 To Lead, or to Follow?Laura Guillén Ramo,
Philippe Jacquart () and
Michael Hogg
Post-Print from HAL Abstract: Under uncertainty, leaders who possess dark triad personality traits seem able to attain leadership positions. We draw on uncertainty-identity theory and dark triad research to explore the effect of self-uncertainty on leadership motivation. Uncertainty-identity theory predicts that people can reduce self-uncertainty by identifying with groups and following their leaders, which suggests that self-uncertainty reduces people's own leadership motivation. However, individuals high in dark triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) have such a powerful drive for dominance over others that their leadership motivation may be unaffected by self-uncertainty. To test these predictions, we conducted four studies (Ns = 2,641, 421, 513, and 400). We found that self-uncertainty reduced leadership motivation for individuals low in the dark triad. In contrast, those high in the dark triad had an elevated leadership motivation that remained unaltered when they were self-uncertain. These effects were mediated by participants' negative affect. We discuss the implications of these findings. Keywords: negative affect; self-uncertainty; leadership motivation; dark triad (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2023, 49 (7), pp.1043 - 1057. ⟨10.1177/01461672221086771⟩ There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05614664 DOI: 10.1177/01461672221086771 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Post-Print from HAL |
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