All I need is a stage to shine: Narcissists' leader emergence and performance

Many of the world's leaders appear to possess narcissistic characteristics (e.g., Deluga, 1997). This begs a question as to whether and why narcissistic individuals are chosen as leaders and how they perform. Prior research has suggested that leadership emergence and performance of narcissistic personalities may depend on contextual factors. Of particular interests are those contextual factors that pertain to the interdependence of work relationships, because narcissists typically tend to “shine” in social settings where they can influence others. Therefore, the present study investigated the leadership emergence and performance of narcissistic individuals in low versus high reward interdependent teams that participated in an interactive team simulation task. We found that narcissists emerged as leaders irrespective of the team's level of reward interdependence and their individual performance. Yet, high narcissists performed better in the high reward interdependent condition than in the low reward interdependent condition.     

“See You in Court”: How CEO narcissism increases firms' vulnerability to lawsuits

Although some researchers have suggested that narcissistic CEOs may have a positive influence on organizational performance (e.g., Maccoby, 2007; Patel & Cooper, 2014), a growing body of evidence suggests that organizations led by narcissistic CEOs experience considerable downsides, including evidence of increased risk taking, overpaying for acquisitions, manipulating accounting data, and even fraud. In the current study we show that narcissistic CEO's subject their organizations to undue legal risk because they are overconfident about their ability to win and less sensitive to the costs to their organizations of such litigation. Using a sample of 32 firms, we find that those led by narcissistic CEOs are more likely to be involved in litigation and that these lawsuits are more protracted. In two follow-up experimental studies, we examine the mechanism underlying the relationship between narcissism and lawsuits and find that narcissists are less sensitive to objective assessments of risk when making decisions about whether to settle a lawsuit and less willing to take advice from experts. We discuss the implications of our research for advancing theories of narcissism and CEO influence on organizational performance.     

The perks of narcissism: Behaving like a star speeds up career advancement to the CEO position

It is widely acknowledged that narcissism is a peculiar characteristic of leaders, such as CEOs. However, the role of narcissism in CEO emergence and appointment has not been studied yet. We overcome this gap by studying whether having a highly narcissistic personality allows individuals to become CEOs sooner. We posit that these individuals have quicker career development, climbing the hierarchical chain faster. We also hypothesize that this relation may be moderated by the firm's characteristics, comparing family and nonfamily firms. Family firms are the most widespread organizational form of firms around the world, and their peculiarities might affect the appointment of narcissistic CEOs. Estimates on a sample of 172 individuals partially confirm the hypotheses. Highly narcissistic individuals become CEOs quicker, regardless of whether the firm is a family business or not. Narcissistic individuals thus benefit from their personality when aiming at becoming CEOs faster in their career advancement.     

Charisma,Macht und Narzissmus

Charisma, power and narcissism. On the diagnostics of an ambivalent leading qualityManagers are often obviously narcissistic personalities with “charismatic qualities”. The author discusses the background of these qualities and their ambivalence, because behind the brilliance of a successful manager may be a hidden narcissistic problem as the actual motive power. Nevertheless a constructive narcissism is to be distinguished from a destructive one. Charismatic constellations as well as narcissistic dynamics are to be understood not only as an individual problem but as an interactional phenomenon, involving both sides of a relationship. In order to explain these dynamics, the author presents the concepts of “narcissistic collusion” and “expanded self”. It is of great importance to the coach, to be able to analyse and to deal with these relational patterns — and also to preserve oneself from being involved in such narcissistic dynamics.     

Birds of a feather?: Firm sales growth and narcissism in the upper echelons at the CEO-TMT interface

Blending conceptual framing from the CEO-TMT interface literature with upper echelons decision-making theory, we develop a model of the role of CEO narcissism and narcissism in the upper echelons. We argue that narcissistic CEOs tend to have higher narcissism in their Top Management Teams (N-TMTs). In turn, TMTs characterized by narcissism can benefit from positive aspects of narcissism while avoiding its pitfalls; especially when strategic decision speed is slower and behavioral integration is higher. In a field study of 104 TMTs from publicly-listed South Korean firms, we find an association between narcissistic CEOs and N-TMT, and that N-TMT mediates in the indirect, conditional relationship between CEO narcissism and sales growth. We also invoke threshold theory in anticipation that outcomes associated with N-TMT may be nonlinear. In support of our threshold hypothesis, we find a curvilinear relationship between N-TMT and sales growth; and this curvilinear relationship is stronger for a small number of TMTs scoring high on N-TMT (> +2SD), where TMTs’ activities are defined by deliberative integration. The pattern of results we report provides evidence for the importance of accounting for narcissism in the upper echelons as a predictor of sales growth, and key contextual moderators of this relationship.     

