Managing a narcissist subordinate

I imagine that as a manager you have had management training so you will know how to treat her in the workplace. How she affects you privately is your own business.
There will always be people like that in the workplace, the essence of good management is to remain scrupulously professional and not to allow your personal “buttons” to be pressed.

Mawboon is totally right there is nothing more you can do but use your management skills to deal in a totally boundaried way and use your supervision to offload your own annoyance
Nothing else you can do

You are managing a team. Your role won't always be easy, have you never dealt with difficult people?
She's what we used to call "a bloody nuisance". There was always at least one in every body of staff. Nowadays it's dressed up by some with the latest jargon.
Perhaps it is you who has the problem, you don't have enough experience to cope.

Many thanks MawBroon and BlueBelle. Agree completely. I’m being 100 % professional but gosh, she tries my patience. I’ve met some tricky people in my time as a manager but she is in a different league! Appreciate your responses

Perhaps a team training day on how to recognise and cope with people with behavioural problems in the course of their job might help your team? Narcissism being on the list of course.

Who is your line manager? - can you talk to him/her about it?

I too find the term narcissist so irritating, along with a few other unnecessary labels. She is, as someone above has said, just a bloody nuisance. I don't think we should seek to put psychobabble labels on people.

Give her more responsibility? Perhaps she feels undervalued, or maybe she has stuff going on in her private life which you don't know about.

In time, she will undoubtedly be promoted and move on.

I was shown a useful strategy for managing the narcissist.

They will only ever see things from their perspective and do what benefits them regardless of the impact on the team.

If you want to them to do something or to stop doing something you have to present it as how it will benefit them.

I did a team teaching stint with a colleague who only wanted to teach the well behaved high fliers so that she could boast about how well “her children” were doing and she made overt comparisons with what other teachers could achieve.

The original Head had allowed her to pick her class for the start of every year to avoid her mega tantrums. I actually watched her in the staffroom (on my first day in the job) saying “I’ll have him, I won’t have him” and everybody else just letting her do it!

The new Head sent her on a course on Reading Recovery, gave her a presentation slot on an Inset Day, hooked her up with a University to do some research. Of course she then had to teach children who were struggling but she could boast about their progress and also saw herself as having enhanced status.

She was still a nightmare but she was stopped from “cherry picking”.

Maybe you can apply a similar technique to something in your field?

Do you have a line manager you can go to for advice? Could your other colleagues also flag up this behaviour to personnel? Could she be told whenever she oversteps the mark?
It's a tricky one isn't it? She no doubt has her issues too. Nowt so queer as folk.

I love that example Eglantine, I wish I’d read it a few years back it could have been a good solution to someone I worked with, she drove us all mad with her manipulative attempts to be “top dog”.

I Once worked with a narcissist who was our boss. It was a nightmare, he charmed his line manager and higher. Numerous members of our team took out he grievances against him. I myself became ill at the thought of going into a job I loved. However, as often happens to these vile people, he was promoted ! Not once, but three times and now, thankfully is well away from what is now a very happy team.

If you work for a "good" organisation they should have a confidential helpline which should enable you discuss the situation and personal feelings privately. I am sure you are very professional in your job and that you utilitize all your management training to help you in the work. Middle managers always take the brunt of difficult IMO. If your organisation does not provide such a service contact the/your lical union representative even if you don't belong to one they are likely to be able to help or advise where you can get help. Whatever you do don't bottle your feelings up please talk to someone. Best wishes Ali

You may be approaching it psychologically when it would be better to treat it procedurally.
You have raised various issues with her verbally and this has not worked. If there is anything that is a disciplinary matter, take the next step in the disciplinary process - or write her a letter pointing out, with examples, what she is doing wrong and make it clear that you will begin that process if you don't see a change. Remind her that she is a member of a team and that it is the performance of the whole team which matters and not one member of it. Give a copy of the letter to whoever is your senior in the company.
What matters is not her personality but how it impacts on her work and it is that which needs to be emphasised.
You will need to keep a record of her behaviour and of any complaints made by other members of the team.
Don't put up with tantrums, rants or tears. If she is in your office, tell her to go to the washroom, wash her face and recover herself and then go back to work. If you are in a general area, leave immediately a tantrum starts saying 'I'll come back when you have recovered yourself'.

