GUEST COMMENT: Are you self-confident and ambitious, or are you almost mad?
In order to get ahead in life, you need a degree of narcissism. If you don't have any residual self-esteem, you won't get up in the morning.
However, self-confidence can easily tip over into something more damaging.
There are plenty of instances of the extremely wealthy losing a sense of proportion and becoming divorced from reality. Take Robert Maxwell, who urinated off the Mirror building onto passers-by, Bernard Madoff who robbed without conscience, or Ivar Kreuger, the 20th century 'match king' who operated entirely according to his own rules before committing suicide when his fantasy finances unravelled.
William Cohan, writing in Vanity Fair, suggests that Bruce Wasserstein, the deceased Lazard CEO, may also have been guilty of hubris and narcissism.
Cohan quotes a 'friend' of Wasserstein, who says the Wasserstein had a Nietzschean view of himself.
"Nietzsche's whole posit was that there are certain superhumans who are above the fray, above normal constraints," the friend told Cohan. "He believes he is that. And so, if you believe that, you're not bound by common morality, and you're just incredibly ambitious and impatient and not held back by that."
Many people who come across Nietzsche's idea of the 'Superman' for the first time make a similar mistake. And they forget he actually went mad before dying just like any ordinary mortal.
Investment banking creates perfect conditions for such narcissism to flourish. It's easy to forget when everyone around you is earning six figures that the mean annual income for someone in full time employment in the UK was 31k in 2008 while the median was 25k.
If you're earning 1m plus, or even 250k plus, you're therefore akin to a medieval countess or king - compared to the rest of society you can pretty much do what you like.
In spite of this, it's important to keep your feet on the ground. Self confidence which becomes hubris and narcissism will do your career no favours. There are laws and built-in checks to human interaction, and if you outrage enough people sufficiently, you will give them a motive to seek revenge. They may take their time to do so, but it will happen whenever your guard drops.
The best way of telling whether you're falling prey to narcissism is to ask those who work with you. In recent years, psychologists have had a lot of success interviewing the close colleagues of narcissistic CEOs and presenting the CEOs with their responses. When everyone says you're a tyrannical bully, it's hard to argue. If you're a full blown narcissist, you will simply say, however, that these are the petty opinions of the little people. But it may still cost you your job. Hubris leads to nemesis.
The road to hubris and full blown narcissism is dangerous. This path will damage both your career and your relationships. Quell the symptoms before they take hold. As they travelled to their coronation, Roman Emperors were said to have been accompanied by a slave, who whispered repeatedly into their ears, 'Remember that you are human and will die." It's an intonation worth recalling as you praise yourself for this year's bonus.
