Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you

want to be perceived.

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach,

and today we're talking about the narcissistic executive.

Sean was battling his boss, and he was losing the war.

The first person to talk to me about Sean was Ronite, the HR executive.

She said,

In a world that was fair, Sean would win, but he can't win against

Jack. No one can. Jack stirred people up. Some saw him as a star blazing a bold path forward for the company, and hey, if some people got burned, well, you know, stars blaze brightly for a reason, right? Others, the ones who had gotten burned seethed at the mention of Jack's name.

A lot of people were in that camp.

Sean, a direct report of Jack's, was just one of them.

Ronite said,

We really don't want to lose Sean.

If you ask me, he's the real star,

but he has to get smart about handling Jack.

If Sean keeps up the war, at some point he's going to lose and then he'll leave

She told me Sean would have to report to Jack for at least another year probably more before a

position opened up at his level.

When the time comes, she said,

I hope I'll be able to promote him.

I asked, and make him Jack's pier?

...