(School of Business Administration)

FINAL PROJECT
“RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NARRCACSIM AND LEADERSHIP”

SUBMITTED TO: MA’AM SAIMA HASSAN

PROJECT BY:

ISHAL SHAUKAT (2172079)

AHSAN BAIG (2172007)

AIMAN AFZAL (2173276)

KIRAN NAVEED (2183416)

SAMMED – UR – REHMAN (2173062)

First, we would like to thank Allah Almighty, who is the creator of everything.
Then we would like to thank our “MA’AM SAIMA HASSAN”. His guidance and
support throughout this semester helped us make this project. Then, thanks to our
other mates and our parents. They co-operated with us all the time.
 Table of Content
Abstract…………………………………………………………………….… 1

Introduction…………………………………………………................……... 1

Literature Review…………………………………………………………….. 2

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………. 6

Bibliography………………………………………………………………….. 7
Abstract
Past few decades and empirical studies relating narcissism to leadership have offered mixed
results. This study integrates prior research findings via meta‐analysis to make contributions to
theory on narcissism and leadership. Somehow many negative consequences of leader narcissism
for organizations mainly because they insufficencyconcern for others. They do view themselves
as trabsforational leaders but This study does not produce any results related to the factor that if
narcissist are good for organization or not, are they beneficial or harmful for the organization. In
order to study this problem, firstly we will see what narcissism is by the definition of researchers
who deals it like a personality disorder taken that term from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorder.

Narcissism is associated with vital and important interpersonal problems and narcissists have a
bad and negative impact on others. The research advices that highly narcissistic individuals seek
out social status via dominant behavior, are highly attuned to the behavior of others that
endanger their own status and will respond assertive if their status is endanger. this confidence
helps regulate or rotate the self, their interpersonal field, and affect. In this paper there is two
things that has been discussed that is what is the relationship of narcissism and leadership, how
are integrated and then extended in order to understand their relationship. Narcissists tend to
dress well and good, display friendlier facial expressions, and are more self-assured in their body
movements than non-narcissists. It is unfortunate that most narcissists are identified and
prominent after they have been in the organization via reports about their destructive behavior.

Introduction
The narrcacism leaderships are those leaders who are interested with those work that they like,
priorty is themeselves. That type of leaders are self-absorbed and hold beliefs of entitlement and
superiority. Narcissistic leaders are not only likely to abuse their power, but, by exploiting their
own charisma, they are more likely to convince their followers to buy into the abuse and to
shoulder the blame for failure.

Furthermore, These leaders are infamous for their lack of feelings for others, which may
devalue the human potential of their subordinates and enable workplace bullying. However,
some element of narcissism seems to be essential to reach senior management positions.

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Moreover, once in power, the great imagination or vision of a narcissistic leader can be
profitable and beneficial also for the organization. This chapter or research is about the
relationship between narrcacism and leadership.

Literature Review
Narcissism is the topic which has provoke the interests of the researchers of organizations from
last few decades, evidence of these are following people who has prominent work (e.g., Galvin,
Waldman, & Balthazard, 2010; Harms, Spain, & Hannah, 2011; Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006;
Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009; Nevicka, Ten Velden, De Hoogh, & Van Vianen, 2011;
Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012), including a meta‐analysis of narcissism and work
performance (O'Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012).As Narcissism is the negative
workplace behavior ,so, there is been the trend to study the personality related to field of
organization (e.g., counterproductive work behaviors [CWB], abusive supervision, and incivility;
Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Sackett, 2002; Tepper, 2000). As everyone is been studying the
positive traits of personality, there is something that remain untouched that was negativity related
to the personalities which became popular now because after studing this, it was found this
covers the whole study of organizations which makes this study more appealing (Grijalva &
Newman, in press; Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Judge et al., 2006; O'Boyle et al., 2012; Paulhus &
Williams, 2002; Penney & Spector, 2002; Wu & LeBreton, 2011).

