The Interplay Between Traits of Leader and Follower

Three articles in this Research Topic provided a largely new angle. They considered the relevance of follower traits when confronted with dark-side leadership, but also followers' own dark-side traits.

Looking at leader narcissism, Nevicka. analyzed the interface between self-absorbed, entitled narcissistic leaders and insecure followers, who make "easy targets" for narcissists. The authors conducted two field studies. Followers with low self-esteem and low core self-evaluations perceived narcissistic leaders as more abusive than those with high self-esteem or high core self-evaluations. Abusive supervision perceptions in turn related to lower follower performance and higher experiences of burnout, pointing to risks of leader narcissism for vulnerable followers.

Barelds. also studied followers' self-esteem, but in terms of how it affected the relationship between leaders' psychopathy and their self-serving behaviors. The authors first conducted an experimental study, in which they manipulated follower self-esteem, measured leader psychopathy, and assessed their combined effects on leader self-serving behavior using an ultimatum game. They also conducted a multi-source field study using questionnaires to assess leader psychopathy, follower self-esteem, and perceived leader self-serving behavior. Across both studies they found that leader psychopathy was positively related to leader self-serving behaviors, but only when their followers had low rather than high self-esteem. Again, these findings show that the degree to which dark-side traits of leaders are reflected in their behavior depends on the characteristics of their followers. Follower characteristics can mitigate the negative impact of dark-side leadership.

However, not only leaders' dark-side traits pose risks to organizations; followers' dark-side traits may do the same. Belschak studied ethical leadership as a potential remedy for negative behaviors of Machiavellian followers. Followers with high Machiavellianism are goal-driven to the extent that they use all possible means to achieve desired ends. Machiavellianism predicted reduced helping behavior and increased knowledge hiding and emotional manipulation, but only when ethical leadership was low. That is, ethical leadership served as a buffer of the negative outcomes of dark-side followership.