaths like Gordon Gekko. 

There’s a reasonable chance you’re working for one. According to Forbes, between 4% and 12% of corporate bosses exhibit psychopathic traits — calm, charming, power hungry, ruthless, no empathy — compared with 1% of the general population.

Capitalism loves a psychopath — he’ll be the guy who is happy to fire the single parent of triplets on Christmas Eve without blinking, because of profit margins. We elevate these kinds of people — revere and reward them.

Elon Musk, that venerated capitalist, has called empathy a “woke mind virus” and “the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation”. Okaaaaaaay.

You’d still rather a psychopath to be in charge than a malignant narcissist though.

Psychopaths may not feel normal feelings like fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse, or God forbid, empathy, but the non-violent ones are broadly calm and coldly pragmatic. (Unless they’re on ketamine. Then all bets are off.) 

Goal-driven, focused, they may drown kittens for fun, but at least they’re consistent.

Whereas the malignant narcissist is so fragile, paranoid and insecure that their behaviour will be wildly volatile, unpredictable, and incoherent.

There is literally nothing they won’t do to preserve their sense of who they think they are. Like, threatening to invade hapless countries to distract from sex crime investigations — and when that doesn’t work, threatening to wipe out entire civilisations before backtracking wildly.

Still sounding familiar?

The worst thing about the malignant narcissist is that they are pretty much untreatable. They often don’t ever wake up and realise that they need urgent psychiatric intervention. 

Nope. They just think they’re winning. Even when they’re putting kids in cages, or dropping bombs on them, they’re winning. They’re killing it. Smashing it out of the park.