In this paper there is two things that has been discussed that is what is the relationship of
narcissism and leadership, how are integrated and then extended in order to understand their
relationship (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1985; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006); This
study does not produce any results related to the factor that if narcissist are good for organization
or not, are they beneficial or harmful for the organization. In order to study this problem, firstly
we will see what narcissism is by the definition of researchers who deals it like a personality
disorder taken that term from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. (DSM‐IV;
APA, 2000; e.g., “has a grandiose sense of self‐importance”; “requires excessive admiration”;
“has a sense of entitlement”; “has a lack of empathy”; “tends to be exploitative, manipulative,
and arrogant”; p.717); If we see the past of the narcissism and how it come about it’s
psychology so, it was the belief that leaders must have this trait in their personality in order to be
the good leader For example, Freud wrote that, “the leader himself needs love no one else, he

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may be of a masterful nature, “Absolutely Narcissistic”, self‐confident, and independent.”
(Freud, 1921, p. 123–124, emphasis added). Researchers have also argued that because
leadership roles are often held by narcissists, such as chief executive officers and U.S. presidents
(Deluga, 1997; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006), which means in that time
narcissist had the great chance to be chosen as a leader.

There was the studies who suggest that narcissists are the good leaders, or that narcissism is the
positive trait in the leaders (Davies, 2004; Galvin et al., 2010; Harms, Spain, & Hannah, 2011;
Judge et al., 2006). For example, in the system of bureaucracy narcissism has the positive
relationship with the leadership, because it directly effects the performance of the cadets so this
behavior is necessary to train them (Harms, Spain, & Hannah, 2011). Further, Judge and
colleagues (2006) says that if you talk about transformational leaders then narcissism in them is
good, Big five personality traits also shows that in the trait of extraversion narcissism is also
present (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2008).

But there is also studies who shows that narcissism do not always had positive relation, but the
opposite results also found (Benson & Campbell, 2007; Blair, Hoffman, & Helland, 2008; Khoo
& Burch, 2008; Resick, Whitman, Weingarden, & Hiller, 2009; Yocum, 2006). For example, if
we see the relationship of the narcissism with the charismatic leadership the outcome was
negative (Galvin et al., 2010). When we see about the needs of narcissist they put their needs
above the needs of the organization. When we keep in view the rewards of equality in the
leadership their builds the negative relation between narcissism and leadership, that’s why it
causes the rate of turnover in the field of manager increase (Resick et al., 2009). If there is a
narcissist leader in a group, problem of self-love cause the information to be used in the benefits
of the leader rather than transmitting it to the whole group (Nevicka, Ten Velden, et al., 2011).
Narcissist leaders demotivate the members of their group which eventually causes leg pulling,
chaos and negativity between the team members (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1985; Maccoby, 2000;
Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006).

In the days, where the study of narcissism and leadership increases, still no point has reached
which shows the collaboration of the mindsets of the researchers which means every study shows
different perspective. There is the reason behind all of these different perspectives of researchers

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relative to self-obsessed people. On the top came, theories who are related to the narcissism that
emerge (Padilla, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2007) which shows the different view of this relationship
(i.e., “whether (or to what degree) a sole person is viewed as a leader by others, who habitually
have only enough information about that sole person’s performance”; Judge, Bono, Ilies, &
Gerhardt, 2002, p. 767; Lord, de Vader, & Alliger, 1986) or the theory that says (i.e., “a leader's
performance in influencing and guiding the activities of his or her unit toward achievement of its
goals” [Judge et al., 2002, p. 767; see Stogdill, 1950]). As per the recent studies, there is always
the positive and alluring first light by the person with self-love traits in him, however, time
reveals the shows the traits like presumptuous, smugness, haughtiness and egotism in the very
same individual (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010; Paulhus, 1998; Robins & Beer, 2001). After
that come the other reason which are the reports that concluded narcissist tends to work in those
situations that elevate their benefits and importance.

Studies also shows that an individual with the personality disorder of narcissism when put to the
leadership and asked to build the goals of the team, he will arrange them in that ways that put up
to his intention and hike his personal profit (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1997). This means they will
always work in those situations that prominent his performance and promote him (Hogan,
Raskin, &Fazzini, 1990) and for that purpose they are ready to do anything like “betrayal,
manipulation, threatening and demoralizing” (Glad, 2002, p. 1) just to guard their spot of leader,
even the one who are undeclared for this seat (Hogan et al., 1990). But sometimes the leadership
of narcissist can be proven in the situations where the outcomes lead to the splendor position
(Maccoby, 2000, 2004). Self-obsessed people are proven inadequate, lurid, fulsome and insulting
leaders (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). Liking the advice of others and being blame for the
flaw and mistake is not the part of the narcissist leaders (Hogan et al., 1990). Narcissists are
likely to be the one who judges everyone on the personal level rather than being professional
even in organization (Kramer, 2003, p. 58). Their fake and wrong judgment are laced with so
much confidence, that sometimes it hurts and devalue the person with the right doing and
intention however, leaders who are not self-obsessed did not do this (Hogan et al., 1990).