Authentic leadership and leaders' mental well-being: An experience sampling study

Research on authentic leadership has yielded important insights about its effects on subordinates. However, its consequences for the leaders themselves remain largely unexamined. This is problematic, as organizations require their leaders to provide guidance and leaders' mental well-being is a prerequisite for this. Drawing on the theories of ego-depletion and authentic leadership, we investigate the role of authentic leadership in predicting leaders' mental well-being. In an experience sampling study, we apply hierarchical linear modeling to analyze 396 observations from 44 executives. Our multilevel moderated mediation analyses reveal that authentic leadership reduces leaders' stress and increases their work engagement and that these effects are mediated by leader mental depletion. Moreover, we show that the indirect effects are contingent on the extent to which leaders interact with their subordinates: authentic leaders deplete less with increasing follower interaction, while inauthentic leaders deplete less with decreasing follower interaction.     

Identities under scrutiny: How women leaders navigate feeling misidentified at work

The identities of women leaders can fall under intense scrutiny; they are often confronted with other's perceptions of them—perceptions that may not be wholly accurate. Through in-depth qualitative interviews of senior women leaders working in male-dominated industries, we explore how they experience and respond to feeling misidentified (internal identity asymmetry; Meister, Jehn, & Thatcher, 2014) throughout their careers. Employing grounded theory methods, we uncover how women are likely to experience asymmetry, and discover it becomes most salient during personal and professional identity transitions. We build theory with respect to how women leaders navigate feeling misidentified, and find with time and power the experience becomes less salient. Our study draws together and contributes to both the identity and leadership literatures by exploring an important identity challenge facing women leaders in industries that are striving for a greater gender-balance in senior positions.     

Solving the crisis: When agency is the preferred leadership for implementing change

Glass-cliff research shows that female leaders are preferentially selected in a crisis to signal change and not for their leadership qualifications. In parallel, the management literature urges for agentic “masculine” leadership to turn around organizations in crisis. We hypothesized that, regardless of their gender, agentic leaders should be preferred to communal leaders if leadership qualifications and actual change potential motivate leader selection. Three experimental studies demonstrated that agentic (vs. communal) candidates were perceived to match poorly-performing (vs. strongly-performing) companies. This effect was accounted for by perceptions of agentic candidates' higher suitability, higher task-orientation (versus person-orientation), and higher change potential. We discuss that women face ambiguity as to why they become leaders in crisis contexts: because they are perceived as signaling change, stereotypically linked to their gender, or for their perceived agentic qualities as leaders. In contrast, men become crisis leaders due to their perceived agentic change potential.     

Animating leadership: Crisis and renewal of governance in 4 mythic narratives

This paper analyzes four animated films in order to explore themes of leadership crises and leadership emergence. Drawing on psychoanalysis and structuralist film studies, this paper explores leadership emergence as a mythic structure within the four films, arguing that these myths are structured around a struggle of a young novice against an evil power figure, and the overcoming of this figure through a process of self-discovery and maturation. Central themes include the relations between self-realization of leaders and the social harmony, the battle with evil leaders as an ego-struggle, and exile and journey as a precursor to mature leadership competence. The paper attempts to show how, following Miendl et al. [Meindl, J. R., Erlich, S. B. & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78–102] leadership myths often conflate individual psychological well-being with social well-being, and add to this perspective that such a conflation may be key to understanding leadership myths as projections of internal psychological dynamics. More generally, it is argued that treating popular culture such as animated allegories as contemporary myth offers scholars a view into popular conceptions of leadership, possible illuminating the relationships between leadership and social organization.     

