A renowned professor of medicine was well-known for his lectures, and his very appearance was impressive and imposing. The man’s legendary reputation extended far beyond the university and many flocked to see him speak, including the most fashionable people in town who wouldn’t miss the event of the season. His lectures had a style midway between a television show and a circus act, with the professor playing the roles of presenter and clown rolled into one. Such was the atmosphere at the events organized in 19th-century Paris by the great neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, where he exhibited his female hysteria patients before an awestruck audience of thrill-seekers at the famous Salpêtrière School. The professor was a skilled lecturer, a trained orator, and a dramatic performer. He inspired his students and fascinated his spectators. When he spoke, he always said “we” and never “I.” He would announce that “we have found” this or “we have discovered” that, and pose rhetorical questions such as: What do we mean by that? What can we conclude? What does that tell us?
A woman in the audience who was active in the early feminist movement and represented the women studying at the university asked him in front of everyone, “Monsieur le professeur, when you say ‘we,’ to whom are you referring? Is it your laboratory team? The research group? The faculty?” Without a moment’s pause, oblivious to the student’s ironic tone, and hardly looking her in the eye, he replied with a sweeping gesture as if to say that the entire auditorium and even the world outside it revolved around him. “When we say ‘we,’ we mean us,” he said.
This true story, more amusing than aggravating, demonstrates narcissism in its classic form and all that we typically associate with it. The emphasis here is on image cultivation and vanity, magnetic charisma, and above all a generous helping of self-confidence. The neurologist, radiating self-directed enthusiasm, uses the royal “we,” once reserved for kings and queens. He does so as if it were a matter of course, without a grain of doubt or the slightest bit of embarrassment at his self-aggrandizing speech patterns. Some narcissism experts believe that pronounced attention to oneself is incompatible with highly intellectual thought, or at least requires a shortage of emotional and social intelligence. The professor ignores the obvious criticism aimed at him and devalues the questioner by paying her no attention. With almost virtuosic ease, he fends off the attack and converts it into an even greater performance of self-adulation. Meanwhile, his reaction unwittingly confirms the old joke about the difference between God and a university professor: God knows better than ever to become a professor.
A sought-after management trainer with impeccable teaching skills and correspondingly high fees gave a seminar at a leadership training center on the
