Research Of The Influence Mechanism Of Narcissistic Leaders On Followership From Multiple Perspectives

With the rapid development of society,the global economy and market environment are characterized by more dynamic and complicated,and the rapidly changing external environment puts higher demands on business leaders on the one hand,and on the other hand when enterprises choose leaders,risks and concerns have also increased accordingly.In recent years,corporate scandals frequently broke out in the domestic and foreign business circles.many entrepreneurs have fallen out,known as the "post-Enron era".For this reason,some scholars believe that the failure of entrepreneurs is mainly due to their arrogant and narcissistic personality defects(Boje et al.,2004).With the development of cultural diversity,more and more individuals with narcissistic personality traits,these individuals with narcissistic characteristics often lead to leadership positions due to their attractive appearance and superior impression management and social skills.In addition,the mass media that advocate individual heroism wins the eye,and often reports and renders the “extraordinary”performance of narcissistic leaders,which makes the leaders with narcissistic personality enter the public's field of vision and get unprecedented attention.."It is no exaggeration to say that if individuals with narcissistic characteristics are stripped from the ranks of public figures,then this class will be greatly reduced(post,1993)."In China,the new generations of the post-80 s and post-90 s have gradually grown into the backbone of enterprises.They have been deeply influenced by western individualistic cultural values during their growth,showing more self-confidence and self-characteristic characteristics.Some studies believe that China has more and more narcissistic personality leaders(Liao Jianqiao et al.,2016).However,even if people's ideas and lifestyles become more diversified,the influence of traditional culture on us has not dissipated.China still belongs to countries with high power distance,high collectivism and moderate uncertainty(Liao Jianqiao 2016).In this environment,how do the narcissistic leaders who advocate individualism and self-centered influence the organization and subordinates? What factors are constrained by us?Followership is a hot topic in current leadership research and business management practices.Bjugstad(2006)believes that effective leadership is not enough for the individual's will and wisdom,but by the collective wisdom of the team and the effective followership.Compared with other types of leaders,narcissistic leaders are satisfied with the vanity from the subordinates' praise,andneed to constantly find themselves from others' reactions.Therefore,leaders with narcissistic qualities are more expecting attention.It can be seen that narcissistic leaders are more dependent on the followership of subordinates.Therefore,this paper is devoted to the study of the relationship between narcissistic leaders and followership,and attempts to explore the influence of narcissistic leaders on the followership from multiple angles and to find out the conditions and intermediary mechanisms that influence the differentiation..Driven by the theoretical basis and practical phenomenon,this paper carried out empirical research and constructed a model of the influence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on followership.The questionnaire survey method was used to collect data,and the employees working in the enterprise and their direct supervisors were used as survey objects,and the method of pairing and intertemporal data collection was adopted to reduce the interference of homologous errors.The study is divided into three sub-studies:Study 1: Study on the influence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on subordinates' followership from the perspective of social exchange.Focus on the influence of narcissistic leaders on the followership from the perspective of Chinese native culture.First of all,it pays attention to the role of leaders and employee relations in Chinese society,that pays attention to the "human law." Combining the trait theory and the theory of social exchange,this paper discusses the influence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on the individual level,and focus on the relationship between subordinates and leaders,that is,the intermediary role of the supervisor-subordinate Guanxi.Secondly,it pays attention to the reputation of“authoritative orientation”.Combined with the dominance complementarity theory,individual tradition play a regulational role betweent narcissistic leaders and supervisor-subordinate Guanxi.The supervisor-subordinate Guanxi reflects the emotional factors of employees'.Therefore,this chapter mainly considers the influence of narcissistic leaders on employee followership from the perspective of emotional mechanism.This study analyzes the paired data of 89 leaders and 333 subordinates.Results showes the narcissistic leader has a negative impact on the subordinates' followership.The supervisor-subordinate Guanxi have played the role of partial mediators.Research 2: Study on the cross-level influence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on