Empaths vs Narcissistic Leaders: How to Stay Powerful and Unmanipulated

We explore how empathic, high-achieving leaders can stay in their power around manipulative or narcissistic-leaning bosses by trusting the body’s signals, naming patterns, and using clear boundaries. We introduce the SAFE method to move from confusion to clarity and regulation.

• redefining leadership as stewardship and service
• trusting somatic cues over analysis
• why empaths get targeted for emotional regulation
• seeing manipulation patterns without diagnosing
• the SAFE method: see, anchor, fortify, exit
• scripts for boundaries and documentation
• ending the overexplaining and emotional loops
• case study of a leader reclaiming confidence
• sensitivity as a core leadership advantage
• prioritizing well-being to stay grounded

You can go to the podcast show notes, you can send me a text message, or you can always send it to our email at infolisajeffs.com
If you want to speak to me about one-on-one coaching and get some private coaching, you can head on over to my website and book a test drive consult
Leader, I love you. I appreciate you. As always, let’s stay connected

Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Problem Without Labels
• 4:10 Why Your Body Knows Before Your Mind
• 8:30 The Empath’s Confusion Trap
• 12:40 Depersonalizing The Power Game
• 16:40 How Empaths Get Targeted
• 21:05 From Self-Doubt To Self-Trust
• 24:00 The SAFE Method Overview
• 26:05 S: See The Pattern Clearly
• 30:10 A: Anchor Into Reality
• 33:00 F: Fortify Your Boundaries
• 36:00 E: Exit The Emotional Loop
• 39:10 Case Study: Reclaiming Confidence

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Today we're diving into a topic that I think you're going to resonate with, especially if you are an empathic leader or you consider yourself to be a highly sensitive leader. This will likely be applicable to experiences you've had either in your personal life or in your work. This is based on a question I received for the podcast, and we're going to be talking about how do you, as an empathic, high achiever, stay in your power in the presence. And this person used the word narcissistic, so narcissistic leader. Now, we're not going to diagnose anyone. I'm certainly not going to diagnose anyone. Narcissistic or they're a narcissist, it is thrown around quite often nowadays. Now, whether a person truly meets all the criteria of being a narcissist, or they have narcissistic traits, maladaptive behaviors, they can be manipulative. We're going to use this when we are talking about a person in leadership. I don't love the word toxic, but sometimes it's just the easiest word to use. How do you, as an empathic, high-achieving leader, stay in your power in the presence of this type of leader without you shrinking, losing yourself, or this is the big one, questioning your reality, questioning what you are experiencing. Because this is one of the biggest challenges when we are dealing with a personality. So if you've ever walked out of a meeting and you're just feeling confused, maybe you're feeling heavy energy, or you're suddenly doubting yourself. Like it just felt off, even though nothing was technically said that was blatant. You're in the right place for this podcast because we're going to get into how you can truly empower yourself and realize that one of the biggest issues that I found with my clients and even in my personal life is these individuals can really throw you off your game. One, because they're not individuals that think like you. So if you're a high integrity, potentially highly sensitive leader, you are not going to be operating the same as someone who has maladaptive, manipulative behaviors, potentially is a narcissist or has narcissistic traits. One of the things we love to do is try to make sense of something. Try to figure something out, but you're not going to make sense of any of the behaviors because the behaviors are meant to confuse you. Remembering that when we are dealing with this type of leadership, I don't even call it leadership because it's not leadership. In my definition of leadership, is you are the captain of the ship. If you call yourself a leader, you have positioned yourself as captain of this ship, meaning you are taking care of everybody on that ship. You are guiding everyone to safety. You're not jumping in the graph before everybody else. That is leadership. You are there to guide, you are there to teach, you are there to serve. Someone that is in leadership and has these traits is not there to serve. They're there to serve themselves. There's a lot of different reasons why someone can develop these traits. So releasing the judgment of it, but seeing it for what it is, it's not actually leadership. It's a form of power and control and manipulation. And really, you're just a pawn in their game. So you're not gonna make sense trying to see a person like this through your lens of the world. And that is why it can be so confusing. So you're not dramatic, you're certainly not imagining things. This is a big one, and you're definitely not too sensitive. A lot of times your nervous system is gonna pick up on these dynamics, especially if it is covert, your body is gonna know what's up before your mind tries to figure it out. So if you've ever gone into a room and maybe you're networking, and there's one person you're talking to, and you're just they haven't said anything off-putting, they haven't done anything particularly off-putting, but something doesn't feel right. I don't feel safe. Like I don't