When CEOs Are All About Themselves: Perceived CEO Narcissism and Middle Managers' Workplace Behaviors Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly impacted how businesses operate, creating high levels of uncertainty for organizational members. Drawing on social information processing and implicit leadership theories, we developed and tested a model that explains how middle managers' perceptions of CEO narcissism shape their perceived uncertainty in the workplace, particularly when COVID-19 threatens a firm's survival and growth. Managers' sense of uncertainty leads to their engagement in uncertainty-based coping responses, including laissez-faire leadership (i.e., escape coping) and impression management (i.e., control coping). We collected data from 200 middle managers (Study 1;field survey) and 318 working adults (Study 2;online experiment) in North America and the U.K. and found general support for our model. Our research bridges the gap between micro and macro perspectives and provides novel insights into how perceived CEO narcissism can shape managers' behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby contributing to the literatures on CEO narcissism, leadership, and crisis management.