Superheroes vs. Saints: The A&C Model of Narcissism, Needs, and Leadership Behaviors

Abstract

Approaching the narcissism-leadership relationship from a multi-faceted perspective has been suggested as a next step in understanding this fascinating relationship. To date, leadership research has primarily focused on agentic narcissism. However, studying leadership and narcissism from an agency-communion perspective allows for a deeper understanding of their relationship and more nuanced inferences surrounding leadership behaviors. To illustrate, agentic narcissism is centered around inflated self-views in agentic domains (e.g., intelligence, competence, and achievement; Gebauer et al. 2012), which mirrors an egoistic bias (Paulhus & John, 1998). On the other hand, communal narcissism centers around inflated self-views in communal domains (e.g., trustworthiness, warmth, benevolence), mirroring a moralistic bias. Where egoistic bias has been associated with power needs (e.g., the need for control and authority over others), moralistic bias has been linked to social desirability needs (e.g., the need for affiliation and social acceptance). Through a dynamic self-regulation process that interacts with one’s social environment (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), we predict different leadership behavior outcomes for agentic (i.e., destructive leadership behaviors) and communal (i.e., unauthentic leadership behaviors) narcissism based on regulation of these differing needs. The present paper delineates these predictions, and discusses theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and future research.