If that remark qualifies Ted Turner as a narcissist, he would seem to have plenty of company among prominent CEOs. According to one much-cited book on leadership, narcissism (that is, a greatly inflated sense of self) aptly describes such corporate luminaries as Apple's Steve Jobs, General Electric's Jack Welch, Intel's Andy Grove, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Southwest's Herb Kelleher.
Is narcissism as much of an an asset in the corner office as such names would suggest? Not according to an ingenious new study that provides the first systematic examination of this trait among chief executives.
To be presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management (Atlanta, Aug. 13-16), the research finds that narcissistic CEOs "tend to pursue dynamic and grandiose strategies [and] generate more extreme performance -- more big wins and big losses -- than their less narcissistic counterparts."
But, as to whether narcissists perform any better than less colorful types, "the results were null," write the study's authors Arijit Chatterjee and Donald C. Hambrick of Penn State University. "There was no indication that CEO narcissism... generate[s] systematically better or worse performance."
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