Don’t Go Chasing Narcissists: A Relational-Based and Multiverse Perspective on Leader Narcissism and Follower Engagement Using a Machine Learning Approach

Abstract

Although research interest in leader narcissism has been on the rise over the past few years, prior literature has predominantly discussed leader narcissism from a leader-centric perspective. In this article, we provide a relational-based perspective of leader narcissism by examining the interaction between follower personality traits and leader narcissism on follower engagement in an online context. We combine a machine learning (ML) approach and multiverse analysis to predict the personality traits of a large sample of leaders and engaged followers across 18 created multiverses and analyze hypothesized interactions using multilevel regressions, also accounting for leader gender moderation effects. We find that the interaction between leader narcissism and follower agreeableness and follower neuroticism positively predicts follower engagement, whereas the interaction between leader narcissism and follower openness negatively predicts follower engagement. In addition, we find that leader gender plays an important moderating role. Limitations and implications are discussed.

How to avoid others and influence people: Attachment orientations predict leader prototypicality in ad hoc teams

“…Prior research on the antecedents of leader emergence in traditional organizational settings has focused primarily on the Big Five personality traits (e.g., Cogliser et al, 2012;Ensari et al, 2011;Hu et al, 2019) or the dark triad traits (Gruda, Karanatsiou, et al, 2022;Gruda, Karanatsiou, Hanges, et al, 2021;Gruda, Karanatsiou, Mendhekar, et al, 2021). However, no previous studies have examined relational personality traits as antecedents of leader emergence in ad hoc teams.…”