Narcissism and Leadership: A Meta‐Analytic Review of Linear and Nonlinear Relationships

Past empirical studies relating narcissism to leadership have offered mixed results. This study integrates prior research findings via meta‐analysis to make 4 contributions to theory on narcissism and leadership, by (a) distinguishing between leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness, to reveal that narcissism displays a positive relationship with leadership emergence, but no relationship with leadership effectiveness; (b) showing narcissism's positive effect on leadership emergence can be explained by leader extraversion; (c) demonstrating that whereas observer‐reported leadership effectiveness ratings (e.g., supervisor‐report, subordinate‐report, and peer‐report) are not related to narcissism,…