Leadership and Narcissism in the Organization

Narcissists are seen as people who could inspire others due to their strong charisma, great vision, and ability to convince the crowd that they possess features that others don’t. They have followers and fans, and the ability to control them. On the other hand, narcissistic leaders express a lack of empathy and high levels of aggression and show constant criticism of others while refusing feedback on their performance. Those features indicate that such leaders have a strong sense of entitlement of superiority; therefore, it is hard to work with them. In the corporate world, many individuals with narcissistic personalities are chosen as leaders of organizations or teams, which often harms their co-workers and subordinates. Very few lower-level employees have a positive perception of their narcissistic leaders or are satisfied with their job, and so there is need to measure through qualitative research based on already existing articles in a given subject the correlation between the perception of narcissistic leader and the leader evaluation method.

This book gives insight into psychology and management by linking the narcissistic personality with the leadership role and with the method of evaluating a leader, along with discussing the positive or negative outcomes of their leadership. Readers will learn about the phenomenon of narcissistic individuals and leaders as well as the attributes and traits of such a person. This research monograph will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of work and organizational psychology and leadership studies.

Mateusz Grzesiak is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Management of the WSB University, Poland. He holds a Ph.D. in management, Ph.D. in education, and Psy.D. in psychology.