Self Serving
Type. Most friction is credit. Your name does not travel with your work.
This test scores behaviours you have experienced at work. It does not diagnose anyone. Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis that only a qualified mental health professional can make, and this page never uses that label for a result. Nothing here is HR, legal or medical advice. If your manager's behaviour leaves you frightened or unwell, talk to a therapist, your employee assistance programme or, in the US, call or text 988.
Your highest friction is Credit. Work you did reaches the people above your manager without your name on it, ideas you raised come back later as your manager's, and when something goes wrong it is explained upward as the team's mistake. This test calls that pattern Self Serving. It describes where the credit goes, not the character of the person moving it.
Read your score first. Under 25, this is a mild lean and probably not your problem. Between 25 and 60, it is friction worth fixing quietly. Over 60, it is the pattern you work inside, and it has a cost you will feel at your next promotion round: the people deciding do not know what you did.
This is the pattern people most want to call narcissistic. Resist it. Most of the time it is something more ordinary: a manager who is judged on visible output, in a place that rewards the person in the room, and who has never been told that naming their people is part of the job. Some managers do take credit on purpose. You cannot tell which from the outside, and the fix is the same either way.
The fix is to make your name part of the record. Not by complaining that it is missing, which reads as a grievance and rarely changes anything, but by putting it there yourself. A short written summary of your work, sent to your manager every week or two, is a record that exists before the credit is handed out. Asking to present your own work to the next level once a quarter is the second move.
If you have tried both for a quarter and the pattern holds, your promotion case is being written without you. That is when the three columns below matter.
What to do with this result
If you do not manage people
Your Monday one on one. Ask for visibility, not credit: I would like to present the results of this project to the next level myself, with you in the room. Would that work for the next review? Most managers say yes to that sentence, and the ones who do not have told you something.
The three columns. Leave, if friction is over 60, you have sent the written summaries for a quarter, and your name still does not reach the room. Stay and act, if the summaries and one presentation would fix most of it. Stay and wait, if a new manager or a reorganisation is already scheduled.
Credit is also the first thing a promotion committee looks for. The promotion block finder shows whether visibility is what is holding you back.
If you manage people
Naming your people upward is part of the job, not a courtesy. If your reports would score you here, the change costs nothing: say their names in every update you send up, and let them present their own work at least once a quarter. It also makes you look better, because a manager whose people are known is a manager who can be promoted.
The 360 lite asks three to five of your people how it looks from their side, and the management style quiz shows which habit you lean on. The 5 Minute Leader builds the habit five minutes a day.
Next step
If this is a legal matter
Harassment and discrimination at work are legal questions, and a quiz cannot answer them. In the US, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explains what the law covers and how to file a charge at eeoc.gov. In the UK, ACAS gives free, impartial advice at acas.org.uk. An employment lawyer can tell you what applies to you. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
The other results
- AbsentMost friction is direction. Usually untrained, rarely indifferent.
- ControllingMost friction is room. The how of your work is not yours.
- VolatileMost friction is steadiness. You manage a mood, not the work.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Boss Pattern Test: what kind of boss do you have, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.