22 Dec 2021 - Wade Mullen READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
The purpose of a self-flattering lie is to project an image that one wants an audience to have – of being strong, or successful, or intelligent, or any other positive characteristic. This typically requires over-communicating information that improves that image while under-communicating information that damages that image. We can all find ourselves in positions where we might desire to tell a seemingly harmless lie in order to improve our image – perhaps to secure a position during an interview or to gain a promotion or to receive acceptance from a friend. Left unchecked, however, the need to be seen as something we are not can lead to patterns of deception and as the image we present to others becomes increasingly separate from who we actually are, the desire and need to self-promote only becomes stronger.
Keep in mind that self-promotion exists on a spectrum - from the everyday self-promotion that might be necessary and helpful, such as describing your past success in job interview, to the highly deceptive and constant self-promotion that marks egomaniacs. Similarly, Hessel Zondag, a scholar who studied narcissism among Dutch pastors, distinguishes between “subclinical” or “everyday” narcissism and “clinical” narcissism. Clinical narcissism is a personality disorder. Here’s how he defines everyday narcissism:
I understand narcissism to be a strong, psychologically tinted interest in oneself. It can also be defined as ‘mental care for oneself’ So defined, everyone is to some extent narcissistic. A certain degree of narcissism is necessary for a person to have a positive self-image, stability, and a perception of their person as a whole.1
When people who have been harmed by leadership describe how some self-promoting statements seemed off to them, they aren’t typically responding to the self-promotion itself but to the deception attached to the self-promotion: the embellishment, fabrication, or trimming of what’s true. And when leaders in positions of trust travel down this path of self-promoting deception, the end result can be devastating. Erving Goffman observed, “The more there is about the individual that deviates in an undesirable direction from what might have been expected to be true of him, the more he is obliged to volunteer information about himself . . .”2 The person can become a masked performer - always putting on a disguise to be accepted. The people around that self-promoting leader are then viewed merely as audience members needing to be constantly won over by a performance. The leader behaves like certain species of male squid that split their coloration so that the female squid only sees the kinder, gentler side while the aggressive color and pattern is kept hidden from view.
Published at wademullen.substack.com
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