Dr. Chuck DeGroat is Professor of Counseling and Christian Spirituality at Western Theological Seminary Holland MI, and Co-Founder and a Senior Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies, San Francisco. He is a licensed therapist, author, retreat leader, and spiritual director. Chuck has been married to Sara for 25 years and has two daughters. Chuck is also the author of the new book, When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.

Today we’re tackling the subject of narcissism, the systems that allow it, and how to deal with it. This conversation is applicable to organizations of all kinds but we take a deeper look at how it shows up in churches specifically, and in organizations that have a similar structure and culture. I think you’re going to find this to be an incredibly rich conversation.

In this episode, Chuck shares how it feels to be on the other side of a narcissist, how to recognize the narcissistic bite, vulnerability versus fauxnerability, what happens when we are complicit with a narcissistic leader, why we protect people in power, how to use our voice even though it may feel narcissistic, and so much more.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Chuck DeGroat’s Book | When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse
• Dr. Chuck DeGroat’s Website

Find our Lifeline resources and information about the course here.

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  This is Andrea Wenburg, and you’re listening to the Voice of Influence podcast.

All right, we’re tackling the subject of narcissism today.  What’s really interesting about this conversation is that we’re talking about not just narcissism itself, but also systems that allow narcissism, that are susceptible to narcissism, and how to deal with it.  There is much going on in this conversation.

The person who is with me here today is Dr. Chuck DeGroat.  He is a Professor of Counseling in Christian Spirituality at Western Theological Seminary, and co-founder and a Senior Fellow at Newbigin House of Studies, San Francisco.  He is a licensed therapist, an author, retreat leader, and spiritual director.  Chuck has been married to Sara for twenty-five years and has two daughters.  He has a new book out called When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.

This conversation is certainly applicable to organizations of all kinds.  But we do talk about some of what goes on in churches, specifically, and in organizations that have that kind of a structure.  I think that you’re going to find this an incredibly rich conversation because we tackled a lot.  We talked about what narcissism is, how you know if you’re sort of on the other side of narcissism.  He talks about the narcissistic bite and fauxnerability – which is a fake sort of vulnerability – different characteristics that people who have narcissism… those characteristics that they display, and what happens when we are complicit with somebody who is a narcissistic leader.

So, why do we do that?  Why do we like how we feel around that person?  And why do we protect other people in power?  There is so much here.  We discuss whether or not it’s possible for a narcissistic to change and how people can kind of determine whether or not their impulse to lead, to have influence, to be up on stage, to have their podcast… whether or not that is narcissistic, and whether or not we need to be concerned about that or how we handle that without completely refusing to use our voice.

So, how do we use our voice even though it may feel like, “Could it be narcissistic?”  These are really, really interesting things that we talk about in this conversation, and I think that you’re going to get a lot out of it.  I highly recommend that you check out Dr. DeGroat’s book, When Narcissism Comes to Church.

Here’s my interview with Dr. Chuck DeGroat:

Andrea:  Chuck DeGroat, it is great to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Thank you so much.  It’s good to be with you.

Andrea:  You have just written a book that’s just been published When Narcissism Comes to Church:  Healing your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.  This is such an important topic.  What led you to write this particular book?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s a good question.  The safer version of that story really goes back to the work that I’ve done over the last fifteen years or so.  I do a lot of psychological testing for people who are pastors and ministry leaders and church planters and organizational leaders.  And what we’ve seen, particularly, in the church – and I know your audience is broader than that – but what we’ve seen, sadly, in the church is that a significant majority of people going into ministry test in what we call the Cluster B, or the DSM-5 calls the Cluster B personality disorders, which feature narcissistic tendencies.

And so that’s a primary reason to sort of diagnose and explain why that is, particularly in church and ministry contexts.  The larger reason is actually more personal.  I mean, it goes back to my days in seminary in the mid-1990s, in my own arrogance, in my own certainty, in my own sense of being God’s gift to ministry, and recognizing that that was painful for people in my life and for my wife and doing my own work in counseling.  And so that’s been really important.

Andrea:  Let’s start with defining narcissism, though.  Our audience is somewhat familiar with the term, but would you do that for us?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yes.  So, when we think about narcissism, just to kind of click off a few characteristics, we often think of the classic grandiosity.  Alongside of that, there’s often a kind of interpersonal attention-seeking that goes along.  We, more often than not, see that those who are diagnosably narcissistic show very little empathy.  In other words, they’re really just not able to connect with the basic needs and emotions of another person.  And then often, because they relate in these ways, there are impairments in their relationships and in their work.  And so, there are ripple effects within organizations, churches, and so forth.

But one of the things I say is that might be kind of a classic caricature of narcissism, but it is more complicated than that.  But yeah, more often than not, we see this in attention-seeking, grandiosity, lack of empathy, and impairments in relationships.

