They found that presidents with personality traits that psychologists describe as "grandiose narcissism" receive better ratings from historians, who tend to say, for example, that such presidents are more persuasive and more competent in a crisis.
Still, if you are the president, you shouldn't necessarily try to be more self-centered just in case a crisis arises. There are other traits that don't have the same negative consequences and that might be more important for good leadership, such as intelligence. Lincoln, commonly viewed as one of the country's best presidents, does not score highly on any of the researchers' measures of narcissism.
The most narcissistic presidents on the scale of grandiosity are, in order, Lyndon B. Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.
Unsurprisingly, the authors also found that presidents are more narcissistic than non-presidents.
As for the increase in narcissism over time, Lilienfeld said there is no obvious explanation for it. Some psychologists have argued that all of us are becoming more narcissistic, in which case it wouldn't be surprising that presidents are as well -- but that remains a controversial subject among researchers. ...MaxEhrenfreund,WaPo
And Obama? "President Obama is not included in the data set."
I think narcissism is definitely not okay. It's about as healthy and attractive as body odor. The less, the better.