Know thy self,know thy leader: Contributions of a pattern-oriented approach to examining leader perceptions

This study investigated how patterns of traits in self and ideal leader profiles were related to one another, beyond the individual effects of each trait. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify and describe profiles of self leader and ideal leader perceptions. Four profiles for self leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Narcissistic, Anti-Prototypical) and four profiles for ideal leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, Anti-Prototypical) were identified. Additional analyses examined the association between self and ideal leader profiles; gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were added to the model as predictors of that association. Prototypical and Laissez-Faire self leaders tended to prefer an ideal leader who was similar to themselves, whereas Narcissistic and Anti-Prototypical self leaders had more diffuse preferences in ideal leaders. Gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were only associated with self leader profiles. Results support, yet contribute beyond, previous findings for the similarity hypothesis.     

Leading well is a matter of resources: Leader vigour and peer support augments the relationship between transformational leadership and burnout

ABSTRACT

Although studies suggest that transformational leaders play an important role in employee health and well-being, the relationship between transformational leadership and employee burnout remains unclear. One reason may be that moderators may play an important role. Building on conservation of resources theory, we examined if leaders’ perceptions of internal and external resources in terms of vigour and peer support augmented the relationship between transformational leadership and employee burnout in a sample of municipality workers and their leaders in Sweden (N?=?217). Multilevel analyses over two time points revealed that both vigour and peer support enhance this relationship, such that when leaders experience high levels of vigour or peer support, the negative relationship between transformational leadership behaviours and employee burnout was strengthened. Our findings suggest that both personal and contextual resources may help leaders to better engage in transformational leadership, which is important in order to protect employees from burning out.     

When managers become leaders: The role of manager network centralities,social power,and followers' perception of leadership

We explore how formal managers' centralities in both positive and negative networks predict followers' perceptions of their leadership. By incorporating social networks and social ledger theory with implicit leadership theories (ILTs), we hypothesize that formally assigned group leaders (managers) who have more positive advice ties and fewer negative avoidance ties are more likely to be recognized as leaders by their followers. Further, we posit that managers' informal networks bring them greater social power, an important attribute differentiating leaders from non-leaders. We conducted two survey-based studies in student and field teams to test the hypotheses. Based on nested data in both studies, we found support for our hypotheses. These results remain robust across the two studies even though they used different designs (cross-sectional versus longitudinal), different samples (field versus students) across different countries (United States versus India), and a host of control variables at both the leader and follower levels. We find that managers who are central in the advice network are socially powerful and are seen as leaders by individual followers. In contrast, managers who are avoided by followers lack informal social power are not seen as leaders. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and the ways in which our theory and results extend ILTs and social network theory.     

The downside of transformational leadership when encouraging followers to network

Network scholars argue that one responsibility of leaders is to help their followers develop social capital. We suggest that one way leaders do this is by encouraging followers to engage in networking behavior. However, we argue that such encouragement is more effective when leaders are seen as less transformational, because followers are then less able to benefit from their leaders’ social capital. We support our arguments with a study of 142 followers and their leaders. Our findings show that followers engage in greater networking behaviors when encouraged by their leaders to do so, but this association is moderated by leaders’ transformational leadership style such that it is stronger as transformational leadership behaviors decrease. We thus introduce an unrecognized cost of leaders’ transformational leadership behaviors. Our findings contribute to research on networking behavior by investigating the role of transformational leadership style, and suggest avenues for research linking social capital and leadership.     

CEO humility,narcissism and firm innovation: A paradox perspective on CEO traits

We examine how two seemingly contradictory yet potentially complementary CEO traits—humility and narcissism—interact to affect firm innovation. We adopt a paradox perspective and propose that individuals can have paradoxical traits and that, in particular, humility and narcissism can coexist harmoniously, especially among the Chinese, whose philosophical tradition embraces paradoxical thinking and behaving. CEOs that are both humble and narcissistic are hypothesized to be more likely to have socialized charisma, to cultivate an innovative culture, and to deliver innovative performance. Two studies using multisource data involving 63 CEOs, 328 top managers, and 645 middle managers in Study 1 and 143 CEOs and 190 top managers in Study 2 support the hypotheses and point to new directions for studying CEO traits and their effects on firm outcomes.     

