> the idea that narcissism has increased among college students over the last 25 years is worrisome from an organizational perspective. Millennials are the next generation of leaders.<p>When i was in school, everyone was raving at me, barking madly that all of us students had to be the leaders of tomorrow. Maybe it's because everyone is obsessed with who gets to be a leader that people presume that they should be leaders. Millenials are also the next generation of followers, or workers, or you know, discarding hierarchical considerations: millenials are the next generation of humans. Which is tautological.<p>Looking at the current field of candidates for leader of the most powerful (by a few metrics, but not all) government of the world, i think the bar has been set very low for millenials and the people who write articles like this merely have some heavily tinted rose-colored glasses on about their "generation of leaders".<p>That said, i don't think it's surprising that people in positions of power in a hierarchical structure, like a university setting, are biased towards people like them and hence create a selection effect within that power structure. Isn't that the basic observation that validates affirmative action? Nepotism, cronyism are commonly understood terms, but clearly they are specific cases of a general phenomenon. You cannot separate the exercise of power from its social implications. People being social creatures, they will exercise their power in ways that have social consequences. That's why people are put in positions of power in the first place.
Seems to me that "narcissism fit" definitely applies to a lot of schools and companies. (Though to be fair, it's particular subgroups inside those organizations that this really applies to.)
>And yet despite narcissists’ flaws, there’s lots of evidence that people are drawn to them, not least because they tend to be very charismatic.<p>Is it possible to be both charismatic and not-narcissistic at all? I can't think of a single example, to be honest, of a leader displaying charisma and not being somewhat narcissistic.