Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences
Narcissism is considered one of the three dark-triad traits and something that has been reported as being common in senior leaders.
The important question is can and does this hinder effective business practices or can narcissism give the drive to succeed that can benefit the business? Narcissists themselves would obviously argue that their skills and drive help the business.
This research out of the University of Washington suggests otherwise. And will come as no surprise to many employees and leadership experts.
In this study researchers analysed leaders of busines units of a large Chinese headhunting company. The leaders themselves rated their own narcissistic traits with a standardised questionnaire, the dynamics and complexity of the local market, and perceived competition with other business units. Their deputies were then asked to rate the level of knowledge sharing.
What did they find?
They found that narcissism led to decreased knowledge sharing. However, this was moderated by changing or complex environments. Notably when there was some stability and high inter-unit competition knowledge sharing was particularly stifled.
Some people may claim that having internal competition is beneficial to the organisation, but this shows that when, and if, knowledge sharing is important, which it certainly is in many complex organizations, this can actively hinder this. So be careful of too much internal competition and be careful of narcissistic leaders – or use them cautiously●
Andy Habermacher
Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker speaking on the brain and human behaviour.
Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).
Reference
Xin Liu, Lin Zhang, Abhinav Gupta, Xiaoming Zheng, Changqi Wu.
Upper echelons and intra-organizational learning: How executive narcissism affects knowledge transfer among business units.
Strategic Management Journal, 2022
DOI: 10.1002/smj.3406
More Quick Hits
Social Interactions Define Your Sense of Purpose
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences aving a sense of purpose is a pretty good thing to have because it seems to correlate with multiple health and life satisfaction measures. If you have a healthy sense of purpose you...
Being “Hangry” Really Is A Thing
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences o, scientists have now proven that being “hangry” is real thing. What took them so long? Well, first of all things which seem intuitively right such as the weather making pain worse...
Reward Drives Aggressive Behaviour Against “Others”
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences s vs. them is known as in-groups vs. out-groups in psychology. This is the well-known effect of people being loyal to their own groups and being competitive and often aggressive to...
Low Oxygen Impairs Decision-Making
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences ast year I reported on how pollution and bad air in offices correlates with lower performance and productivity. Something business should take note of. A study out of the University...
The Brain Waves That Drive Social Behaviour
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences have reported in other places on the social regions of the brain (for review see here). And this has indeed been the standard approach – try to identify the specific regions in the...
Being Mindful Improves Relationships With Co-Workers
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences he topic of mindfulness has been a hot topic for a number of years now. This is not to be confused with meditation which is often lumped together with mindfulness – because they do...