Published on: April 7, 2025 at 6:19 pm
South Korea’s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law on December 3, 2024, sparking a national political crisis.
That tone-deaf declaration of martial law, recommended or enabled by the people he chose to surround himself with, could indicate narcissism, according to Academy of Management Scholar Tim Pollock of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“Look at who President Yoon appointed, who his close advisors were, how so many of his political appointees to the Defense Ministry and elsewhere on the State Council were not people with depth of experience, but rather were people he went to high school with,” Pollock said. “He surrounded himself with this close coterie of yes-men and yes-women who are going to tell him what he wants to hear and who don’t have strong credentials, so they’re even more reliant on him for their position.
“This is the kind of stuff that can happen to leaders who insulate themselves from criticism like what we saw in South Korea, where President Yoon decided to declare martial law, and it blew up in his face so spectacularly,” he said. “It wasn’t well-thought-out; even if he was trying to do what he thought was best, he didn’t even manage it very effectively, because he didn’t know that he wasn’t talking to everybody and didn’t have widespread support.
“He was more isolated by his core group of underqualified advisers who were out of touch with public opinion.”
A symptom of narcissistic leaders surrounding themselves with yes-men and ignoring other perspectives is a lack of connection with their broader communities and key audiences, Pollock said.
“Narcissism is leading them to take actions that are really hurting them and that hurt their country and create these giant crises,” he said. “Choo Kyung-ho, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy, and member of the National Assembly of the Republic of South Korea is from the president’s party, and they used to be close.
“They were both prosecutors together, but then they had a falling out and President Yoon saw him as an enemy because he was no longer following along with everything that Yoon wanted to do, and narcissists can’t tolerate criticism.”