Benevolence-dominant,authoritarianism-dominant,and classical paternalistic leadership: Testing their relationships with subordinate performance

We propose a new typology of paternalistic leadership styles based on how leaders demonstrate authoritarianism and benevolence, the two essential components of this type of leadership. Benevolence-dominant paternalistic leadership refers to leaders' sole dependence on the use of benevolence without their strong assertion of authority, whereas authoritarianism-dominant paternalistic leadership is based mainly on authoritarianism itself; classical paternalistic leadership, which best fits early observations of paternalistic leaders, refers to the salient combination of both leadership components. We used two distinct samples and methods to test this typology and the association with subordinate performance. Across the two studies, a field investigation with Taiwanese military supervisor-subordinate dyads and a hypothetical scenario experiment with U.S. working adults, we found a positive relationship between classical paternalistic leadership and subordinate performance as strong as that between benevolence-dominant paternalistic leadership and performance. Our findings echo the phenomenon that paternalistic leaders tend to combine benevolence with authoritarianism to affect subordinate performance.     

Leading well: Challenges to researching leadership in occupational health psychology – and some ways forward

ABSTRACT

Studies on the effects of leadership in occupational health psychology build on the assumption that leaders influence their followers’ health and well-being. Although this assumption has received support, this introductory paper to a special issue of Work & Stress on leadership argues that a number of questions regarding leadership and follower health and well-being remain unanswered. We identify four issues that we argue warrant further attention. First, what is “good” leadership? Particular leadership types are associated with increases in employee performance, but since this will involve higher effort expenditure, adverse outcomes for employee health are to be expected. Although many types of leadership are associated with favourable outcomes, we still need to identify the leadership characteristics can be identified that account for these positive outcomes. Second, how can good leadership be promoted? There is a need to develop interventions that are effective in promoting desirable leadership styles. Third, what are the inter-mediate and long-term effects of leadership on follower health? Finally, we need to understand the boundary conditions for good leadership, including the resources available to leaders. Based on these considerations, we conclude that further research is needed to fully understand the effects of leadership on employee health and well-being.     

License to fail? How leader group prototypicality moderates the effects of leader performance on perceptions of leadership effectiveness

Leadership often serves as an explanatory category for performance outcomes (i.e., failure and success). This process can strengthen or weaken leadership effectiveness, because contingent on their performance leaders may gain or lose follower endorsement — the basis of leadership. Drawing on the social identity analysis of leadership, we hypothesized that leader group prototypicality and performance information interact to predict followers' perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Because group prototypical leaders are more trusted by their followers, we hypothesized that group prototypical leaders are evaluated as more effective after failure information than non-prototypical leaders. In contrast, we predicted that both prototypical and non-prototypical leaders should receive similar evaluations of leadership effectiveness after success. We found support for our predictions in a scenario experiment, a cross-sectional field study, and a laboratory experiment.     

‘Let's share!’ The mediating role of employees' self-determination in the relationship between transformational and shared leadership and perceived knowledge sharing among peers

Building on social-exchange and self-determination theory, this study aimed to contribute to the scholarly literature on leadership and knowledge sharing by simultaneously testing how shared and transformational leadership and their interrelatedness may foster employees' perceptions of knowledge sharing behaviour among peers. Additionally, we investigated the mediating role of employees' basic psychological needs satisfaction (in terms of autonomy, competence and relatedness, respectively) as an additional explanatory mechanism to reveal how shared and transformational leadership may foster individuals' perceptions of knowledge sharing behaviour among peers. We employed PLS structural equation modelling to analyse survey data obtained from professionals in an R&D unit of a knowledge-intensive firm. We found shared leadership to be the most important factor enhancing employees' perceptions of knowledge sharing among peers, both directly and indirectly through employees' satisfaction of the need for autonomy. Transformational leadership was found to foster employees' knowledge sharing ultimately, through shared leadership and the need for autonomy satisfaction. We concluded that shared forms of leadership supplemented with transformational leadership on the part of formal leaders are important in contemporary work environments as they can foster employees' perceptions of knowledge sharing among peers and contribute towards employees' self-determination, which ultimately enhances perceptions of knowledge sharing among peers.