Story, 450: Your comment about being undermined by ex-colleagues reminds me of something that happened to a friend. She was a PhD/executive in the life sciences sector in Scandinavia.
A few months after starting at a large public company, she noticed that bright, strong, opinionated female colleagues were plagued by rumours that they were manic, bipolar and/or medicated on mood stabilisers. She found it very odd, since her interactions with these women contradicted any of those signs.
Eventually, she came to find out the rumours were started by the CEO, who was completely crazy. Everyone who had been at the firm for any length of time knew where they came from, he was protected by human resources, and the place was paralysed by the fact that he could get away with it. She watched seven talented women leave because of the abuse/hostility.
My friend eventually left and of course you guessed it: he had started a rumour that she was on Prozac.
We know that narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and narcissistic traits are a concern in executive leadership, although nobody knows exactly how many C-suite executives meet the clinical criteria for NPD. What I find extraordinary is how much time and energy organisations spend undermining talented women rather than benefiting from their abilities. Imagine how different the world might look if women weren’t constantly forced to defend our reputations, prove our sanity and navigate the insecurities of powerful men. Imagine what they could accomplish if all that intelligence, ambition and energy went towards actually doing their jobs instead of surviving the people who were threatened by them. The waste of human potential is staggering.