Andrea:  And what does that look like when you’re on the other side of that coin when you’re the person who is experiencing the narcissism?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Mhm.  It’s crazymaking.  It can be really confusing because – and I’ve been under narcissistic leaders and I’ve experienced narcissism in organizations – oftentimes, you’re drawn to a narcissistic leader.  He or she may be inspirational, influential in your life, they may cast vision that is exciting and impactful.  And yet when you experience what I call narcissism’s bite, you will experience it as you’ll feel kind of crazy.  You’ll wonder, “Is it me or is it that person?”  “Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m missing something.”  “Maybe I did something wrong.  After all, he’s so powerful and everyone loves him.  It’s got to be me.”

Andrea:  Yes.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  So, you second-guess your own reality often.

Andrea:  Narcissism’s bite you said?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Mhm.

Andrea:  What does that tend to look like?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, it can be a little tiny bite sometimes and it can be a big bite.  Oftentimes with the smaller bites, it looks like what we call emotional abuse or spiritual abuse.  These are like tiny, little knife blows over the course of many years.  It might be a cutting kind of remark or critique.  It might be pulling the rug out from under you within a project.  It might be sort of whispering in the ear of a colleague about how you’re not doing your job.  It might be any of those kinds of things, but eventually, when it comes back to you, it’s kind of like, “Ouch, that hurt!  I thought I was doing well.  I thought that he liked me.”  And so the bite can be something of a confusing ouch, in which you say to yourself, “I’m just not sure it happened.  I thought I was playing by the rules.”

Andrea:  And then you just feel completely confused about what’s going on.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, yeah.

Andrea:  The term gaslighting comes to mind.  So is that how you would define gaslighting or what is that?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, I think so.  I think that phenomenon of gaslighting is, it’s a word that we’re using or a descriptor that we’re using more and more to put words around that experience of feeling crazy and confused.  I remember years ago when I was under the leadership of a narcissist.  This was someone who’s well respected and a number of important circles had raised lots of money, had influence.  And I remember that there were these ouch moments, you know, what I described as the narcissistic bite, right?  There are these moments like this where it was kind of like, “Ouch, that hurt,” or “Why did he say that to me?” or “Is he not confident in my abilities?”

But more often than not, I had this sense of, “It’s got to be me.  There’s got to be something wrong with me.”  And there would actually be times where he’d come to me and he’d say, “Chuck, I’m just not sure what’s going on with you.  You’re not as sharp as you used to be,” or “You’re not as engaged,” or “Last week, when you got up in church and you gave that announcement, you weren’t as charismatic as you usually are.”  And, so those of us on the other end of this gaslighting that you make mention of feel as if we’re going crazy.

Andrea:  Right.  As though you’re not sure what your reality really is anymore.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Mhm.  That’s a really good way of putting it.  And I think there are times where we find ourselves in that space, and I’ve seen people leave.  My primary context is more like ministry, Christian organizations, and things like that.  And I’ve seen people leave ministry, leave pastoring, leave organizations with their tail tucked between their legs, questioning their own reality until they get them in with a good therapist and begin to identify like, “Oh, it wasn’t me.  Actually, I was doing as well as I could have, but I experienced the bite of a narcissist.”

Andrea:  Okay.  That’s so important.  So, now, what does somebody do when they’re in that situation?  Maybe they have experienced the bite of the narcissist.  How do they heal from that? Are there any particular steps that people take or that you just find a good therapist?  What are some of the things that you suggest?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  Yeah, that’s a great question.  And really it does begin by defining reality.  As you mentioned, they begin to question reality, right?  And so, you’ve got to find a space, a place, a person in which you begin to define reality rightly, and, oftentimes, that’s a therapist.  I’ll often say to people who call me, write me say, “Hey, I think I’m in a narcissistic organization with a narcissistic pastor.  Do I confront him?”  And I’ll often say, “No, don’t do that at all.  Actually, step back, and take care of yourself first.  Define reality, get clear on what’s going on.  Begin to tend to your own wounds, and heal your own wounds, and then make that decision as to whether or not you want to engage, but only after doing some clarifying work in therapy.”

And, oftentimes, as a therapist, when I’m doing this work with someone, it’s just not one session, it’ll often be weeks and sometimes months before they can begin to get clear on, “Oh, this actually happened to me.  And, now, I’m beginning to connect the dots and I’m beginning to realize I’ve been in this…”  Like, I was talking to someone earlier today who was in an organization with a narcissistic leader for thirty years, and it took twenty-six years to wake up to it.  And so this can take a long while.

