Positive Leadership: What A Lovely Suit You're Wearing, Emperor

Warning: If you're opening this blog in a good mood, and you want to stay in it, you may want to skip this post and scroll right down to the bonus bits!

Of course, were you to block out the negative, you'd be acting in a way that Bob Sutton probably wouldn't find surprising. 

In a recent blog post, the Stanford management professor opines that leaders can be more easily swayed by positive feedback than by reality. 

Sutton synthesises several recent studies to show how flattery can lead to an inflated self-assessment and distract leaders from what's actually happening on the ground.

Positive Leadership: What A Lovely Suit You're Wearing, Emperor

What Can You Expect from a Leader with a Big Ego?

What can you expect from a leader with a narcissistic personality? 

The results of one very well done study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology entitled “The Bright-Side and the Dark-Side of CEO Personality: Examining Core Self-Evaluations, Narcissism, Transformational Leadership, and Strategic Influence.” provide some pointers.

This study of 75 CEOs of Major League Baseball organisations in the USA over a 100 year period examined how positive and negative personality characteristics affected the individual’s leadership style and ultimately important outcomes for the organisation.

Terms like confident, determined, optimistic, stable, persistent, and positive were associated with the bright-side of leadership, while terms like arrogant, boastful, conceited, egotistical, self-centred, show-off and temperamental were associated with the narcissistic dark-side of leadership. 

The authors of the study suggest the following five things based on their findings (pp. 1373-1374):

The Bright-side of personality

1. Leaders who have an overall positive self-concept are better able to articulate a vision in a manner that builds commitment to the organisation’s goals.

2. Positive leaders may role model the efforts needed for the organisation to be successful and are comfortable empowering others because they have a realistic sense of their own and their organisation’s capabilities

3. Positive leaders are more comfortable with the focus being on the good of the organisation rather than on their individual success.

The Dark-side of personality

1. Narcissistic leaders are unlikely to be concerned about developing equitable exchange relationships with members of their organisation. When followers meet objectives, narcissistic leaders do a poor job of allocating recognition and rewards to reinforce desired behaviour.

2. Narcissistic leaders are very unlikely to offer a compelling vision for the organisation and inspire others to higher levels of morale and motivation.

Narcissistic leadership in this study eventually lead to more manager turnover, while positive leadership lead to higher attendance, a better winning percentage, and greater external influence in the industry (Major League Baseball).

Just like the advice to avoid hiring narcissistic employees, you should likewise avoid hiring and promoting narcissistic individuals into positions of management and leadership. It’s impossible for narcissists to see the best in others when they are so laser-focused on spotlighting the best they see in themselves. They won’t treat people fairly because it simply is not a concern for them, and their vision of individual greatness is unlikely to inspire others and may even expose the organisation to competitive peril.

There is no guarantee that simply hiring and promoting positive people is a recipe for organisational success. However, the research is pretty clear that narcissistic individuals, especially in positions of power and influence, are more likely to do harm than to do lasting good.

What Can You Expect from a Leader with a Big Ego?

Five signs that a CEO is too in love with himself

'How common is narcissism in chief executives? Are top bosses arrogant, pathological achievers who are desperate for admiration or are they just deservedly self-confident decision makers? Many politicians and bankers appear to be arrogant, self-important snobs. Did their narcissism, first manifest as self-confidence, actually help them to climb the greasy pole? Does the way we treat our chief executives turn their self-confidence into pathological narcissism? Could it be that we are the cause of the problem and not them?.......

So what is the bottom line? First, it’s not that difficult to spot narcissists at the top. Actually, it is very easy. Second, the line between healthy, self-aware self confidence and narcissism is a thin one. Third, perhaps we are to blame for accepting ever demanding narcissistic behaviour in our leaders just to have a quiet life. Fourth, buckle your belt when the narcissist is in charge. You may be lucky or not as you try to cling on to the roller-coaster.'

For the full article, see -  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/senior_executive/article7052280.ece

Five signs that a CEO is too in love with himself