The Benefits and Detriments of Leader Narcissism: A Meta-Analysis Based on Agentic-Communal Framework

Abstract

Researchers have adopted several approaches to reconcile the mix findings of leader narcissism. This study offers an agentic-communal framework to synthetize the dual character of leader narcissism via meta-analysis. With 63 independent studies and 13221 leader samples, we elucidate the duality of leader narcissism by demonstrating that leader narcissism facilitates charismatic leadership while decreases communal-related effectiveness. Charismatic leadership and communal-related variables indirect the positive and negative effects of leader narcissism on more distal outcomes (i.e., follower performance and leader effectiveness), respectively. Also, employees in high power distance cultures perceived a stronger positive relationship between narcissistic leaders and charismatic leadership, whereas low power distance cultures embraced a stronger negative relationship between narcissistic leaders and communal outcomes. Lastly, we demonstrate the incremental validity of leader narcissism by comparing it with leader self-esteem, with the results that leader narcissism has incremental validity on charismatic leadership perceptions beyond leader self-esteem, but they exhibit opposite relationships with communal effectiveness. These findings demonstrate the utility of agentic-communal framework for understanding the duality of leader narcissism.