Climb up your ego! Narcissistic status pursuit and motivation to lead

Me, Me, Me

Abstract. This study tests the relationships between grandiose narcissism and affective, calculative, social-normative motivation to lead (MTL), avoidance to lead, and between vulnerable narcissism and affective MTL and avoidance to lead. Further, we assess the moderating effect of narcissistic organizational identification (NOI). As expected, grandiose narcissism correlated positively with three dimensions of MTL, though the relationship with social-normative MTL disappeared when controlling for NOI and the interaction. Vulnerable narcissism was positively related to avoidance to lead, but not too affective MTL. Subsequent regression analysis revealed that vulnerable narcissism related negatively to affective MTL for individuals with low or moderate (but not high) NOI. Our study contributes to the integration of narcissism and leadership research by examining a differentiated conceptualization of narcissism, explaining why some individuals may actively approach while others actively avoid leadership, and one of the boundary conditions which may facilitate narcissists’ MTL.

Contextual, interpersonal, and personal predictors of young adults' affective-identity motivation to lead

Purpose

Why some people are motivated to become leaders is important both conceptually and practically. Motivation to lead compels people to seek out leadership roles and is a distinct predictor of leader role occupancy. The goal of our research is to determine contextual (socioeconomic status and parenting quality), interpersonal (sociometric status), and personal (self-esteem and gender) antecedents of the motivation to lead among young adults.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors tested the model using two samples of Canadian undergraduate students (Sample 1: N = 174, M age = 20.02 years, 83% female; Sample 2: N = 217, M age = 18.8 years, 54% female). The authors tested the proposed measurement model using the first sample, and tested the hypothesized structural model using the second sample.

Findings

The proposed 5-factor measurement model provided an excellent fit to the data. The hypothesized model also provided a good fit to the data after controlling for potential threats from endogeneity. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between sociometric status and affective-identity motivation to lead, such that this interaction was significant for females but not males.

Practical implications

The findings make a practical contribution in understanding how parents, teachers, and organizations can encourage greater motivation to lead, especially among young adults who have faced poverty and marginalization and tend to be excluded from leadership positions in organizations.

Originality/value

The authors conceptualize and test the contextual, interpersonal, and personal predictors of affective-identity motivation to lead among young adults.