This reflection began yesterday with a phone conversation between myself and a colleague who once also served as both a provost and a dean. We compared notes gathered over years of leading teams, mentoring rising leaders, and managing the complicated personalities that appear in every institution. The similarities in our experiences were unmistakable. The behaviors, the motives, the patterns, and the intentionality all aligned in ways that were too consistent to ignore. That conversation became the spark for this story about insecurity, ambition, and the discipline of staying grounded when someone else has targeted your role from the moment they met you.

There is a moment in professional life when you understand that someone’s eyes were on you long before you realized it. You sense an attention that does not feel collegial. You sense a curiosity that does not feel organic. You sense a scanning that does not feel rooted in respect. These observations become the first clues that the person standing across from you is not observing the work. They are observing you.

There are certain people who reveal themselves before they reveal their goals. Their presence enters a room with calculation that most people cannot name but almost anyone can feel. Their posture carries an evaluation that has nothing to do with the agenda in front of them. They take stock of the energy around you. They take stock of the influence you carry. They take stock of the sense of direction that anchors you. They watch who greets you. They watch how others respond to you. They watch for any sign that you have a center of gravity they wish they could claim. These early behaviors are the markers of a colleague whose interest is not collaboration. Their interest is positioning.

They are Gunning for You

The person who targets your job from day one is rarely driven by genuine ambition. They are driven by the belief that success only exists when someone else is diminished. You begin to notice the pattern when they adopt your language in meetings or deliberately resist it, when they recast your decisions as hurdles, and when they present ideas that clearly trace back to the work you have already done. It is not flattery. It is reconnaissance. They are mapping the terrain they hope to overrun. Their behavior does not emerge from confidence. It emerges from insecurity shaped by years of needing to be perceived as exceptional.

You can always feel their intentions before anyone names them. They compete for visibility. They compete for proximity. They compete for approval from supervisors who have not yet realized they are observing a performance. They believe that if they replace you, they will inherit your influence and passion. What they fail to understand is that these cannot be transferred. Influence and passion is grown from integrity, consistency, and relationships. This is the first lesson they will learn too late.

When Narcissism Is The Engine Behind Their Pursuit

The person who begins gunning for your job early often carries traits that align with narcissism. It appears as charm until you see that charm is a tool. It appears as confidence until you realize confidence without humility is only theater. It appears as initiative until you notice every action is oriented toward personal advantage. Narcissists are attracted to roles that reflect back their desired image. They do not seek the work. They seek the meaning they imagine the title will give them. This is why your position becomes their fixation.

Narcissists cannot tolerate the existence of someone who receives the respect they believe they deserve. The very presence of a competent colleague destabilizes them. They experience your stability as a threat. They experience your relationships as competition. They experience your  presence as injustice to their ego. Their pursuit has nothing to do with the responsibilities of the job. Their pursuit is about the validation they believe the job represents. This is the core of narcissistic ambition. It is self focused and empty of purpose.

You will notice how their ego guides the smallest interactions. They overpower conversations. They reframe group successes as personal victories. They demand you meet in their office, not yours. They engage in selective praise that often carries an undercurrent of control. They test boundaries to see who will bend. They expect people to accommodate their needs without reciprocity. These traits become more visible over time as the gap widens between their self image and their actual contributions. That gap is what eventually unravels their credibility, but in the beginning, people often confuse their self importance with leadership potential.

How Narcissists Deploy Subtle Undermining

A narcissist does not attack directly. They undermine carefully. They do it in small, deliberate actions that accumulate over weeks and months. They use soft criticisms disguised as questions. They share half truths under the guise of concern. They identify any minor misstep you make and amplify it through casual conversation. They repeat your ideas only after diluting your ownership. These techniques are designed to wear down the trust others have already placed in you.

Their tactics escalate when they sense momentum. They volunteer for tasks that create visibility rather than tasks that support the team. They position themselves as indispensable even when their contributions do not justify the claim. They seek private conversations with supervisors to plant seeds of doubt. They locate any gap in communication and fill it with their own narrative. This behavior is rooted in entitlement. Narcissists believe they deserve the position they covet, even if they have not done the work required to earn it.

