Leadership Journal

The senior pastor I worked under at a California megachurch had a compelling vision to see seekers saved, was quietly charismatic, and had scores of loyal followers. We began to have concerns about him, though, when he insisted on re-videotaping Nicky Gumbel's Alpha Course sessions with himself as speaker. This, he rationalized, was necessary to "preserve (his own) evangelistic anointing and replace Gumbel's hard-to-listen-to English accent with something more comfortable for Americans." None of us was brave enough to mention that the Alpha Course on video had already led tens of thousands to Christ globally. We all kept quiet and completed the project.

In a board meeting some time later, the pastor described his primary ministry function in weekend services as "walking among the congregation and touching them, conferring a blessing that radically changes their countenances." Now we knew something was wrong. Over time, incidents like this convinced us that our pastor was blatantly self-referential, lacked true empathy, was overly sensitive to criticism, was a poor listener, and set himself against anyone he perceived as competition while maintaining his own severe competitiveness toward others. This publicly self-described "benevolent dictator" had a dark history of using and discarding leaders who could never measure up to his standards—expectations that were never openly explained.

This pastor is an extreme example of what I call a narcissistic spiritual leader (NSL). From the board member who actively undermines a senior pastor, to the staff member who splits the church, to the worship leader whose ego eclipses Sunday morning's focus, to the youth pastor so self-defensive you wonder if your "good morning" is grounds for his afternoon resignation, to the senior leader who misshapes the organization in his own image—narcissistic spiritual leaders can wreak havoc in a church.

While narcissistic leaders are nothing new, today's church culture may be fertile soil for narcissism.

Our "celebrity driven" mindset for defining leadership, and elevation of leaders who excel at casting vision, manifesting charm, and exuding enthusiasm produces pastors whose personal "brands" are bigger than their church's.

Our tendency to focus on the bottom-line, the "nickels and noses" measure of church success—measuring everything by giving levels and attendance—can also generate NSLs. Churches fueled primarily by the leader's popularity are hazardous material. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to know how to respond to narcissistic tendencies in the leaders we work with.

The key to understanding narcissists is recognizing that they are primarily "self-referential." That is, they interpret the world only as it pertains to them.

Full-blown narcissists (1) have this "self-referential" orientation in every area of their personality; (2) have narcissism present in their personality for their adult lifetime; (3) do not see this self-referential orientation as a problem. When all three of these conditions are true of someone, he or she is diagnosed as a narcissist. When some of these things are true, a person has narcissistic tendencies and is "functional," that is, relates in ways that seem "normal" to unstudied observers.

PAGE 1 of 4