Originally found at Asia Times, by Laura Counts.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? The answer: not the organizations led by narcissists.

A new paper by Professor Jennifer Chatman and colleagues at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, shows not only the profound impact narcissistic leaders have on their organizations, but also the long-lasting damage they inflict.

Like carriers of a virus, narcissistic leaders “infect” the very cultures of their organizations, the researchers found, leading to dramatically lower levels of collaboration and integrity at all levels – even after they are gone.

Narcissistic leaders have personalities that are profoundly grandiose, overconfident, dishonest, credit-stealing and blame-throwing, according to Chatman. They are abusive to their subordinates, think they are superior, don’t listen to experts, create conflict and believe the rules simply don’t apply to them. They can explode in rage at any sign of disagreement or disloyalty. There’s always an “I” in their conception of the team.

Continue reading the original article at Asia Times.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Discoveries.

This research has also been recently covered in articles at other media outlets:

• Quartz: How a narcissistic leader infects company culture
• Forbes: Researchers Find That Narcissistic Leaders ‘Infect’ The Cultures Of Their Organizations
• Greater Good: How Narcissistic Leaders Make Organizations Less Ethical
• Scienmag: How Narcissistic Leaders Infect Their Organizations’ Cultures
• Associations Now: How to Keep Narcissism From Turning Your Organization Toxic

Learn more about the AOM Scholars and explore their work:

• Charles A O'Reilly, Stanford University

• Jennifer A Chatman, University of California Berkeley

• Bernadette Doerr, University of California Berkeley