Narcissistic Leaders: An Asset or a Liability? Leader Visibility, Follower Responses, and Group-level Absenteeism

Although narcissists often emerge as leaders, research has thus far shown inconsistent results on the relationship between leader narcissism and effectiveness in the eyes of followers. Here we draw on leader distance theory (Shamir, 1995) and implicit leader theory (Lord & Maher, 1991) to propose that followers' assessment of a narcissistic leader and followers' overall job attitudes depend on the leader's visibility to the followers. The more opportunities followers have to observe narcissistic leaders the more they will experience these leaders' toxic behavior (e.g., exploitativeness) and the less they will perceive the leader as effective. To test our hypotheses we collected multisource, longitudinal data from 175 retail stores and obtained subjective (followers' perceptions of leader effectiveness and their overall job attitudes) as well as objective (leaders' organizational experience at time of hire, employee absenteeism trends) indices of leader functionality. Results showed that narcissistic leaders had less organizational experience at the time they were hired. Moreover, when followers had fewer opportunities to observe their leader, leader narcissism was positively related to perceived leadership effectiveness and job attitudes. However, when followers had more opportunity to observe their leader, the positive relationship disappeared. Finally, leader narcissism was neither positively nor negatively associated with absenteeism, whereas absenteeism declined over time under non-narcissistic leaders. These findings advance our knowledge of how followers respond to narcissistic leaders and how these leaders function in organizational settings where they have legitimate positions of power. (PsycINFO Database Record