Andrea:  And I would imagine that tending to your own wounds… like, you have to first recognize what the wounds are, and I suppose that’s part of that defining reality and seeing what it is.  I’ve certainly seen it happen where people don’t even realize that they are hurt, that they’ve been hurt until they start to see it in their body, and in the way they react to other people.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s right.  And they don’t realize it even in their body.  And so I’ll ask them, “So, how do you feel?”  Or “How do you experience this in your body?”  And they’ll say, “I feel okay, fine.”  And I’ll say, “Well, you got to give me a little more than that.”  And it’ll take a while for them to actually get in tune.  So, I have to ask specific questions like, “What about your sleep? Has your sleep been disrupted?”  “I don’t sleep at all.  I don’t sleep well at all.  I’m constantly ruminating on stuff at work.”  Or “I’ve had this pain in my back for like the last five years, and it just doesn’t go away.”  Or “I’m dealing with heartburn and acid reflux all the time over the last three or four years since I’ve been working in this organization.”  “I’m constantly down,” or “I’m constantly anxious.”  And, yeah, what is amazing is that at the outset, people often can’t identify those feelings or those symptoms.  They’re so disconnected because they’ve been in survival mode for so long.

Andrea:  Right.  And they’re not even sure that… like we were talking about before, they’re not sure what their reality is.  So, I can see why it would be super helpful to have other people’s perspective if it’s a really good, you know, therapist or even friends, as well, to be able to say, “No, you’re not crazy.  You are normal.  They’re not normal.”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, just to reflect back and say, “That doesn’t sound healthy.  Let’s have a conversation.”  Yeah, definitely.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, it seems like we tend to exempt people who are in leadership who tend to be really talented and charismatic, attracting people to the cause, that sort of thing…  We tend to exempt those people from accountability when it comes to the narcissistic bite, if you will.  I mean, that’s what I see.  Is that what you see, and why do we do that?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  I think that that’s a great observation, and I think you’re right.  In large part, we protect those in power and people in power protect those in power.  When I tell stories, by the way, I always kind of conflate different stories as to kind of conceal the identities, right?

Andrea:  Sure.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  A few years ago, in a situation in which a prominent pastor was revealed to be abusive, and it stunned me because I knew the community and I knew some of the people involved.  But I knew that some of the people involved, who I had some love for and respect for, that they helped cover it up and protect this person.  And I knew them well enough to know that, like, that’s not…  At their core, I know that these are good human beings, and yet, when you get into those positions of power, and you become self-protective, and you develop relationships of loyalty, you call in favors, right?  And so, “We do exempt this person because, you know, he’s had so much of an impact.  He has born lots of fruit in his ministry, or you know, he’s been so successful in his organization.”

And so, we don’t want to go after those folks, you know, because it seems like they’ve done a good job.  This is where we have to, again, name reality.  We have to name the pain.  Where there is narcissism, there’s always a debris field of abuse: spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse at times.  So, this is where we need to name reality and tell the truth about what’s really going on and the impact.  And I remember, going back to that story a few years ago, as I talked to some of those people involved and said, “But do you realize the debris field?”  And as they recognized the debris field, there was this sense of profound shame, like, “Oh, I allowed this to happen.  I’m so sorry.”

Andrea:  That’s got to be really painful to see when you have allowed something to happen.  I would imagine, that with the self-protection that you were mentioning before, that part of what we’re protecting ourselves from is the idea that we’re wrong.  The idea that God might not be who I thought He was if this pastor isn’t who I thought he was.  Do you see that as well?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, I do.  I do, and I think there are lots of reasons why we find ourselves maybe covering up or complicit.  I remember a number of years ago being kind of in the middle of a situation where I found myself there.  And during that time, I liked proximity to the narcissistic leader.  And I didn’t know or think that this person was narcissistic, but I liked it because of how I felt around this person.  And then when others started to come forward and say, “I had this experience and this experience and this experience,” it was hard for me to begin to connect the dots and recognize that this person who I respect and who has high confidence in me and who has encouraged me is also a really flawed human being who has hurt others.

And so there are a lot of reasons why we’re not entirely clear right away, you know.  At the time, I had a license in counseling.  I had a Ph.D. in psychology, right?  I’m supposed to know these things.  And yet, what I want to say to your listeners is, let’s have some kindness for ourselves and offer ourselves some grace because sometimes we have blind spots too.  And then if we do find ourselves in a place or position where we’re complicit, then let’s own it, and recognize how our participation has hurt other people and really be honest about that.

Andrea:  Wow, your statement: “I like how I feel when I’m around this person.”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Gosh, I’ve seen that.  And of course, I’ve felt that, and I’m sure other people felt it around me when I’ve been, you know, unhealthily handling influence.  But that is really important because a lot of times we make our decisions based on how we’re feeling around somebody.  We think that that is a good thing to feel good, you know, “I love how I feel when I’m with this person.”  But what are the feelings that we should be attuned to, that would kind of trigger to say, “Wait a second, I need to take a step back because I’m actually feeling…” whatever it might be, whether it be indignant or…  What are some of those things that we should be watching for?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, you mean like when we kind of find ourselves in the middle or maybe even a little complicit?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Well, that’s tough because we’re not always aware of our feelings in that moment.  I think what I often tell people is be aware of the “high U” experience.  So, what I mean by that is it can be like a roller coaster, being around a narcissist, because you experience these high highs and then these low lows.  And so be aware of being on a kind of perpetual, year-long, five year-long, however long it takes adrenaline high where you’re riding this wave, you know.  So the narcissistic leader announces some big new program or initiative for the company and you’re going to be involved and you’re riding the wave up.  And there’s a party and the drinks are flowing.  And I’m feeling really great about myself and I belong.  And then he comes to me three weeks later and says, “You really dropped the ball on this,” and now I’m feeling really low.

