In And Out Of The Loop

Your attention please to the difficult subject
of expecting attention whether those expecting
your attention are narcissists and when they are not,
they are simply using a position or a platform
to get the message they have to share across
after which they will eventually step down.

The difference between the non-narcissist
and a person who can't help felling rewarded
by attention is that the person who helps themselves
and leaves office voluntarily has 'an off switch'
that tells them when they have taken enough
of other people's time and attention, whereas
for the narcissist every day is groundhog day,
a day when they repeat the same formula of seeking
attention on the basis of their self worth/soaking up
the time others give them as if they other people need
to be that needy of them in an infinite loop. 

This leads to problem no 2....

For the narcissist time and attention are a zero gain sum,
the more of other peoples time and attention they have
the less such people have for their own ideas and lives,
and the more they get trapped in a circuit of being defined
by the needy leader and less able to define themselves.
The less the narcissist can be told they are selfish,
the more intensely they forbid such ideas in their presence
-because to them only other people can be narcissistic
and selfish, for not giving them more of what they feel is owed to them. 

The more reinforced the loop becomes
the harder it gets for those in the loop
to stop themselves going as loopy as the leader.

The Romans had an answer for this when they had emperors.
The emperor kept a servant to walk behind him everywhere
he was deferred to in public to say to the leader 'You are not a God'.

But the lasting evidence of emperors heeding the servants voice was patchy.