Narcissistic personality is a controversial topic to discuss due to the debatable matter of pros and cons attached to its nature. Mostly, society viewed narcissism as a serious cultural and social threat particularly if it concerns a leader of a nation. Experts, on the other hand, pressed in the significance of the personality type as an attribute to a great leadership. In fact, presidents of the United States of America were detected to have been diagnosed with narcissism with varying levels, manifestations, and characteristics of the personality type. At the top of the list of the narcissistic presidents was America’s 36th president, Lyndon James, whose tenure started in 1963 and ended in 1969. James scored 1.652 on a Grandiose Narcissism test that was conducted among the 43 US presidents by the group of psychologists that constitutes the Journal of Psychological Science (Morin, 2013). He was closely followed by Theodore Roosevelt with the score of 1.641. The 13th US president, Millard Fillmore is the least narcissistic from the list with the score of -1.366 in narcissism scale (Morin 2013). This study will focus on George W. Bush for the analysis of narcissistic personality among great leaders through his notable works and acts during his tenure.
Profile: George W. Bush
Being 11th on the list of the top narcissistic US presidents, Bush is not exempted from the sensitive issue of narcissism among nation’s leaders, especially with a number of controversial conduct manifested on him relating to personality disorder assumed by his critics that made to news’ headlines. George W. Bush, a Republican, was elected as the 43rd American president of the US whose term has started in 2001 and ended in 2009 (Veteran Tributes, 2016). He is the son of George H.W. Bush, one of the highly commended leaders of the American nation, hence, Bush’s political inclination is understandable. Prior to his tenure, Bush was the governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Aside from the politics, Bush is a well-known businessman in oil industry – he owns a large oil company in Texas (Veteran Tributes, 2016). Oil business was the large part of his professional career prior and post-presidential tenure. Although he often claimed that he was an average student during his collegiate years, he was educated in ivy league schools –Yale University with Bachelor of Arts in History and Harvard Business School with M.B.A Degree. He was also commissioned in Texas Air National Guard during his military training service as an F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor pilot (Veteran Tributes, 2016). Bush fathers two daughters, Barbara and Jenna, to his long-time spouse, Laura Bush and they remained settled in Texas.
During his term, Bush was able to implement numerous policies on several government agencies that marked the style of his administration. Some of the notable policies he made are the domestic policy, economic policy, policies on education and health, policy on social services and security, policies on energy and environment, foreign policies, and interrogation policies. These policies earned significant number of critics that challenged the viability of implementing those policies, particularly with policies on interrogation and foreign policy, in the basis of human rights. However, Bush remained unmoved by the criticisms and employed the policies until the end of his term, creating a larger number of critics and opponents among the civilians and political figures alike, most especially from the Democratic Party. The most probable peak of the criticism was his campaign of “War on Terror” that was set against the Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq invasion in 2002, in pursuit of the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, who claimed the orchestration of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in World Trade Center (Walsh, 2009). Although Bush was claiming the act of military retaliation against the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 tragedy, his critics claimed that the act was a strong demonstration of the president’s narcissistic personality since the attack happened on his tenure. The campaign has claimed millions of innocent lives in the Middle East that caused an uproar from global human rights sectors. Through these global political events, Bush’s administration was regarded as the worst administration in the US presidency and his ranking on the scholarly survey regarding presidential performance has badly suffered (Walsh, 2009).
Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality
According to the popular belief, every living individual has certain percentage of innate narcissism due to the presence of ego and those with high percentage of traits are the recognizable ones with narcissistic personality. This is why narcissism cannot be completely considered a personality disorder. However, at an exaggerated degree, the condition can be a clinical case, which will need professional intervention to regulate a possible prevalence of the condition. Symington (1993) has explained that the concept was derived from the Greek myth that tells the story of a handsome young man who fell in love with his own reflection upon gazing in a pool of water incessantly. He eventually transformed into a flower named Narcissus besides the pool of water (Symington, 1993). Narcissus’ act of falling in love with his own reflection is the essence of the psychological concept that was named after him. In a clinical definition, narcissism refers to the inner gratification of an individual from vanity and any gestures that satisfy his egotistic admiration (Campbell et al., 2000). The concept was developed by Sigmund Freud after detecting notable cases that characterize the concept among his patients. An exceeding degree of narcissistic level could lead to a pathological form that is described as narcissistic personality disorder or NPD. DSM-5 defined NPD as the excessive and over estimation of one’s self to his or her abilities with high regards of desire for admiration from other people to the point of behaving irrationally, affecting other people on the process. Often, people diagnosed with NPD are observed to have limited or lesser capability to exhibit emotions, leading to behavior that lacks empathy (Pittinsky, 2006).
