Is a little narcissism a good thing in leadership roles? Test of an inverted U-shaped relationship between leader grandiose narcissism and follower satisfaction with leader

Abstract

In this multi-level, hetero-source field study with 640 gainfully employed leaders and 1259 followers, we tested an inverted U-shaped relationship between leader grandiose narcissism and follower satisfaction with their leader, which is an important but neglected relationship in personality research on leadership. We found that followers were most satisfied with leaders with a small dose of narcissism. Agreeableness and extraversion explain this relationship. In accordance with the hierarchical model of narcissism from personality research, these findings support dark-side personality tendencies theory in leadership research and behavioral threshold theory on individual differences in narcissism as complementary approaches.