And, oftentimes, you know, I look back to my own life ten, twelve years ago when I was in that place, but oftentimes, I’ll find that when people come to me, it’s sort of like, they’re somewhere, probably, riding close to the low part of the roller coaster.  Now, they’re recognizing that they’re on the outs.  But as they document their experience over the last two years, or five years or ten years, there was a sense of, if I ask, “Well, what was it like? What did you feel?”  “Well, it felt so good for such a long time and I was riding such a high that I really, you know, wasn’t as healthy as I could have been.  And I was eating too much and drinking too much and making a lot of money and doing a lot of great stuff, but now I realized that I was kind of lost.”  And lots of folks who I talked to will talk about feeling lost, feeling alone, feeling like there wasn’t any ever real connection.  It was more like trauma bonding with this person.  And there was never really a sense of, like, we knew each other or we were connected to one another.

Andrea:   Hmm.  Trauma bonding.  Can you explain that?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, trauma bonding.  Yeah, it’s a kind of false intimacy where you develop a relationship around your frustration with a scapegoat or someone else.  And, so, you know, for instance, just talking to someone recently who really did life and relationship like this for a long while, and she and a co-worker had a bad experience at another company and they both came from that company.  And they both reported to the same narcissistic boss.  And so they would often get together and they’d talk about how terrible it was in this other place.

And they thought that they had a relationship.  In fact, they’d get together at times for drinks after work and share life stories with one another until the narcissistic leader picked one over the other for a position.  And then there was a sense of, “Oh, we didn’t have a relationship.  All we were doing was we were just kind of raging with one another about our shared experience of anger at another person.”  And that’s not really intimacy.  That’s not healthy intimacy.  That’s a kind of false intimacy that’s born out of pain.

Andrea:  Okay, raging about another person because of something that they did that we don’t like.  Boy, does that happen a lot!

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yes. Yeah.  Right.

Andrea:  So that, in particular, sounds like a really important thing to be attuned to in ourselves when we’re doing that and then to ask those questions around, you know, “Is this healthy?”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  I love that phrase that you just used, “to be attuned to ourselves”, right?  And to recognize… and I have some shame about this, that I haven’t recognized this at different times over the years.  You know, you just said it.  We all find ourselves in conversations like this, and you know, it’s a half-hour in and I’m going off on someone who I’m frustrated with, and then I have this moment of clarity.  And this happens more often than you think, I have this moment of clarity where it’s like, “What am I doing?  What am I participating in?”  But it feels powerful if we’re honest.  It feels powerful.

Andrea:  And like you said, the adrenaline high.  There is an adrenaline high when you feel that kind of indignance.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  And the reality is, for many of us – and I’m one of these folks – if we look at our own stories, we realize that we experienced some kind of pain, trauma, and abuse in our past.  And so, the power of that moment of scapegoating another or raging about another, there’s a kind of power because you feel seen, you feel heard, and you feel empowered in your speech.  And I realized that in a way that for me is a really sad and troubling way of getting needs met.  It’s not ultimately how we healthily get our needs met, but it’s something that we commonly do. 

Andrea:  Let’s move toward the system.  So, your book talks about healing your community; not just the individual, but also the community.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Right.

Andrea:  How do we know when we’re in a situation… or how do we even recognize the difference between a leader who just has a lot of influence and a narcissistic leader?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Oh, that’s a good question.  Yeah, because they can look a lot alike, right?  And the thing about it is, oftentimes, when I get talking about these things, people will come back to me and they’ll say, “So, you’re saying that a leader can’t be charismatic or influential or inspiring.”  And I want to clear this up and say not at all.  I think they can be all of the above.  But those who are narcissistic manifest this cluster of attributes, and you know, we talked about it a little bit earlier.  There’s that grandiosity, that attention-seeking, that lack of empathy, and ultimately their influence is not in service of others.  It’s really in service of their own ego.

And, so, I’ve met some of the most gifted, charismatic, influential folks who are humble and self-aware and curious.  And in fact, I had someone come to me who said, “You’ve just written a book on narcissism. Am I a narcissist?”  And I said, “No, actually, just the fact that you’d ask that question tells me that you’re probably not narcissistic,” because those who are, are deathly scared of asking that question.  So, where there is curiosity, where there is wonder, where there is humility, self-understanding, we don’t see narcissism, although we may see some of the features that look like narcissism in some contexts.

