Me, me, me - narcissism and motivation to lead

Abstract

This study tests the relationships between grandiose narcissism and affective, calculative, social-normative motivation to lead (MTL), and avoidance to lead as well as between vulnerable narcissism and affective MTL and avoidance to lead. Further, we assess the moderating effect of narcissistic organizational identification (NOI). As expected, grandiose narcissism correlated positively with three dimensions of MTL, though the relationship with social-normative MTL disappeared when controlling for NOI and the interaction. Vulnerable narcissism was positively related to avoidance to lead, but not to affective MTL. Subsequent regression analysis revealed that vulnerable narcissism related negatively to affective MTL for individuals with low or moderate (but not high) NOI. Our study contributes to the integration of narcissism and leadership research by examining a differentiated conceptualization of narcissism, explaining why some individuals may actively approach, while others actively avoid leadership, and one of the boundary conditions which may facilitate narcissists’ MTL.