Today's Friday • 6 mins read
Narcissists are not equal. There is a hierarchy, and most narcissists know exactly where they sit in it. And the smaller ones are devoted followers of bigger narcissists.
It works like this.
The ordinary narcissist spends most of his time craving constant validation and status, always struggling with any perceived slight. Meanwhile, the more powerful, more grandiose, more dominant narcissists above them enjoy all of those things without even asking.
So they look up at the more powerful narcissist as if looking upward at a king on his throne. This admiration is almost a devotion at the altar of narcissism.
It serves some specific psychological functions that are well-documented in the literature on narcissistic personalities.
Once we understand those functions, we learn a great deal about how narcissism works, what it actually protects, and why narcissists so reliably cluster around powerful figures who mirror their own traits at a higher intensity.
Here are 7 reasons why narcissists are admirers of more powerful narcissists.
1. The Powerful Narcissist Validates Their Self-Worth by Association
For a narcissist, proximity to power is its own form of supply. Being close to a high-status, admired figure reflects back onto them. If a powerful person accepts them, acknowledges them, or includes them, that inclusion becomes evidence of their own worth.
This dynamic, known in social psychology as basking in reflected glory (Cialdini et al., 1976), is particularly pronounced in narcissistic personalities because their self-esteem is not internally generated. It depends on external sources.
A powerful narcissist at the top of a hierarchy becomes one of the most reliable external sources available. The ordinary narcissist does not need to build their own status from scratch. They borrow it.
2. Grandiosity Gives Them a Model To Aspire To
Narcissistic grandiosity is, at its core, a performance. It is a sustained presentation of superiority that compensates for an underlying sense of inadequacy (Kernberg, 1975).
Most ordinary narcissists are still developing and refining that performance. A more powerful narcissist who has perfected it becomes a template.
They study how the powerful narcissist commands a room, deflects criticism, and maintains an aura of invulnerability. They observe how entitlement is performed without apology.
This is aspirational modeling, and it is one reason ordinary narcissists are often intensely attentive to the powerful figures they admire, cataloguing their behavior in ways that go well beyond ordinary admiration.
3. It Reduces Their Fear of Inferiority
Beneath the grandiosity, narcissistic personality structure is organized around a deep fear of being ordinary, inadequate, or inferior (Ronningstam, 2005). That fear does not disappear with status. It requires constant management.
Aligning with a more powerful narcissist is one way to manage it. If you are part of the inner circle of someone dominant and admired, you are, by definition, above the people outside that circle.
The powerful narcissist becomes a buffer between the ordinary narcissist and the inferiority they most fear. Following them is not submission. It is a strategic move that keeps the fear at a manageable distance.
4. They Gain Access to Narcissistic Supply
Narcissistic supply refers to the attention, admiration, and validation that narcissists require to maintain their self-concept (Vaknin, 2003). Powerful narcissists tend to attract large amounts of it. They command audiences, generate public attention, and create environments where admiration flows freely.
An ordinary narcissist who positions themselves close to that figure gains access to narcissistic supply that would be difficult to generate independently.
They are present at the events, included in the conversations, visible in the circles where admiration is concentrated. Some of that supply inevitably reaches them. For a personality structure that runs on external validation, this proximity is functionally valuable.
5. They Feel Part of a Triumphant In-Group
Narcissists have a strong need to belong to groups they perceive as superior. This is not ordinary social belonging. It is hierarchical belonging, membership in something that can be held over others (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001).
A powerful narcissist typically leads or dominates a clearly defined in-group: a political movement, a company, a social circle, a follower base. Joining that group gives the ordinary narcissist access to a collective identity that feels elevated.
They are insiders. They are chosen. The out-group, everyone else, confirms their own superiority by contrast. The powerful narcissist makes that distinction visible and socially legible.
6. The Powerful Narcissist Models How To Avoid Accountability
One of the most consistent features of narcissistic personality structure is the avoidance of accountability. Accepting responsibility for harm, failure, or wrongdoing threatens the idealized self-image that narcissistic defenses are built to protect (Kernberg, 1975).
Powerful narcissists tend to have developed highly effective systems for avoiding accountability. They deflect, project, reframe, and surround themselves with people who absorb blame on their behalf.
For an ordinary narcissist still refining their own defenses, watching a more powerful figure operate without consequences is instructive and reassuring.
It confirms that the strategy works at scale, that the rules that apply to others do not have to apply to them either, if they accumulate enough power and surround themselves with the right people.
7. It Satisfies Their Need To Be on the Winning Side
Narcissists have a low tolerance for association with failure, weakness, or losing. Their self-concept requires alignment with strength and success.
A powerful narcissist who is visibly winning, accumulating status, defeating rivals, and commanding loyalty is exactly the kind of figure an ordinary narcissist wants to be near.
This is less about genuine loyalty than about outcome management. Being on the winning side protects their self-image. It also positions them to claim a share of the victory.
When the powerful narcissist succeeds, their followers succeed by extension. When things go badly, ordinary narcissists are also among the first to quietly reposition themselves, because the association with failure is a threat they will not tolerate for long.
Final Words
The admiration that ordinary narcissists feel toward more powerful ones is real, but not stable. This is the part that most analyses of this dynamic leave out.
Clinical literature on narcissistic personality structure consistently shows that idealization and devaluation are two sides of the same defense mechanism (Kernberg, 1975).
The powerful narcissist is idealized as long as they continue to deliver supply, reflected status, and a winning association.
The moment they fail, show vulnerability, or stop serving those functions, the admiration inverts. Devaluation follows. Sometimes rivalry does too.
The ordinary narcissist who once defended the powerful figure most aggressively can become their most pointed critic. The loyalty was always conditional on what the relationship provided. When the supply runs dry, so does the devotion.
This means that the clusters of narcissists that form around powerful figures are structurally unstable, regardless of how solid they appear from the outside. They are held together by mutual utility, not genuine connection.
Once you see that, you grasp the actual structure around powerful and ordinary narcissists in a workplace, a relationship, or a political context.
The admiration tells you what the ordinary narcissist needs and values. The devaluation, when it comes, tells you what the fan-following was actually about.
√ Also Read: Co-Narcissism: When You Manage The Ego of A Narcissist
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