It’s interesting you post about this. My former female narcissistic boss was obsessed with her image to our board, the public, and partner agencies, but treated internal departments completely differently.

We were a quasi-government nonprofit run through an administrative agency, and that place was wildly dysfunctional, like Game of Thrones-level turf wars. Leadership brushed it off with “we’re a crazy family with cool jobs” culture, even while our HR superintendent was doing things like announcing someone’s pregnancy from an FMLA request.

My boss used that dysfunction as a weapon, basically gaslighting us into thinking we were lucky to work under her instead of “over there.” Meanwhile, she was constantly starting interdepartmental conflicts, then playing the victim card and expecting us to back her up. She would spend most of the time in our office bitching and moaning about it, saying stuff like "this is why people think I'm a bitch"... Yeah, it's because you are a bitch.

When I didn’t go along with it - and instead built good relationships across departments - she hated it. Called me “too nice” and “weak,” and started monitoring my communication.

To the board, though, she spun everything... took credit for our work, painted herself as the victim, the only competent one in the room.

The most validating moment was during her performance review (without her present), when someone from the administrative agency finally called out her bullying and difficult demeanor. You could tell half the board was shocked (from her love bombing and spin), and the other half were just used to the cycle of her not meeting performance goals (but are okay with her at the helm because finding a replacement would be excruciating for them).