So very difficult dealing with difficult people in a work environment nowadays. I worked with someone who caused problems, but every time she was called for meeting with line manager she would go down the line that she was being bullied. There was little anyone could do. And I've known other people in the same position with a co worker. Its very often one persons word against anothers. There seems very little can be done unless they do something bad enough to issue a written warning. Just make sure you keep any issues/transgressions well documented in the hope that one day she will go too far.

I’ve dealt with some very odd and draining personalities as a manager in my past job, they are truly frustrating. I think it’s important to make relevant notes to evidence base any incidents with her. By the law of averages in life, sometimes we all get it wrong and sometimes we get it right. However, the repetition of incidents is always a clear indication that something is truly amiss, if the same person is always in the middle of countless incidents. The person who affected my team the most with her behaviour, ended up having a breakdown, counselling etc a very strange person and because of the nature of our job, she was eventually dismissed for capability reasons. They must be truly unhappy people to actually want to be in the centre of constant friction, playing mind games etc

It’s a rotten position to be in Emm14 and you have all my sympathy. Have been there and can’t stress too highly the importance of meticulous, written records. They saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

"Trouble is, she is excellent at her job (health professional), and superficially very charming to higher status managers. She knows how to play the game, get ‘important’ people on side and it nauseates me watching her. "

Yes, I have worked with these people in a health team. I think the only way for her is promotion and let those that she has charmed deal with her. They most likely will deal with her better than you as some of them have most likely used the same skills to get promoted.

Your other alternative is Eglantine21 tactics, encourage her to train as a specilist but I suspect she has her eye on the top so tell her it will help with promotion.

The last one I worked with, banned her MIL from seeing the grandchildren which I think will give some of you the idea of what EMM14 is dealing with but in a professional situation.

It's all good advice but you want to be working with someone like that and watching the manager so called dealing with it it's horrendous! Feel for you after working in same type of situation!

EMM14: bide your time - I've always been a great believer in the saying "give them enough rope and they'll eventually hang themselves......", and over the years I've witnessed this coming true time and again.

Be dignified, be professional, be discreet then stand back and wait for it to happen! (And it will.)

One of the companies I worked for (very large) invested in some team building courses. These were arranged by HR and not done in the workplace but in a hotel over a 2 day course. It was run by an independent coach,specifically trained to deal with all aspects of workplace related situations/problems etc.
Role play, we had to take part in various work related situations. As we were part of a very large workforce in different locations, we were deliberately mixed together from other branches so we were not involved with our own day to day colleagues and could speak more openly about anything without it seeming that we were singling anyone in particular out.
If you have an HR department you should be able to speak to someone in confidence about this situation and they should be able to help you deal with it professionally, maybe having some in- house team building sessions, if not available outside the workplace. These really do help colleagues, everyone benefits, it's done in a way that is friendly, often divided into smaller groups. Shy people come out of their shell, more aggressive learn other people,s perspectives and these skills remain invaluable in and outside of work. Our company had the "Investors in People" logo and they certainly lived up to their name.

Thank goodness for some encouraging and sensible advice to help you Emm14. Eglantine21, in particular, has offered an eminently practical possible solution if you are in a position to apply it to your situation.
I have nothing to offer except to suggest that you look at ways of switching off when you are away from work - mindfulness techniques etc. However, I do wish those posters who simply say "you're a manager so get on with it" would refrain from offering unsympathetic and unhelpful posts. You know who you are!

Narcissists are not team-players but do work incredibly hard to be "top dog". Maybe there is something that would use your colleague's strengths and avoid all (or most) of the negatives? Meanwhile, very difficult for everyone in close proximity, I know.

Emm14, it actually sounds as though you are doing pretty well at handling a very difficult person, even if you don't feel as though you are. Don't be too hard on yourself - many of us have probably not handled such people as well. Good to hear you have strong boundaries in place. I was too soft on a couple of occasions, especially with someone who had personal problems and I gave them leeway which, with hindsight and having discovered how manipulative they were, was not the best approach. Try not to be alone with her except when you have to be as I found such people may have their tantrums or push your buttons when the two of you are alone and other colleagues might not believe you since they behave differently in front of more senior managers or those they want to keep on side. If the tantrums involve accusations against you or other staff or threats to resign or go off sick etc, you should report it to your line manager or HR. If you do it from the perspective of concern for her wellbeing ( which may not be entirely untrue) and for the cohesion of your team, she will find it hard to accuse you of being unfair or picking on her which is often another tactic of this type of person. As others have said, keep notes and, for the sake of yourself and the rest of your team, make things official if you have to.
Good luck.