want to be in a dark room alone with this person, and I can't really understand why, but I don't feel safe. Trust that, please. Always trust your body. This is one of the things in my work that I say often to my clientele, because my clientele, a lot of times they're thinkers, right? They can be overthinkers and they can be very intelligent, but the mind can go very fast and it wants to analyze things. And the body already knows. The body doesn't need to analyze anything. I went to a doctor's appointment with my mother in a hospital, and it was really interesting when we were in the waiting room, and this doctor came in. Immediately, my body was like, oh, something is not right here. Something feels very off. And my mother felt it too. Afterward, when he left, we just looked at each other. What was that? Because that did not feel normal. Even though he was professional, he didn't say or do anything inappropriate. It was the feeling. And it was interesting because the next time we went in, I had the same feeling, but my mother didn't. She was kind of like, oh, I felt a little different. He seemed a little bit nicer, or he seemed a little bit this. You gotta always trust that first intuitive nudge. Okay, this is part of the deeper inner work when it comes to you truly being in your power, safe, regulated, calm, cool, collected in your power is learning to trust yourself and always trusting your first intuition about someone. Okay. So a lot of times in these dynamics, you can start questioning yourself and asking. These are all the confusion plays. If you're an empathic leader, you're gonna feel the room before the room even speaks to you. You're gonna walk in, you're gonna feel it. And when you're around someone with narcissistic tendencies, especially in leadership, and remember, a lot of when I say narcissistic, we're really looking at the manipulation, we're looking at the power plays, we're looking at the control. Your system is gonna go into hyper attunement. So you're gonna be reading micro shifts, you're gonna be reading tone changes, emotional pressure. You're gonna read the undercurrents that maybe everyone else doesn't see. So maybe everyone else in the office is oh, our boss Sally or our boss Reggie is so great. They're so this or so that. And you're thinking in your mind, I don't know, the something feels off here. Now, there's different stages, right? So this is that beginning stage where you might be saying to yourself, something feels off. I'm not sure if I can trust what I'm feeling, everything looks okay, everything, everyone else seems like to be getting along with this person and it feels healthy. Sorry, it doesn't feel healthy, it looks healthy, but you gotta trust your energy, right? Because if you are second guessing yourself and second guessing your feelings, this can be where disempowerment begins in this dynamic. Because your self-doubt comes in. So instead of directing the energy toward the person with the narcissistic traits, you're directing it to yourself and you're questioning yourself. And this can just this can lead to you trying to have different conversations, trying to make sense of things, trying to figure things out, blaming yourself, feeling guilty. And that is not what we want. Because that is part of the game. You are entangled in that person's game. Remember that it is a game. When you are dealing with a narcissist or when you're dealing with a very highly manipulative boss that is not there for true leadership, that is there for power and for gain and for control. They are not operating in integrity. It is just a game. You are like a pawn in their game. They are not truly seeing you for who you are. The more you can depersonalize it, even though it's extremely hard. And I'm not saying depersonalize to ignore it, certainly not. In fact, if you can get out of this situation, I highly recommend it. Now, I know it's not always the easiest to just leave. Now, that's a whole different story that goes into lack and scarcity and that. So we'll, we can get into that in another episode. But depersonalizing it doesn't mean that you're somehow just taking it on. It means not allowing yourself to get wrapped up in the mental anguish that can happen when dealing, when you're entangled in this type of dynamic. So, why do these types of personalities often target the empathic leaders, the highly sensitive leaders, the emotionally intelligent leaders, right? You intuitively know if you are one of these empathic, highly sensitive leaders, you intuitively, whether you're aware of it or not, you know how to soothe tension. You know how to make things easier, you smooth over conflict, you can often take responsibility. This is great for the narcissistic leader. They get emotional regulation without giving anything in return. In fact, they get it when giving confusion in return. They also get a lot of attention, which is what they are desiring. Again, we're not trying to judge I don't want this to come off like we're judging. Again, there's many reasons why people become like this. But to empower yourself, you have to see things for what they are. They're often emotionally turned inward, even though they are feeling a lot of emotions or picking up a lot of emotions, they're often inward facing. So a narcissistic leader is not gonna waste time on people who are not going to quote unquote bite emotionally because it doesn't do anything for them. They're not interested in people who are not engaging with them. So if you are trying to understand them and you're trying to analyze them, and