Leaders’ narcissism dimensions and abusive supervision intentions – follower behaviour as a boundary condition

This study investigates how leader narcissism and follower behaviour interact to shape abusive supervision intentions. Drawing on the narcissistic admiration and rivalry concept (NARC), we differentiated between narcissistic admiration and rivalry hypothesizing that leaders’ narcissistic admiration is unrelated to, and leaders’ narcissistic rivalry is positively related to, abusive supervision intentions. We also assumed that leader’s narcissistic rivalry relates more strongly to abusive supervision intentions when followers engage in unsolicited ways (i.e. counterproductive work behaviour and organizational citizenship behaviour) – compared to solicited ways (i.e. task performance). We conducted two experimental vignette studies with leaders (N = 120 in Study 1; N = 174 in Study 2), manipulating follower behaviour. Analyses were conducted using a Bayesian approach, which allows testing null hypotheses. In both studies, leaders’ narcissistic admiration was unrelated to abusive supervision intentions. In contrast, leaders’ narcissistic rivalry was positively related to abusive supervision intentions, and this effect was stronger when followers behaved in unsolicited compared to solicited ways. Our results support the assumption that narcissistic rivalry is the antagonistic narcissism dimension in the context of leadership and abusive supervision is triggered in social interactions with followers.