{"id":3577,"date":"2025-04-07T18:19:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T18:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3577"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:19:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:19:59","slug":"the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toxic Trait that Sunk South Korea\u2019s President"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law on December 3, 2024, sparking a national political crisis.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook 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,\u201d Pollock said. \u201cHe 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\u2019t have strong credentials, so they\u2019re even more reliant on him for their position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t well-thought-out; even if he was trying to do what he thought was best, he didn\u2019t even manage it very effectively, because he didn\u2019t know that he wasn\u2019t talking to everybody and didn\u2019t have widespread support.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was more isolated by his core group of underqualified advisers who were out of touch with public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNarcissism is leading them to take actions that are really hurting them and that hurt their country and create these giant crises,\u201d he said. \u201cChoo 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\u2019s party, and they used to be close.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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\u2019t tolerate criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher South Korea\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,27,71,19],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-c-suite","category-communicating","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Toxic Trait that Sunk South Korea\u2019s President - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"The Toxic Trait that Sunk South Korea\u2019s President\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-07T18:19:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:19:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":379,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/king-on-throne-on-peoples-back.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"BEHAVIOR\",\"C-SUITE\",\"COMMUNICATING\",\"LEADERSHIP\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-toxic-trait-that-sunk-south-koreas-president\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Toxic Trait that Sunk South Korea\u2019s President - 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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…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}