you're overthinking, and you're holding empathy for their behavior, for their manipulative behavior, for their toxic behavior, you're giving them the benefit of the doubt. I have been here. I think every empathic leader at least has one big story about a narcissistic personality in their life. Whether it's a parent, whether it's a partner, whether it is a boss, someone in their life where they had to kind of go through that school of hard knocks, which every empath deals with at some point. This is one of the one of the ways we learn boundaries, and we may need to go through it multiple times, but we start giving this personality trait the benefit of the doubt. We start doubting ourselves. Are we really seeing what we're seeing? Maybe they're doing it because of X, Y, Z. My first experience was with a partner. And it's funny because when this was when I was in high school, and this was a partner who I really wasn't interested in at first. And that was my body's way of telling me, no, this person is not good. This person is not for you. And what happened was a whole lot of love bombing, a whole lot of persistence on his end. And finally I caved in because I was like, oh, this person must really care about me. This person must be really interested in me if they keep trying to ask me out and they're paying attention. And it wasn't until the relationship started to dissolve a few years later that I really started to take those glasses off and start to see it for what it was, and then backtrack to the beginning and realize: oh, this has been problematic from the beginning. I just was making, I don't want to use the word excuses for it, but I wasn't actually seeing it for what it was. And I didn't blame myself or feel like I did anything wrong. It was simply a really powerful lesson to one, trust myself, two know that I deserve so much better. And three, really learning to see things with a clearer eye. And that again, that goes into trusting yourself. So not giving people the benefit of the doubt when their behavior says otherwise. So empaths like to make meaning of behavior, and narcissists like to exploit it. So empaths become the emotional thermostat. So, and this can happen in an entire office, right? The empathic leader is going to turn into the regulator for the entire office. And that is absolutely exhausting. If you are going through that or you have gone through that, no, first and foremost, you are not meant to carry that load. You're meant to lead, you're not meant to absorb. And a narcissistic leader, so narcissistic boss or narcissistic manager, whatever it is, or someone that has those traits, is going to want to exploit that. That is what they do. Again, it's not personal to you. It is you're just part of the game. So part of the framework to move beyond this, empower yourself. And I have to say that a lot of times we can get self-critical. And one of the things that I realized over the years, working with different clients, some clients who have literally been the top performers in Canada. I'm not going to give too much information because I want to respect the confidentiality of these situations, but I've worked with individuals who have been top performers and have found that their confidence has absolutely been crushed working with these types of highly manipulative, dysfunctional, toxic personalities. So if you have experienced it or you are experiencing it now, realize that this is not a you problem. You did not cause this. There's nothing wrong with you. Now, again, we again we don't want to point fingers and judge, but that there's definitely nothing wrong with you. There is significant problems with these type of behaviors. Whether the person is intentionally trying to harm or not, the behaviors are quite harming. So I need you to see it as the this isn't a me, I'm the problem. This is I've been intertwined, entangled with these very damaging behaviors. And this is what I can do to empower myself after the case or while I am going through a situation. So the first part, this is called my safe method. And there's a reason why it's called the safe method, because a lot of times in these dynamics, we don't feel safe. A lot of times we stay in these dynamics because we don't feel safe. And a lot of times we can truly be in a place where it doesn't even look safe. So there's a lot of different dynamics. But at the root, when you start to truly empower yourself, you will start, you are going to feel safer. One of the reasons why when we feel disempowered, there's a lot of different elements where we don't feel safe. We either don't feel safe to use our voice, we don't feel safe to leave the situation, we certainly don't feel safe in the situation. We can start questioning our reality, we start questioning what's true, what we're really seeing. The first part of the safe method is see the pattern, right? We cannot change what we don't name. So I want you to look for the patterns. If you are dealing with a let's quote unquote toxic boss or a toxic investor or whoever the toxic individual is, it can be even be a coworker, it can be someone that you are that you've hired. I've worked with people who have hired people in, and the person that they have hired has been extremely have a more dominant personality and has come in and just wreaked havoc over the office, the environment. So I want you to look for blame shifting. Are you working with someone who is always shifting blame? They're never holding themselves accountable. It's always that person's problem, this person is the