Andrea:  I love that list that you just gave; the curiosity, the humility, and… self-understanding, is that what you said?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, right.

Andrea:  I can see how it would be really helpful to see that that is how you know that somebody is more healthy in terms of their influence.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.

Andrea:  So, when it comes to the system, what is a narcissistic system?  Is there a narcissistic system, and what creates the system around somebody to make that happen?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Oh, yeah.  Do you have a two-hour window to talk about this?

Andrea:  I sure do!

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  This is complicated because, you know, it’s one thing to deal with a powerful, influential, narcissistic leader.  It’s another thing to deal with a system.  That’s where it’s sort of… it’s invisible.  It’s like, you know, we’re recording this in the midst of COVID-19 right now, you know, and it’s a virus.  It’s in the air.  It’s invisible, you can’t see it.  And you know, my context – as I mentioned earlier – is often Christian circles context, organizations.

And I remember a few years ago, a friend of mine who got a job at a very large Christian organization and almost immediately recognized that there was a problem.  Like, this organization that was actually devoted to caring for others featured people higher up in the organization and middle management, who were all consumed with being the best, doing the best; “We’re better than that organization. We’re more unique. We’re more special. We’ve got more influence. We’ve got more power.”

And I mean, this was literally in the air, in the waters that they swam in.  And I remember my friend calling me, saying, “What do I do?”  And I came in, I did some consulting with them and there was a slow recognition over time that because of a history of leadership there and because of their quick rise to power and influence in their particular sphere, there was this sense that even though it was a Christian organization, you’d think it would feature humility, and deference to others, and self-surrender, and that those things were not evident at all.

And as the community began to realize this, it really took the higher-ups the leaders, the vice presidents – as they begin to realize this – there was this kind of collective humbling like, “What have we been doing?”  It was really powerful to see, but boy, it’s really difficult.  I mean, I mentioned already that we can take two hours.  I don’t think I fully answered your question, but I mean, it really takes some time and some real significant effort and intentionality to draw out the depths of systemic narcissism.

Andrea:  You mentioned a couple things there that sounded a little bit like a group of people who believe that they are the hero, that they’re going to come in and save the day.  Maybe that they are right and everybody else is wrong, that sort of thing.  And is that in line with what you were saying?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s right.  That’s right.  And I think that there’s a collective sense of… I’m thinking of, now, a megachurch where when they came to grips with this, the way they told this story was, “We really thought…”  Keep in mind, Christian context again, they really had this idea that like, “God has blessed us more than God has blessed anyone else in the area.”

Andrea:  Yeah.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  “And you can see it because our church has grown.”  And you don’t need God in the picture necessarily to think that, you know, “The market has blessed our organization more than any other organization.”  So, we can all sort of have this narcissism sort of implicit or explicit in our collective system.

Andrea:  Right, because we have had more success or we are blessed more or yeah, I get that.  Here we go, I’m making the assumption.  I don’t know that it’s true.  I mean, do you believe that churches are particularly susceptible to narcissistic leaders and becoming a narcissistic system, and why would that be?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  That’s the ten-million-dollar question.  Why would that be the church of all things?  And the reality is, is going back to the early centuries of the church – if we just kind of take a historical journey backwards – you see from the time of the kind of the Advent of Constantine and Christendom, there has been this conflation of Christianity and power represented in the Christian empire, right?  And so, narcissism is not a new phenomenon.  And I do think that there is this sense of manifest destiny at times.  Like, “God is on our side, and we’re at war with the powers and principalities and we’ve got to win the war.  And we’ve got to do everything that we can to win the war.  We’ve got to marshal our forces.”  And so we use militaristic language.  I can’t tell you how many churches and organizations I’ve learned about that have names, that have some sort of militaristic overtones or undertones, right?  And I remember when I was a little kid in vacation Bible school and church singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Andrea:  Yeah, “I’m in the Lord’s Army.  Yes, sir!”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  There’s this sense that we have to conquer, and look at the damage over the years that has been done in the name of the conquering army of Christ when Jesus himself was a suffering servant.  Peter picks up the sword and cuts off the ear of the centurion, and Jesus restores the ear, you know.  So, I have trouble answering your question because it’s so paradoxical.

But I remember a colleague, an older colleague of mine – who’s been doing assessment longer than I have – once said to me that, you know, “Look at all the men, in particular, who go into ministry who test on the narcissistic spectrum.”  And he said, “Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that you get up on stage and you say, ‘This is the word of the Lord’?”  And I wonder if there’s just something to that that we are representatives of God.  “I’ve got a master of divinity, right?  And somehow, I’m ordained, and I’ve got a Master of Divinity, and I’m special.  God has set me apart.”  It’s really dangerous.

