Is there an Upside to Leader Narcissism?

Abstract

The present study examines how narcissism can relate to leadership effectiveness. We propose an untested path through which narcissism can predict leadership effectiveness - political skill. Data were collected from 238 supervisors and 1531 followers from a variety of businesses at different organizational levels. To test our hypotheses we performed structural equation model analyses and bootstrapping analyses. Finally, we conducted a hierarchical moderated regression analyses to examine a possible inverted curvilinear relationship between narcissism and follower performance and abusive supervision. The results showed that leader narcissism predicted political skill, and to the extent this relationship held, narcissism had a generally positive impact on follower outcomes, including higher performance and job satisfaction and decreased experience of leader abuse. Excluding the component of political skill in the model, narcissism predicted negative job satisfaction and negative follower performance. Evidently, the role of narcissism in organizational leadership is complex, with both positive and negative outcomes. The present study demonstrates the significance of political skill to generate more positive and less negative leader outcomes.