"They basically said that there is a sociopathic kind of leader who actually derives much of their feeling of success from being "above" their workers. ...ther

"They basically said that there is a sociopathic kind of leader who actually derives much of their feeling of success from being "above" their workers. ...there's actually a type of person that derives their self-worth from being "alpha" and will even act against the interests of their company in the pursuit of this feeling." I was a senior BA (contract) on a govt project for about $22 million (not a big deal in the scheme of things). The tech lead, looking back, was the classic narcissist (CN) and probably on the sociopathic scale - incompetent, bullying when questioned, believed his crap and had got away with it for years. One unfortunate day I deigned to question this guy's pronouncement of take all the low hanging fruit from the design and do them first. There was no thought of future impact to infrastructure or scale. And disappointingly, the PM, BA, Dev & Test teams didn't stand up to him - only bitched behind his back. Cut a long story short, from then on he ghosted me in meetings and after spitting my coffee (in what I discovered was my last meeting) at more of his bs, I was told on the Friday I had 'negative feedback' and had to work my two weeks notice and finish up. I asked his pet PM how that worked as they obviously had no confidence and crickets followed - I never returned. The project failed and made a couple of paragraphs in the papers, I was interviewed by the minister's team months down the track, explained why the project failed and watched the carpet get lifted up and $22 million of tax payers cash get swept under it. CN is still there as it's next to impossible to fire govt employees in this country, but apparently he has little or no responsibility now. Small mercies for the tax payer I guess. I have many other stories from two decades in this game, but this is the most recent and the first where I didn't finish my contracted time.