Andrea:  Right.  Oh, man.  And anytime I hear, “God told me,” or “God’s way,” I feel very nervous about that dynamic because it really kind of strips away people’s desire or their thinking that they have the ability to think for themselves.  It’s like, “Okay, so you’ve told me, you’re sort of in a higher-up position than I am.  I assume that you’re closer to God.  You’ve told me that God’s way is this way.  So, I need to conform to that and I’m conforming to what you’re telling me because you’ve said it.”  But is it God’s way?  I mean, it takes away that sense of agency, I think, that people need to maintain in order to really buy-in, I guess, to what God is saying to them, you know…  I don’t know, to faith in general.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s really good.  And you know, what’s tricky about that now is that for a long, long time, we’ve given pastors power.  Power to absolve us of our sins, you know, power to speak to us when we come to them for marriage counseling and say holy things.  And now we’re seeing a decline in the church.  We’re seeing a decline in the power and the respect that ministers are given.  And I think it’s directly related to narcissism in the church and the abuse of power in the church.  We’re hearing more and more about ex-Evangelical – people have left evangelicalism – people have stepped away from church, people are deconstructing.  And I think this is directly related to really the absence of Jesus, you might say, in the church, you know, because I think Jesus stands in the middle of the church, and is kind of like, “This doesn’t look a whole lot like Me.”

Andrea:  And “laying down my life and giving up all of my rights as God.”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Right, right, neighborly love, love for the poor, and you know, suffering servanthood.  So, I do think that we’re at a moment – I’ve said this in the book, I say this in lots of different contexts – I think we’re at a moment of reckoning.  And we’ve got some choices to make about how we’ll show up.  And it’s interesting to me that we are recording this during COVID-19, where you’ve got this big, kind of, anxiety, right?  “How are we going to do church?

We’ve got to get video equipment.  We’ve got to put it online.  And we’ve got to make it look really good,” when some pastor friends who I really respect are saying, “Okay, we’ll figure that out, but what we need to do is we need to move to our neighborhood.  We need to move to people in our community who are struggling, kids in public schools who aren’t getting meals.”  The ones who I think are following Jesus really authentically are thinking about people in the community, people in need, and they’re moving toward the margins.

Andrea:  Thinking about others who… without the goal of… like, they’re not going to add to their power per se. 

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Right, right.  It’s not about power.

Andrea:  Yeah, it’s just about connecting and serving.  Would you say that there are characteristics of an organization that make it more susceptible to becoming a narcissistic system?  I think about things like a hierarchical structure.  What are your thoughts?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s good.   I do think there’s something to say about structures, for sure.  Sometimes hierarchical structures, I think sometimes theologies, and oftentimes it has much more to do with psychology.  In other words, how people show up, what they bring, and the baggage they bring.  People in pain connect to other people in pain, and they look for and idolize the narcissistic leader, right?  I mean, you can wrap whatever theology or structure you want around it.

And this is where it gets a little bit tricky at times because people often come to me and they’ll say, “Well, you probably see much more narcissism in non-denominational churches in your work.”  And I’ll say, “No, I see it in places where there’s lots of accountability.  I see it in places where there are level structures and hierarchical structures.  I see it in places where women can be pastors and women aren’t allowed to be pastors.”

I do think those things factor in at times, but I do think that oftentimes, it’s a group of people looking for… the psychological language is they’re“ideal hungry followers”.  They’re idealistically looking for someone to meet all of their heroic aspirations, you know.  Someone really to be God, in a sense, God in the flesh.  And this is easily transferable into all kinds of different organizations and startups.  I lived and pastored in the Bay Area for a while, and you know, the kinds of leaders that commanded the attention at the head of startups, you know, and larger companies in the Bay Area, oftentimes, there were a group of followers who are hungry for that kind of heroic leadership, you know.  And so, it’s a function of some kind of collective psychology as well, too.

Andrea:  Right.  That sense of needing a savior or needing a hero to come save the day and then, ah, phew, I feel relieved that somebody is gonna save this or save me or finally, somebody thinks what I think, and they’re going to take the message further.  And then that sense of relief, it just seems like people just let down their guard then and follow willy-nilly.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, I think that’s it.   And I think that this is not a contemporary phenomenon.  I think we’ve been doing it for a long time.  I mean, I’ve been doing this kind of work for over twenty years now, and it’s a shock to me that we’re really not much further along than we were even twenty years ago.  And that’s what?  The advent of lots of information, psychology and understanding spiritual and emotional abuse and trauma and gaslighting.  And we’re still missing it and following leaders who trick us into thinking that they’ve got it all, that they’re the hero.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Let’s move this conversation toward healing.  Let’s say a church then they’ve had a pastor that has displayed this narcissistic bite and has now left, and the church needs to heal somehow.  The temptation is to say that, “Oh good, the pastor’s gone, so we’re better now.”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yes.

Andrea:  But I know that you would not say that that’s necessarily the case.  So, can you tell us what kinds of steps a system or a church should go through to really heal and not allow that to happen again?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s a great question, and again, a complicated one.  Do you have two hours?

