Narcissist or abuser? Look at the behaviour, not the label
The “narcissistic boss” has become a standard phrase. It is a convenient explanation — which is exactly why it is worth asking what it conceals. An organisation does not have to classify the person; it has to describe the conduct.
A summary for information. It is not a diagnostic aid and does not replace professional assessment. Updated: August 2026.
In recent years the word “narcissist” has left psychology and become an everyday explanation. Her ex is a narcissist, his boss is a narcissist, her mother-in-law is a narcissist. The word promises that we can finally put a name to what is happening.
The problem is not that narcissism does not exist. It is that when we use the word for abusive behaviour, we lose three things with it.
1. It is usually not accurate
Lundy Bancroft, who spent decades working with abusive men in groups, points out that most abusers are not narcissists — including those who are arrested for violence.
From the outside the two can indeed look alike: both involve an expectation of being looked up to, deflection of responsibility, charm that can be switched on, and a conviction that the problem lies in other people.
Bancroft argues that the difference lies in where the behaviour comes from: an abuser learns attitudes — from role models, from peers, from the beliefs about women held around him. The literature explains the background of personality disorders through other factors, and the two do not coincide.
Bancroft also points out that abusive behaviour is typically targeted: it often appears only towards certain people — at home, and towards subordinates. This is not a test that settles anything, but it is an observation worth noting for an organisation.
If someone is equally difficult with everyone, that is one problem. If someone is co-operative with their manager and humiliating towards their reports, that is another. The organisation does not have to decide what lies behind this psychologically — it has to decide whether that way of handling power is acceptable.
2. It grants absolution
The word “narcissist” suggests illness. And if someone is ill, they are not choosing — they are suffering something they cannot help.
Abusive behaviour, however, is made of choices. Someone who is humiliating at work typically does not humiliate the person who decides their salary. Someone who “cannot control themselves” usually knows precisely in front of whom they can let go, and in front of whom they cannot.
For an organisation, one thing follows from this — and it is not a psychological finding: where someone treats people differently depending on the power relationship, that is to be recognised and handled as an exercise of power, not as a diagnosis.
3. It takes responsibility away from the environment
This is Bancroft’s most important argument, and in an organisational context it is particularly sharp.
If the cause of the abuse is a personality disorder, then the problem is to be found in that person’s childhood, and the environment can do nothing. If, on the other hand, the behaviour is learned, and flows from attitudes that the environment reinforces or tolerates — then the environment has work to do.
Inside an organisation it sounds like this: “We know what he’s like. You have to learn to handle him.” That sentence does exactly what Bancroft describes: it provides an escape route. The organisation absolves itself of doing anything, and shifts the burden onto the person on the receiving end.
What does the person affected lose through the label?
Someone who believes their partner or their manager is a narcissist is looking for an explanation — reading articles, trying to understand, perhaps suggesting therapy.
Someone who sees that they are being abused is looking for safety: documenting, reporting, making an exit plan.
The two paths do not lead to the same place. And the months spent on understanding typically bring no change, because they are not about what is actually happening.
What is actually visible
An organisation has no means — and no standing — to establish anyone’s psychological state. It does see behaviour, however, and it can make decisions about that.
These are observable, documentable facts:
- Humiliating or ridiculing someone in public.
- Withholding information needed to do the work.
- Disputing the results of other people’s work.
- Setting an impossible deadline and then holding it against the person.
- Behaving one way towards a manager and another towards a subordinate.
- A detriment following for the person who spoke up.
None of these requires a diagnosis. Each can be settled by observation, and a procedure can be built around each of them.
This does not mean that severe self-centredness does not exist. It does, and Bancroft writes in detail about how it operates: about a person who understands other people’s perspectives well — except for the one thing, which is how others experience him. And about how he can bring those around him onto his side against the target, so that networks of relationships fall apart. That pattern can be familiar in a workplace too. The question is not whether it exists — but whether an organisation should stay passive by invoking it.
What can the organisation do?
The same as in any other conduct matter. The question of diagnosis is immaterial from this point of view.
- Do not classify the person; describe the conduct. Instead of “narcissistic”: “in the team meeting, spoke about the colleague in humiliating terms in front of others”. The first is an opinion, the second a fact.
- Record what happened. Time, place, what was said, who was present.
- Look at the pattern. One incident can be a bad day. The same thing from the same person, with several colleagues, over months — that is a way of operating.
- Examine who it is directed at. If the behaviour consistently points downwards in the hierarchy, it is a question of power, not of character.
- Tie the consequence to the conduct, not to the presumed cause. The reason to act is not that someone “is that kind of person”, but that they did this.
It is not the organisation’s job to work out what is wrong with the manager. Its job is to recognise when someone treats people unacceptably — to document it, investigate it, and take the necessary steps.
An organisation is not a therapeutic institution, and it does not need to be. And the fact that someone has a difficult background does not release the employer from protecting everyone else.
Related pages
Mobbing or harassment — what is the difference?
Two patterns, two different mechanisms — and what it all means in law.
Forms of workplace violence and how to recognise them
Eight forms, and the signs by which leadership can notice them.
Harassment at work – what can I do?
What to do first, who you can turn to. With free helplines.
Sources
This article draws on the writing of Lundy Bancroft: Narcissists vs. Abusers and The Most Important Things to Know About Narcissism.
This summary is for information. It is not a diagnostic aid: establishing a personality disorder is the task of a qualified professional, not of an employer. The organisation decides about the conduct, not about the person.
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