Narcissistic leadership is a common form of leadership. The narcissism may be healthy or destructive although there is a continuum between the two. To critics, "narcissistic leadership (preferably destructive) is driven by unyielding arrogance, self-absorption, and a personal egotistic need for power and admiration."

A study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that when a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge. Researchers found that people who score high in narcissism tend to take control of leaderless groups.Freud considered "the narcissistic type... especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to... impress others as being 'personalities'.": one reason may be that "another person's narcissism has a great attraction for those who have renounced part of their own... as if we envied them for maintaining a blissful state of mind — an unassailable libidinal position which we ourselves have since abandoned."

Jesse Peterson (October 1, 1850 - October 22, 1921), was an American industrialist from Lockport, New York. He was the President of the United Indurated Fibre Company, President of the Buffalo Warehouse & Distributing Company, Owner of the Cascade Pulp Mills, Director and Vice President of the Lockport Water & Electric Company and an associate of Peterson & Sons.

Peterson was an influential Bourbon Democrat and in 1892 he was a Presidential Elector in support of Grover Cleveland, the party faction's sole Presidential success. He served for a time as Police Commissioner and Railroad Commissioner before being nominated as Mayor of Lockport.

Peterson was born in Belfast, New York and attended Bryant & Stratton College in Buffalo.

Jennifer Russell (born Jennifer Embry on August 7, 1978) is an American professional tennis player on the WTA Tour.

Russell is ranked in top 50 for doubles in Spring, 2009. Before joining the WTA tour she had won 13 titles on the International Tennis Federation Tour. She won her first WTA doubles title at the Gaz de France Stars in 2004. She was partnered with Mara Santangelo of Italy. In 2004 they reached the third round at Wimbledon, before being beaten by Martina Navratilova and Lisa Raymond. In 2005 they reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open.

Shmuel Ben David "Sam" Vaknin (born April 1961) is an Israeli writer. He is the author and publisher of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited (2001), editor-in-chief of the website Global Politician, and runs a website about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Vaknin was born in Qiryat-Yam, Haifa, the eldest of five children, to a Turkish mother whom Vaknin believes may have been a narcissist and a father who was a construction worker from Morocco. He describes a difficult childhood, in which he writes that his parents "were ill-equipped to deal with normal children, let alone the gifted," Vaknin reports that he has an IQ of 180.

He left home to serve in the Israel Defense Forces from 1979 to 1982. Between 1980 and 1983 he founded a chain of computerized information kiosks in Tel-Aviv, and in 1982 worked for the Nessim D. Gaon Group in Geneva, Paris, and New York. From 1986 to 1987 he was the general manager of IPE Ltd. in London. It was in the mid-1980s that he became aware of difficulties in his relationship with his fiancée, and that he had mood swings. In 1985 he sought help from a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Vaknin did not accept the diagnosis at the time. He moved back to Israel, where he became director of an Israeli investment firm, Mikbatz Teshua. He was also president of the Israeli chapter of the Unification Church's Professors for World Peace Academy.