There are two types of narcissism – reactive and proactive narcissism. According to Trijsburg and Duivenvoorden (1987), reactive narcissistic personality is often “correlated positively with achievement motivation, but shows no correlation with traits reflecting lack of self-confidence” (Trijsburg and Duivenvoorden, 1987). Meanwhile, in proactive type, an aggressor is present that activates the narcissistic trait of the person. This aggression is usually described as heterogeneously construct that correlates narcissism (Fossati et al., 2010).
Diagnosis of Narcissism
Bush was diagnosed with proactive type of narcissism. This is because of the major decisions that Bush has made during his term were often caused by aggressors as defined by the study. Bush’s biggest manifestation of narcissistic display was his call for the campaign of War on Terror that launched a violent approach in search of the culprit of the horrific event that took place during his eighth-month presidency. While the majority of the American population clamored justice for the innocent lives that were claimed during the tragedy, they did not desire for a violent war which Bush has called out without any hesitation. The lack of empathy and the drastic decision regardless of the inhumane approach of the retaliation that were detected on Bush’s decision have fitted the DSM-5 description of the NPD. Perhaps Bush would not normally consider the war on terrorism as solution to the offensive advances of Al Qaeda if he was not the president during the period. However, his assumed perception that his reputation being the current president was at stake towards the other leaders of neighboring countries if he did not do any “defensive” advances played as the aggressor in the situation that challenged to heightened his narcissistic traits. Other manifestations are detected on his policies such as prohibiting the legality of same-sex marriage simply because of the personal orthodox and beliefs that he observed being a Methodist (Veteran Tributes, 2016). Despite of the growing sensitivity on gender equality even during his term, Bush has simply applied his own personal convictions to the set of policies he made for the state regardless of the insensitivity of the gestures to the significant portion of the American population.
Conclusion
The demonstration of Bush’s proactive narcissistic personality or heightened degree of narcissism in general has proven the notion that the condition could affect one’s leadership style regarding decision-making and problem-solving aspects. Narcissism traits among leaders are mostly tolerable. In fact, a justifiable degree of narcissism would indicate the leader’s self-worth of himself to lead the nation, bearing self-confidence and less insecurity that are essential factors of effective leadership. However, as established with the case of Bush, an exceeding level of narcissism can be destructive and offensive to society due to the waning presence of other important traits of effective leadership such as sympathy and empathy – traits that his administration was lacking (Pittinsky, 2006).
References
Campbell, W.K., Reeder G.D., Sedikides, C., & Elliot, A.J. (2000). Narcissism and Comparative Self Enhancement
Strategies. Journal of Research in Personality 34 (3): 329–47. doi:10.1006/jrpe.2000.2282.
Fossati, A., Borroni, S., Eisenberg, N., Maffei, C. (2010). Relations of Proactive and Reactive Dimensions of Aggression to Overt and Covert Narcissism in Nonclinical Adolescents. Aggressive Behavior, 36(1):21-7. doi: 10.1002/ab.20332
Morin, R. (2013). The most narcissistic U.S. presidents. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2013/11/14/themostnarcissisticuspresidents/
Pittinsky, TL. (2006). Narcissistic Leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6): 617-633. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.005
Stolorow, R D. (1975). Toward a functional definition of narcissism. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 56: 179.
Trijsburg RW. & Duivenvoorden HJ. (1987). Reactive-narcissistic character, obsessional personality and obsessive-compulsive behaviour: a study of the validity of Sandler and Hazari's typology. Journal of Medical Psychology, 60(3):271-278.
Veteran Tributes. (2016). George W. Bush. Retrieved from http://www.veterantributes.org/TributeDetail.php?recordID=1627
Walsh, Kenneth T. (2009). Historians Rank George W. Bush Among Worst Presidents. US News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/02/17/historians-rank-george-w-bush-among-worst-presidents