Andrea:  I know.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  So, one of the easier conversations I have with churches that are in crisis is around me coming in and helping them get out of a pretty significant jam with a narcissistic pastor.  Like when they’re really stuck, it’s not hard for a church to make the choice to say, “Come on in, and help us figure out what’s really going on here.”  The much harder conversation is once we get to a place where perhaps that narcissistic leader steps down, and I say to them, “Now, the real work happens, because now you’ve got to ask yourself a question, ‘How did we get into this in the first place? And what implications does this have for our team and for our structures and our organization and our people and our vision going forward?’”  And it’s kind of like what I hear then is, “Thank you so much for helping.  Don’t call us; we’ll call you,” and I’m being serious.

Andrea:  I believe you.  I absolutely believe you.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  And so that’s really… it’s sad to me.  It’s disturbing because what they end up doing… and we’ve seen this recently with quite a prominent example – I won’t name it – but a very large church that went through its own pain, and they develop a job description for the very same person that they just fired.  It’s kind of like, “Really, you couldn’t invest just a little bit more money for someone to come in and help you walk through this next season?”

Andrea:  Do you think that it’s money, though?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  I think it’s more than money.  I think it’s fear.  Like, all the attention is on narcissistic leader before then, but then I ask them to turn the attention to them and their own complicity in it.  I ask them to look at long-term patterns.  I ask them to look at structures, and I ask them to look at implicit beliefs.  All this comes from the Systems Thinking of Peter Senge, and when we do that kind of work, it’s kind of like, “Wow, now I have to actually ask hard questions of myself, and it was a lot easier to ask hard questions about the pastor.”

Andrea:  Well, if we’re already looking for somebody to save us and to be the hero, then if that hero then becomes… I don’t know, the bad guy, as soon as he’s gone, it’s like… the answer is gone, but also the problem’s gone.  You know, like you’re putting yourself in that position where you don’t matter in this scenario, and you do.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  You do.  And you’ve learned to live in a particular kind of way for a long time.  I think that there’s a sense of relief.  For instance, when that powerful narcissistic leader leaves, and there’s this sense of, “We’re okay now.  The problem is gone,” when the problem is still there.  It exists in the air, people’s ways of being, their styles of relating and communicating and assigning tasks and programming, all those things have been sort of formed around the habits of the system.  And so, you know, I’m watching as a number of churches that I’ve consulted over the years made the choice not to do this, and now there are different stages of dysfunction, whether or not they’ve hired another senior pastor that’s replaying, or there’s competition and drama amidst the remaining…whatever it is.  There’s a remaining toxicity that they haven’t dealt with.

Andrea:  And they need to read your book and then give you a call.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Okay, is there a way that we can have healthy influence with somebody who does seem to be a narcissist?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Well, I definitely think that relationship – let’s just say relationship, period – with a narcissist is really difficult.  I think someone who’s diagnosably narcissistic… and I talked about the narcissistic spectrum.  So, there can be people who have traits who are not diagnosably narcissistic, but if you are NPD – narcissistic personality disorder – it’s really hard to have influence.  It’s hard to have any kind of honest relationship because… the metaphor I like to use is just imagine you’re dealing with the actor on stage, not the real person behind the stage.  And so all you’re getting is the mask, and oftentimes they don’t know anything other than the mask.

So, the short answer to your question is it’s really hard to have influence.  Now, with someone with narcissistic traits, you’ll notice a curiosity.  And the question I like to ask – and this is a kind of litmus test for me – is, is someone willing to ask the question of his or her people, “How do I impact you or how do you experience me?”  And if a leader is willing to ask that question to his or her people and really receive honest answers without a threat of termination or whatever it might be, then I think we’re well on our way to the possibility of health.  But if they shut that down or if they don’t allow people to answer honestly, only answer a certain way, then I’m really suspicious of the possibility of any influence or progress.

Andrea:  Now, I’ve heard you use the word fauxnerability, like fake vulnerability.  It sounds like that would come into play here.  Like, how can you tell whether somebody is being genuinely vulnerable or just playing the game so that you think that they are?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  You ask good questions.  Wow, this one… so fauxnerability, that’s a term that I came up with – I hope no one else has used it before – but this fauxnerability looks a lot like honest self-disclosure.  It looks like transparency.  It may even look a little bit like empathy, but it really demonstrates none of those qualities and it’s really tricky. And you know, I’ve experienced this, and so that’s why I name it.  I’ve been sucked into it.  How do you notice it?  Because generally there are a number of different things, and the description is kind of laid out in more detail in the book.

But more often than not, when a person who’s fauxnerable, not vulnerable, talks about his or her life, they talk about their life in general terms.  They don’t talk about how they specifically have hurt people.  They may say, “Oh, I’ve made my share of mistakes over the years.”  But they won’t necessarily say, “Yeah, I just had to confess to someone that I’d been a real bully to them.”  You know, they won’t be that specific, right?  And they don’t manifest repentance or real genuine honesty over the course of time.  They may say something halfway honest at one point, but you don’t see that lasting over time.  And so, those are two common characteristics that you see with people who are generally more fauxnerable. 

