CEO humility, narcissism and firm innovation: A paradox perspective on CEO traits

We examine how two seemingly contradictory yet potentially complementary CEO traits—humility and narcissism—interact to affect firm innovation. We adopt a paradox perspective and propose that individuals can have paradoxical traits and that, in particular, humility and narcissism can coexist harmoni...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Leadership quarterly Vol. 28; no. 5; pp. 585 - 604
Main Authors Zhang, Hongyu, Ou, Amy Y., Tsui, Anne S., Wang, Hui
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Elsevier Inc 01.10.2017
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects
Charisma
Chief executive officers
Firm innovation
Humility
Hypotheses
Innovations
Narcissism
Paradox
Product introduction
Socialized charisma
Paradox
Firm innovation
Narcissism
Humility
Socialized charisma
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Summary:We examine how two seemingly contradictory yet potentially complementary CEO traits—humility and narcissism—interact to affect firm innovation. We adopt a paradox perspective and propose that individuals can have paradoxical traits and that, in particular, humility and narcissism can coexist harmoniously, especially among the Chinese, whose philosophical tradition embraces paradoxical thinking and behaving. CEOs that are both humble and narcissistic are hypothesized to be more likely to have socialized charisma, to cultivate an innovative culture, and to deliver innovative performance. Two studies using multisource data involving 63 CEOs, 328 top managers, and 645 middle managers in Study 1 and 143 CEOs and 190 top managers in Study 2 support the hypotheses and point to new directions for studying CEO traits and their effects on firm outcomes.
ISSN:1048-9843
1873-3409
DOI:10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.01.003