problem, always pointing the fingers, never taking accountability for their part in anything. Do they have ambiguous expectations? So nothing is really clear. Remember, narcissistic personalities, they feed off of that confusion. Is there emotional baiting? This is a big one, right? Do you feel like you are intentionally being triggered? Emotional baiting can look like someone saying something purposely to get a rise out of you. Again, this part is about just seeing the pattern, being aware of the pattern. Are they having unpredictable reactions? So you feel really unsafe because you never know when they're gonna fly off the handle or get really angry or aggressive. Are you getting inconsistent feedback? Again, it's just very confusing. One minute it's this, one minute it's that. Now, mind you, not all of these are that a person is narcissistic. Again, we don't want to label anyone. I'm certainly not diagnosing anyone, but the a lot of people have a lot of different things we might be talking about. For me, when I know it's really a problem, is my body lets me know. My body lets me know. Guilt trips. Are you getting the guilt trips? Now, you can have someone that that I have people in my family that will do guilt trips. Doesn't mean they're a narcissist. But if it's always guilt tripping, always pointing the finger, never having any accountability, it's always something else outside that can be very problematic. Number one in the safe method, again, is seeing the pattern. Two anchor into reality. So this is where a lot of empathic or highly sensitive leaders will lose themselves. This is where you lose yourself in questioning, you feel crazy, right? There's definitely been times in my life where I'm like, am I losing my mind here? This just feels so weird. Am I in the twilight zone? No, you're not. So anchoring means really getting clear. What actually happened? What did they say? What is mine in this? What is theirs? What am I assuming is based on fear and not fact? So anchoring is a way to pull you out of quote unquote the storm and bring you back into your center. Right? So first we're gonna see the pattern, we're gonna name it, we're gonna look, we're gonna have that awareness, then we're gonna anchor back into reality. This is about grounding yourself, it's about coming back in, centering, looking at the actual facts of what is happening. Questions are really great for this. And I don't mean questions that lead you into a loop, questions that bring clarity. This is really powerful to work with someone if you are experiencing this, working with a coach, working with a therapist, working with someone who has experience in these dynamics isn't going to gaslight you. So narcissistic dynamics are not won by arguing with them. And you don't even want to win anything. It's not a you don't want to get into a power struggle. It's not, it's not a power dynamic. It's about you being in your power. And you win by staying anchored in your truth of the situation, the truth of your power, the truth of your clarity, the truth of your regulation. That brings us to number three, the F in our safe method, fortifying your boundaries. So this doesn't mean that you have to put up huge walls, you have to be super cold. Boundaries can sound like I'm available at this time. I'm going to need that this in writing. As this is very important. If you are dealing with a person and you are very aware, you're not kind of wondering, this feels weird. You're beyond that stage of, no, I'm seeing this person clearly for their dynamics. I understand what's going on. Start getting things in writing. It's really important that you, especially if this is a superior that you are working under and they're giving you a lot of stuff, right? They're calling you, they're throwing a lot of things at you. Make sure you start getting things in writing. Very important. Another boundary. Let's stick to the original plan. You may find that when you're dealing with this type of personality, it's like this new adventure every day. Every day they're going in one direction, another direction. And again, there's lots of people that are like that that do not have these the toxicity with it. But again, this is about looking at the groups of behavior, the manipulation, the lack of accountability, defensiveness. You can also use a boundary. I'll get back to you once I've reviewed this. So boundaries change the entire power dynamic. And you may find that once you start setting boundaries and upholding them, most important, you find that narcissistic personality gets bored of you. Doesn't really want to engage as much because you're not giving them what they want. So the last one is you want to exit the emotional loop. This is the huge part of you taking your power back, truly feeling safe in this dynamic as much as you can while it's there. It's great if you can exit the dynamic, if that is an option. But you stop explaining, you stop overclarifying, you certainly stop defending, you let go of trying to be understood, and you stop absorbing their emotional volatility. I was working with a client who was a very high-performing leader in a major organization. She was very smart, intuitive, kind. Her team got along with her very well. They trusted her. But she had a VP who the emotional manipulation was quite high. So the VP would praise her one day and then tear her apart the neck. He would give vague feedback. He would disappear. He would come back angry. She never knew exactly which version she'd get. And she started to doubt herself. She started to question. Maybe I'm I'm not as good as I thought I was. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I just need to work harder and prove that I am good enough. No, absolutely not. This was not the problem. She was not the problem. She was being emotionally manipulated by someone who was feeding off her empathy and confusion and the engagement he was getting. Again, not blaming him, pointing fingers. I don't know his story, but I do know that the behaviors were causing her extreme. She wasn't sleeping well, her health was affected, her workouts were affected, her relationships were affected. It was, it can get to the point where it's a person who's empathic or highly sensitive, the in your entire system can have a reaction to this. So when we went through the pattern, the safe method, which again is seeing the pattern, anchoring into reality, setting boundaries, and upholding them, and stopping to feed the emotional loop, within a few weeks, she started to feel grounded again. She started to come back to herself, right? The confusion started to go away. She started to see things for what it was. And within a few months, she actually moved apartments. And everything started to improve once she was out of that vicinity. However, this is what happens if you can't, if you can't get out of a vicinity, you can still take your power back and feel relief by going through this process. And this is just the beginning. There's a lot more things that you can do. I don't think we realize how much these dynamics can affect a person. And a lot of times people think that empathic or highly sensitive leaders are somehow fragile or weak or whatever it is. And that is so far from the truth. And that's one of the biggest things that we have to start moving away from because it can cause a lot of shame and it can cause you to not use your voice and stand up for yourself and advocate for yourself. Because one, you can you see yourself as a powerful leader, you've accomplished so much. Why do you suddenly feel like you've been put in the spin cycle and flown out the backside and landed on your tush? And you're just like, what is happening? What has just gone on? And that is the power of these dynamics. This is the power of what these can do on a system that is so receptive to energy and emotion and people. So here's what I want you to remember your sensitivity, your intuition, your emotional intelligence, these are not flaws. These are extreme leadership assets. To really make the most of them, you gotta be anchored in who you are, in your identity, not attached to someone else's chaos. You are not here to manage people's emotional storms, you are here to lead with your integrity, with your clarity, with your grounded power. If you feel off around someone, trust that your body is smarter than your analytical mind. And you certainly don't need to become harder. A lot of times, empaths will go through this journey. This is one thing that I've noticed when it comes to communication. When I'm working with someone on communication and they come to me, there's often a point where one, they felt like they didn't have a voice. They felt like they've got they got shut down at some point. Then they flip over to the next side and they can sometimes go into really aggressive. So they feel like they either shut down completely or they get really aggressive. You don't need to shut down, you don't need to become harder, even though that is it's a very common pattern. If you're in one of those, that's okay. This is part of our learning, this is part of our growth. I've been in both. I've gone and I flipped back and forth. But when you truly come back to yourselves, it's about becoming clearer, feeling safe in your body, trusting yourself, and knowing that you have absolute control over these dynamics. Even if you do feel like sometimes they've been out of control or you've lost control, you can bring it back to you. Really see it as part of your soul growth, your learning journey. So if this resonated with you and you have specific questions, or you have a story to share that you want to share, please don't hesitate. You can go to the podcast show notes, you can send me a text message, or you can always send it to our email at infolisajeffs.com. If you want to speak to me about one-on-one coaching and get some private coaching, if you've gone through something like this and your confidence feels shaky, wobbly, or completely shattered, which can happen. And there's nothing to be ashamed of if that is the case. You can head on over to my website and book a test drive consult. Leader, I love you. I appreciate you. If you're highly sensitive or you're empathic, which you probably are if you're still listening this far, know that you feeling safe in your body and in the world is a priority. Don't feel guilty for doing what you need to do to feel grounded, safe, prioritized, whatever that means, whether it is putting money, time, effort towards your body, your health, your mind, your mental health, your hobbies, relationships, whatever it is. So often we get into these toxic dynamics because our cup isn't full. We are used to sacrificing our own well-being for others, and that train stops now. That train stops now. Our leadership is far too important currently, and as the years go on, heart-centered leadership is only going to expand, and you gotta start making sure that you are taken care of. Okay, I love you, leader. I appreciate you, and as always, let's stay connected.

SPEAKER_01: 42:23

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