Andrea:  All right.  Now, I have noticed that a lot of people, but I would say women in particular – this is what I’ve seen more – are pretty sensitive to the urges within them to want to be on stage, to want to perform, to want to lead or speak up with their voice, but they’re sensitive about it.  They’re nervous to share their voice.  They’re nervous to speak up or to lead because of their prior experience with what may or may not have been narcissism.  Or they’re worried about it being unhealthy power, a desire for glory.  I mean, this is certainly me.  So, I’m describing myself, certainly.  But would you help us bring some clarity to that difference between a healthy desire for influence and an unhealthy desire, whether that be on a stage, in a boardroom, or a conversation?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, yeah.  Well, I think what we always have to look at is one’s motivations.  And I think there can be and ought to be a healthy desire for influence that comes out of true humility and a desire to connect with others, to meet the needs of others.  And not in an unhealthy, self-sacrificial kind of way, but in a healthy self-surrendered kind of way.  Our motives are always mixed, you know.  And so, when someone comes to me and says, “Wow, I loved that attention that I got on stage tonight when I preached.”  That’s the second thing that’s actually encouraging to me.  Like, I’ll often say, “Thanks for saying that out loud,” because I think that sort of takes the power away from the narcissistic impulse.

I do think for women, in particular – and maybe I’m missing a piece of this – but I think at least a part of what I hear from some women who’ve been disempowered is, “Boy, it’s really tough to get up there and exert an influence when I’ve been so disempowered over time.”  And I know because I’m teaching a seminary where there are a number of women who’ve experienced this and now they’re preaching.  And I remember one woman saying to me, “There is a kind of like, ‘Screw you, I’m gonna get up there, I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do, and I’m not gonna take no for an answer anymore.’”  And what I want to say is if that’s the case, that kind of feisty, edgy, maybe a little angry, just be honest about it.

And I think that there can be actually something beautifully repentant about that as well and honest about that, but just be honest about it.  I think that the more we disclose our lives to one another, our motivations, the more we realize that we’re all mixed.  None of us is, you know, perfect in terms of our own motivations, but I do think those who’ve been disempowered, sometimes it’s like, “I don’t have the benefit of choice or autonomy.  Like, I just get to show up and be humble.  Like, I actually have to fight my way to the stage, and that’s harder.”

Andrea:  Hmm.  Yeah, and I think that if you’re willing, if there’s something… at least what I found for myself, I should say, is that when I have found that I’m willing to be embarrassed in the moment – like, maybe it won’t be perfect, maybe I’ll get rejected – when I’m willing to put that on the line for the message, it doesn’t matter how I get the message out, whether it’s on stage or whatever.  There’s something about that, like you’d said, “You’re not just sacrificing yourself in an unhealthy way, but you’re willing to lay down the ego part of it even if it does end up feeling good.  There’s something about that initial, like, “I’m willing to put this on the line even if I screw up.  I’m gonna do this because I love people more than I’m worried about what they think of me.”

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.  And that’s where I’d hope and we’d hope, you know, that we’d all end up at some point.  And it’s obviously more complicated than that.  And I want all of your listeners to know that for those of us who have influence, you know, who record podcasts, who write books… I mean, someone actually presumed that I wasn’t narcissistic because I was writing on this.  And I said, “Oh, no, no, no.  You don’t actually get to a place where you publish books, and you speak a lot on these kinds of things without having a little bit of narcissism in you.”

But there is a… people get thrown off by this language, but a healthy narcissism.  I’d rather call it maybe a healthy confidence.  Psychologists tend to call it a healthy narcissism, at times, for young people like your five-year-old, who says, “Daddy, daddy, look at me! I’m doing a handstand,” you know.  But that healthy sense of… for instance, watching some of my students preach for the first time, and that healthy sense of like, “I did really good job. I’m really grateful;  I’m proud of myself.”  There’s something beautiful about that that I think we can celebrate.

Andrea:  Hmm, without going to the top of the roller coaster every time.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah.

Andrea:  It’s not the roller coaster.

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Yeah, that’s great.

Andrea:  So good.  Thank you so much, Chuck, for your work in this area and for sharing your work with us and being a “Voice of Influence” for our listeners.  Where can they find you and your book?

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:   Sure.  So, I blog.  I’ve got resources and other information over at chuckdegroat.net.  And then the book is called When Narcissism Comes to Church, and it’s at all the major booksellers.  So, you can find it at just about everywhere you look.

Andrea:  Perfect.  Thank you so much, Chuck!

Dr. Chuck DeGroat:  Thank you so much for hosting!  Great questions!  I appreciate it!