Narcissistic Leaders And Subordinates’ Work Engagement

Work engagement is a state in which employees are actively and perfectly integrated into the work environment,and is an important factor in creating a healthy and positive organizational environment.Work engagement has an important influence on the long-term development of the company,and the low level of work engagement of subordinates can cause serious economic losses to the company.Therefore,it is important to explore the causal factors affecting subordinates’ work engagement.This study explores the mechanism of action and boundary conditions between leadership narcissism and subordinates’ work engagement from the dual perspectives of subordinates and colleagues through two studies.Study 1 used 595 employees as the study participants to explore the chain mediating role of upward flattering behavior and resentment on narcissistic leadership and work engagement as well as the moderating role of Machiavellianism through a questionnaire survey.Study 2 used 654 employees to explore the chain mediating role of colleague upward flattering behavior and workplace jealousy on narcissistic leadership and work engagement and the moderating role of Machiavellianism by means of a questionnaire.Both studies used SPSS22.0 and Mplus7.0 software for data analysis and processing.The results of Study 1:(1)Narcissistic leadership has a negative effect on subordinates’ work engagement;(2)Subordinates’ upwardly flattering behavior and resentment play a part intermediary role in narcissistic leadership and subordinates’ work engagement,respectively;(3)subordinates’ upwardly flattering behavior and resentment have a full chain mediating role in narcissistic leadership and subordinates’ work engagement;(4)Machiavellianism moderated the chain-mediated path by moderating the negative effect of resentment on work engagement.Results of Study 2:(1)Narcissistic leaders have a negative effect on subordinates’ work engagement;(2)Colleagues’ upwardly flattering behavior and subordinates’ workplace jealousy play a part intermediary role in narcissistic leaders and subordinates’ work engagement,respectively;(3)Colleagues’ upwardly flattering behavior and subordinates’ workplace jealousy have a full chain mediating role in narcissistic leaders and subordinates’ work engagement;(4)Machiavellianism moderated the chain-mediated path by moderating the negative effect of workplace jealousy on work engagement.This study found that narcissistic leadership negatively predicted subordinates’ work engagement from a dual perspective.The findings inspire managers to take measures to reduce the emergence of narcissistic leaders,while focusing on the intervention and diversion of employees’ negative emotions to establish a harmonious team atmosphere and thus enhance employees’ work engagement.