Power of Narcissism Unleashed: Team Proactivity as a Function of Leader Narcissism, Collective Regulatory Focus, and Power Distance

Abstract

Despite accumulating evidence surrounding the importance of leader narcissism for follower outcomes, its effects on team outcomes, particularly team proactivity, remain opaque. As team proactivity has proven to be a critical factor for organizations to survive and thrive in today's complicated business environment, it is necessary to come to a better understanding of how and when leader narcissism helps or hurts team proactivity. To clarify this relationship, we draw on the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC) model and social learning theory to propose a dual-path mediation model where leader narcissistic admiration and leader narcissistic rivalry differentially influence team proactivity by fostering different collective regulatory foci. Moreover, we posit that these dual processes are conditioned by team power distance value. Using a field study with multisource and multiwave data from 100 teams, we found competing indirect effects of leader narcissistic admiration on team proactivity: a positive indirect relationship through collective promotion focus and an unexpected negative indirect relationship through collective prevention focus. We also found a negative indirect relationship between leader narcissistic rivalry and team proactivity through collective prevention focus. Furthermore, these two pathways were much stronger for teams with higher rather than lower power distance value. Our work advances the narcissism literature by demonstrating the double-edged effects of leader narcissism on team proactivity at the team level and identifying different mechanisms and conditions under which leader narcissism facilitates and impairs team proactivity.