Narcissism and Leadership: A Meta‐Analytic Review of Linear and Nonlinear Relationships

Past empirical studies relating narcissism to leadership have offered mixed results. This study integrates prior research findings via meta‐analysis to make 4 contributions to theory on narcissism and leadership, by (a) distinguishing between leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness, to reveal that narcissism displays a positive relationship with leadership emergence, but no relationship with leadership effectiveness; (b) showing narcissism's positive effect on leadership emergence can be explained by leader extraversion; (c) demonstrating that whereas observer‐reported leadership effectiveness ratings (e.g., supervisor‐report, subordinate‐report, and peer‐report) are not related to narcissism, self‐reported leadership effectiveness ratings are positively related to narcissism; and (d) illustrating that the nil linear relationship between narcissism and leadership effectiveness masks an underlying curvilinear trend, advancing the idea that there exists an optimal, midrange level of leader narcissism.     

The Abbreviated Character Strengths Test (ACST): A Preliminary Assessment of Test Validity

The 24-item Abbreviated Character Strengths Test (ACST) was developed to efficiently measure character strengths (Peterson, Park, &; Castro, 2011 Peterson, C., Park, N., &; Castro, C. A. (2011). Assessment for the US Army Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program: The Global Assessment Tool. American Psychologist, 66, 10–18.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, its validity for this purpose has not yet been sufficiently established. Using confirmatory factor analysis to test a series of structural models, only a modified bifactor model showed reasonably acceptable fit. Further analyses of this model failed to demonstrate measurement invariance between male and female respondents. Relationships between ACST dimension and Big Five personality trait scores were generally weak-to-moderate, and support for hypotheses regarding each ACST virtue's expected correspondence with specific Big Five dimensions was mixed. Finally, scores on ACST dimensions accounted for a combined 12% of the variance in satisfaction with life scores, after controlling for socially desirability. Although an abbreviated measure of character strengths represents a practical need, considerable improvements to the ACST are needed for it to adequately meet this purpose.     

Leading to Stimulate Employees' Ideas: A Quantitative Review of Leader–Member Exchange,Employee Voice,Creativity, and Innovative Behavior

Through social exchange, leaders can offer relational support or resources to facilitate employees' proactive attempts to bring positive change (voice) or novel ideas (creativity) and behaviors (innovative behavior) to their work. We consider these three outcomes under the same nomological network as they all represent employees' idea contribution to the organisation. The present paper thus meta‐analytically reviews the findings of research relating leader–member exchange (LMX) to voice (37 samples), creativity (53 samples), and innovative behavior (29 samples). Results show that LMX positively predicts voice, creativity, and innovative behavior. Moreover, LMX is more strongly related with creativity than with voice or innovative behavior, a significant difference maintained even after controlling for study characteristics that may act as confounding variables. Implications of our findings and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Hopeful struggling for health: Experiences of participating in computerized cognitive training and aerobic training for persons with stress-related exhaustion disorder

It is important to understand how people with exhaustion disorder (ED) perceive interventions aiming to facilitate cognitive functioning. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to explore experiences from persons with ED after participating in a 12-week intervention of either computerized cognitive training or aerobic training. Both interventions were performed in addition to a multimodal rehabilitation programme. Thirteen participants, 11 women and 2 men, were interviewed about pros and cons with participating in the training. The interviews were analysed with Qualitative Content Analysis. The analyses resulted in the theme hopeful struggling for health and the categories support, motivation and sensations. It was hard work recovering from ED. Support from others who are in the same situation, family members, and technology and routines for the training were strongly emphasized as beneficial for recovery. Timing, i.e., matching activities to the rehabilitation programme, getting feedback and perceiving joy in the training were important for motivation. Participants in both interventions experienced positive sensations with improved memory performance, everyday life functioning and increased faith in the prospect of recovery. However, it is important to consider various aspects of support and motivation in both computerized cognitive training and aerobic training to enable participants to pursue their participation.