Climb to the top! An examination of how and when leader narcissism promotes workplace status

Studies have shown that narcissistic individuals are keen to pursue higher levels of status. However, little research has explored how and when narcissistic leaders take corresponding actions to improve their workplace status. Focusing on supervisor-subordinate interaction scenarios, this study explores how narcissistic leaders pursue workplace status through self-promotion and derogating others, based on social comparison theory. The results of a three-wave two-source survey consisting of 327 supervisor-subordinate pairs reveal that narcissistic leaders tend to perform the behaviors of self-promotion and derogating others in front of their subordinates, and ultimately promote their workplace status. Meanwhile, subordinate ingratiation strengthens the indirect relationship of leader narcissism with workplace status via self-promotion and derogating others. All hypotheses are supported by our findings. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, limitations and future directions are offered in this research.