followership from cognitive perspective.This study continue to explore theinfluence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on followership.This study starts with“the relationship between leaders and team numbers” and cross-layer influence mechanism,combined with cognitive theory and leadership relationship identification theory.This paper explores the cross-level influence mechanism of narcissistic leaders on followership,verifies the cross-layer intermediary role of leadership relationship identification and the adjustment effect of team power distance according to the dominance complementarity theory.The leadership relationship reflects the collective cognition of team members.Therefore,this chapter focuses on the impact of narcissistic leaders on followership from the perspective of cognitive mechanism.Through the analysis of the paired data of 89 leaders and 326 subordinates,this study concludes that leadership relationship plays a cross-layer intermediary role between narcissistic leadership and subordinate followership.Team power distance can alleviate the negative impacts on leadership relationships.Study 3: Study on the differential effect of narcissistic leaders on subordinates' followership.Trying to explore the conditions and mediating mechanisms of narcissistic leaders' differential impact on followership.Judge et al.(2009)emphasized that the characteristics of individuals are contradictory when they discuss the dark and shining aspects of leaders traits.When they show deficiencies in certain environments,they may show advantages in other environments.Although both Study1 and Study 2 have verified the negative impact of narcissistic leaders on followership,while,there are some narcissistic leaders such as Steve Jobs,have been tagged with narcissism,but he always attracts the brightest people to work around him and retain them.It can be seen that narcissistic leaders may have a certain positive impact on followership under certain conditions.The “Yin-Yang philosophy” in ancient China also believed that both seemingly contradictory sides are interdependent,complement each other,and can transform each other(Chen MJ,2002).Therefore,this chapter attempts to verify whether the synergy between narcissistic leaders and environmental uncertainty and leader humility can enhance the fascination of narcissistic leaders,and furthr have a positive impact on the followership.Based on the analysis of 87 leaders and 308 employees data,the study concluded that the interaction between narcissistic leaders and environmental uncertainty is positively related to followership;The interaction between narcissistic leaders and humility is positively correlated with followership;charm perception plays a partial intermediary role in the process of the influence of narcissistic leaders and humility on the followership.The theoretical contributions of this research include: Firstly,the research model of leader traits acting on subordinates' followership is constructed.The influence of narcissistic leaders with dark personality traits on the subordinates' followership is verified in the Chinese context.Secondly,from the perspectives of social exchange theory and social cognitive theory,this paper explores the multi-level intermediary mechanism of narcissistic leaders' impact on followership,and integrates the "human relationship" factors in Chinese society.In addition,the conditions and intermediary mechanisms of narcissistic leaders influence on employees' attitudes and behaviors are discussed.The arrogant leadership will promote the positive behavior of subordinates or induce negative behaviors of subordinates.The academic community has always been controversial.This study explores the positive effects of narcissistic leaders on subordinates' followership.Empirical research proves narcissistic leaders will have a positive impact on subordinates' followership under what circumstances.The contradictory phenomenon provides a certain basis for interpretation and enriches the research on the positive impact of narcissistic leaders.The conclusions of this study have certain guiding significance for management practice.The organization should pay attention to the negative impact of narcissistic leaders.On the one hand,narcissistic leades can be bound by certain systems or rules,and locked negative influence in the "cage".Then,when choosing a leader,increase the inspection cycle to avoid people with narcissistic trait to become leaders.On the other hand,enterprise can investigate the uncertainty of the external environment perceived by the employee.If the enterprise is in a turbulent period of the external environment,or the employee perceives a high environmental uncertainty,narcissistic leader can be selected to lead the company and employees build confidence and thereby increase employee loyalty and followership.Thirdly,narcissistic leaders can consciously show certain humiliating behaviors in order to reduce negative influences,and achieve the effect of “cultivating self-improvement”,and then enhance their subconscious perception of leaders,thus creating a sense of identity and even a sense of worship for leaders.,fourther stimulate the followership motivation of the subordinates.