Narcissus or Machiavelli?: Learning Leadership from Indian Prime Ministers

This book is about leadership and its strategies. Drawing on Indian prime ministers since Independence, it traces personality traits and leadership skills that have shaped many futures. It examines a range of leadership profiles to study dominant traits in one of the most demanding leadership roles in the world. The volume focuses on Machiavellianism and narcissism as a framework to policy-personality connections and demagogic tendencies in leaders in politics and in everyday life.

Accessible, engaging, and provocative, this book will be essential reading for professionals across industries and corporations. The general reader interested in leadership studies and Indian politics will also find this book useful.

Nishant Uppal is on the faculty of Organization Behavior in the Human Resources Management Group, Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. His recent publications include Duryodhanization: Are the Villains Born, Developed, or Made up? (2018), Leadership in Organization (2020) , Understanding the Theory and Design of Organizations (2020), and HR Analytics (2021). He has published in a number of international journals, such as Personality and Individual Differences , Studies in Higher Education , International Journal of Manpower, Team Performance Management, and European Business Review, among others. More recently, his research focus area has been in understanding the effects of negative personality traits on work, family, and societal outcomes. Dr. Uppal specializes in the fields of analytics, leadership, change management, knowledge management, organizational adaptation, job design, organizational structure, and personality.