Toot Your Own Horn? Leader Narcissism and the Effectiveness of Employee Self-Promotion

• Published in: Journal of management 2020-02, Vol.46 (2), p.261-286
• Main Authors: Den Hartog, Deanne N., De Hoogh, Annebel H. B., Belschak, Frank D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Employee attitude; Impression management; Leader-member exchange; Leadership; Multisource; Narcissism; Self image; Selfpromotion; Social exchange theory; Workplaces
• ISSN: 0149-2063; 1557-1211
• DOI: 10.1177/0149206318785240

Self-promotion is a form of impression management aiming to present to others a positive image of oneself by emphasizing one’s strengths, contributions, or accomplishments. In the workplace, self-promotion is often targeted at leaders, with employees trying to show a positive image and impress their leader. Self-promotion does not always impress observers though, and we propose that leaders high on narcissism are more likely to be impressed by employee self-promotion than those low on narcissism for two reasons. First, narcissists endorse and engage in self-promotion themselves, and the similarity-attraction principle suggests that people more easily develop affective regard for and show more positive behavior towards those who are more like them, resulting in having a better relationship with them. Second, because narcissists are instrumental and exploitative, they are particularly sensitive to self-promotors’ message that they are an important and influential group member who potentially forms a useful asset to the leader. In turn, we expect high leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived importance to be positively related to leader evaluations of employee performance. We tested this model twice, once using two scenario experiments and once in a multisource field study among 311 leader-follower dyads. Overall, the results suggest that, as expected, the relationship between self-promotion and both perceived LMX and perceived importance of the employee depends on leader narcissism.