What makes their approach difficult to counter is the subtlety. A narcissist rarely says anything that is explicitly harmful. They rely on implications and side comments. They rely on tone. They rely on the quiet manipulation of context. Their goal is not to confront you. Their goal is to create an environment where you are slowly perceived as less effective. They want the team to look at you and wonder if you are losing your edge. This is how narcissists fight. They weaken the foundation rather than strike the structure.

How You Protect Your Center In Their Storm

When targeted by a narcissist, the challenge is not simply maintaining your job. The challenge is maintaining your equilibrium. Narcissists specialize in provoking reaction. They want to pull you into emotional conflict because it gives them fuel for the storyline they are building. They want you frustrated by the petty email they sent. They want you impatient. They want you defensive. Every moment of reactivity becomes material they can weaponize. This is why your calm becomes an act of power.

You protect your center by doing your work with clarity and by refusing to match their instability. You are measured in your speech. You are intentional in your decisions. You are consistent in your values even when their behavior feels like a direct challenge. You remind yourself that leadership is not a performance. Performance in this context is demonstrated in how you behave when someone else behaves without integrity. This is the space where real leaders distinguish themselves from pretenders.

Your steadiness becomes a truth that others begin to see. People recognize the difference between someone who is grounded and someone who is grasping. They notice how you respond to stress. They notice the absence of drama around your work. They notice the quality of your contributions. Over time, these observations form a pattern. That pattern is what shields you. It is what reveals the narcissist’s tactics for what they truly are. It is what keeps you anchored when someone else is trying to pull you off balance.

How Narcissists Eventually Expose Themselves

The most predictable aspect of narcissistic behavior is its eventual collapse. Narcissists overestimate their brilliance. They overplay their influence (e.g. their supervisor finally takes them up on their ongoing threats to resign if some particular doesn’t happen— like a raise). They underestimate the intelligence of the people around them. They assume their manipulation is invisible, but the truth is that patterns always show. Teams begin to notice who causes disruption. They begin to recognize inconsistencies between words and actions. They begin to hear the repetition of self praise. They begin to feel exhaustion from constant ego management. Then their own team loses confidence and refuses their entreaties.

The narcissist exposes themselves through the quality of their relationships. People distance themselves. Trust dissolves. Collaboration becomes strained. Complaints surface quietly. Supervisors start to connect dots. The very traits the narcissist used to climb toward your influence and passion become the traits that compromise their credibility. They find themselves without allies because narcissism is a relational debt that is never repaid. Every interaction costs something. Eventually the costs accumulate into a reputation that cannot be disguised.

Once exposed, the narcissist shifts strategies. They blame circumstances. They blame colleagues. They blame leadership. They never look inward because accountability threatens the fragile structure of their self image. They struggle to accept criticism. They struggle to adapt. They struggle to understand why people no longer respond to them with admiration. Their unraveling is painful to witness because it reveals how much energy they devoted to maintaining the illusion of superiority. In the end, the collapse is always self inflicted.

What Surviving Them Teaches You About Leadership

Enduring a narcissist who has targeted you teaches you lessons you would not learn any other way. It teaches you patience. It teaches you discernment. It teaches you how to listen between the lines. It teaches you that leadership is not only about guiding teams but also about managing personalities that operate from wounded egos. These lessons deepen your capacity to lead with clarity and resilience.

You learn the value of integrity in a deeper way. You learn that the long game belongs to those who build for community rather than those who scheme. You learn that credibility is earned one choice at a time. You learn that trust cannot be manufactured. You learn that consistency is a form of quiet power. You learn that self regulation is a strategic skill in environments where others are controlled by their own impulses. These insights stay with you long after the narcissist has exited your orbit and the organization.

You also learn that your work identity is strengthened by adversity. Each moment you resisted the temptation to retaliate became a moment that refined your character. Each moment you chose steadiness over reaction became a moment that shaped your reputation. Each moment you stayed grounded became a moment that signaled you operate from purpose rather than insecurity. In time, people see the difference clearly. The narcissist was chasing. You were cultivating success. These two paths never lead to the same destination.

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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a nationally recognized policy scholar, public intellectual, and civil rights advocate. A trusted voice in public policy, he has testified for state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, while also advising presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. His work has been cited by major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared on networks from MSNBC and PBS to NPR and DemocracyNow!. He is a recipient of more than 30 honors, including the 2025 NAACP Keeper of the Flame Award, Vasquez Heilig brings both scholarly rigor and grassroots commitment to the fight for equity and justice.