The traits that are mostly present in the narcissistic personality is arrogance (APA, 2000).
However, some researchers says in order to be the great leader your personality must constitute
the trait like arrogance (e.g., Maccoby, 2000, 2004) and sometimes is the epitome of success. In

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the time of problems the evidences shows it eventually create the characteristics of the arrogance
to be emergence while dealing with others (Paulhus, 1998; Ronningstam, 2005) which
researchers shows is the important character of successful leaders (Spector, 2003). Person who
has self-obsession less likely to believe in reality, because of his arrogance (Kets de Vries, 1990)
which further cause many decisional flaw other factors influencing these flaws to occur include
self-pleasure, rigidness and carelessness by too much believing in own and ignoring the
dynamics of the market (Ma & Karri, 2005). For “Seeking the self-satisfaction independent
person has been blamed for such considerable business crises as the loss of market share by the
major U.S. automakers to Japanese companies, K-Mart's loss of market share to Wal-Mart, and
the three major U.S. television networks' loss of market share to Fox and the cable networks (Ma
& Karri, 2005)”

Some researchers used to say that self-obsessed people only feel rigid on the outside but are not
same in the inside, or in other words they put up the show of being arrogant in order to cover
their flaws and lacking (Jordan, Spencer, Zanna,Hoshino-Browne, & Carrell, 2003; Kernberg,
1989; Kohut, 1966; Rosenthal, 2005; Zeigler-Hill, 2006). Even after all of this effort they can
only hide their real face from the world but do not resist the feeling of inferiority (Campbell,
Foster, & Brunell, 2004; Glad, 2002; Stucke, 2003). Narcissism creates a positive scenario if the
person facing this problem is work-oriented and make all decision on the basis of that trait, then
it makes self-obsession as an important factor (Maccoby, 2000, p. 70). However, the individuals
who do not had that trait of being work-oriented are considered as “dreamers” who thinks so
high if themselves and thought their capabilities can outrage anyone (Maccoby, 2000, p. 70).

Implicit leadership theory suggests that people who looks alike “leader type” are mostly in the
spot of the leader by the people (Hoganet al., 1994). No doubt, at the first glance narcissists are
portrayed as awesome, super human and the person with unusual behavior which persuade them
to accept them as leaders and to create an emotional bonding with them (Post, 1986). Narcissist
does not physically abuse them but are convincing enough to burden other person with failures
conduct by them which can be considered as an abuse (Sankowsky, 1995). Self-obsessed people
are considered as “mirror-hungry” which means they always wants admiration and appreciation
(Kramer, 2003). “…experience themselves as valubale only so long as they can relate to
individuals whom they can commend for their prestige, power, beauty, intelligence, or moral

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stature” (Post, 1986, p. 679). But can prove great leaders because it makes other people to
“motivate” themselves by trusting yourself (p. 196. Alford (1988).

To conclude, Narcissits can be proven the great leaders if they have skills or goals that can
highlight them otherwise the relation of narcissism with leadership is negative.

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Biblography:
 Galvin, Waldman, & Balthazard, 2010; Harms, Spain, & Hannah, 2011; Judge, LePine, &
Rich, 2006; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009; Nevicka, Ten Velden, De Hoogh, & Van
Vianen, 2011; Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012

 counterproductive work behaviors [CWB], abusive supervision, and incivility; Andersson &
Pearson, 1999; Sackett, 2002; Tepper, 2000

 Grijalva & Newman, in press; Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Judge et al., 2006; O'Boyle et al.,
2012; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Penney & Spector, 2002; Wu & LeBreton, 2011

 Kets de Vries & Miller, 1985; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006

 Deluga, 1997; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006

 (Deluga, 1997; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006)

 (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1985; Maccoby, 2000; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006).
 (Benson & Campbell, 2007; Blair, Hoffman, & Helland, 2008; Khoo & Burch, 2008;
Resick, Whitman, Weingarden, & Hiller, 2009; Yocum, 2006).

 (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010; Paulhus, 1998; Robins & Beer, 2001)

 (Post, 1986, p. 679). But can prove great leaders because it makes other people to “motivate”
themselves by trusting yourself (p. 196. Alford (1988).