Abstract
Narcissistic leaders are self-absorbed and hold beliefs of entitlement and superiority. Their aggressive tendencies in the face of criticism and inclinations to validate their self-worth by derogating others may lead others to perceive them as being abusive. Here, we test the relationship between leader narcissism and followers’ perceptions of abusive supervision. Drawing upon research related to the behavioral plasticity hypothesis, we propose that followers with low self-esteem will perceive narcissistic leaders as more abusive than those with high self-esteem. Followers low on self-esteem are more insecure, more in need of approval from their supervisor and are more likely to interpret the haughty, derogatory attitude of narcissistic leaders as abusive. Such followers also make for ‘easier targets’ and thus may actually suffer more abusive behavior from their narcissistic leaders. In a first multi-source study of 85 leaders and 128 followers, we found support for the moderating role of follower self-esteem in the relationship between leader narcissism and perceived abusive supervision: Narcissistic leaders were rated as more abusive by followers who were low on self-esteem, but not those higher on self-esteem. In a second multi-source field study among 177 leader-follower dyads, we tested a moderated mediation model and showed that this finding also holds for the broader concept of follower core self-evaluations as a moderator. Abusive supervision, in turn, was related to lower follower performance and followers experiencing more burnout symptoms. Thus, followers low on self-esteem or low on core self-evaluations seem to suffer most from narcissistic leaders as they perceive them to be abusive and, in turn, these followers show reduced performance and more burnout symptoms when working for such leaders. This research thus identifies an important moderator that might help reconcile previous inconsistent findings regarding perceptions of narcissistic leaders.
Highlights
Narcissism, a personality trait characterized by grandiose and overly positive self-views, is rising in Western individualistic countries (Twenge et al, 2008; Twenge and Foster, 2010), and appears to be societally valued as evidenced by narcissists’ emergence as leaders (Brunell et al, 2008; Nevicka et al, 2011a; Grijalva et al, 2015a)
The results showed no main effect of leader narcissism on abusive supervision (B = 0.04, t(81.06) = 1.54, p = 0.127, 95%CI[−0.01, 0.10]), but did show a negative relationship between follower self-esteem and abusive supervision (B = −0.57, t(120.80) = −3.42, p = 0.001, r = 0.30, 95%CI[−0.90, −0.24])
Despite the fact that narcissistic leaders have many negative characteristics that may predispose them to being abusive toward their followers, using two multisource field studies we consistently found that narcissistic leaders were only perceived as abusive by followers with low selfesteem (Study 1), and followers who were lower on the higher order construct of core self-evaluations (CSEs) (Study 2)
Summary
Narcissism, a personality trait characterized by grandiose and overly positive self-views, is rising in Western individualistic countries (Twenge et al, 2008; Twenge and Foster, 2010), and appears to be societally valued as evidenced by narcissists’ emergence as leaders (Brunell et al, 2008; Nevicka et al, 2011a; Grijalva et al, 2015a) The reason for this is that narcissistic individuals possess many characteristics that people associate with a prototypical leader (e.g., confidence, extraversion, dominance; Smith and Foti, 1998; Judge et al, 2002; Kellett et al, 2006; Paunonen et al, 2006). We propose that while some followers may perceive narcissistic individuals in a leadership role as abusive, others may not
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