In our current cultural landscape, a peculiar narrative has emerged: women are often portrayed as flawless while men are characterized as inherently problematic or “toxic.” This simplistic dichotomy deserves closer examination, particularly when we look at leadership dynamics in corporate settings.
What’s fascinating is that recent research has revealed surprising differences between male and female narcissists in leadership positions – with implications that challenge conventional wisdom about gender and executive performance.
The Changing Face of Narcissism
Before diving deeper, it’s worth noting a significant shift: today, approximately half of all narcissists are women. This represents a dramatic change from just 40 years ago when the ratio was 75% men to 25% women. Similarly, more women are displaying traits associated with psychopathy, suggesting we’re approaching gender parity in these personality characteristics.
But does narcissism manifest differently across genders, particularly in leadership contexts?
Female Narcissistic CEOs: A Surprising Performance Edge
A groundbreaking study from Aarhus University in Denmark has uncovered something unexpected: narcissistic female CEOs significantly outperform their male counterparts in terms of corporate performance. This finding challenges the conventional belief that narcissism is universally detrimental to organizational outcomes.
The researchers examined the personality traits of chief executives and discovered that higher levels of narcissism in women CEOs correlates with improved company performance – a pattern not observed among men in similar positions.
What makes this particularly interesting is that we’ve known for some time that narcissism is overrepresented in upper management. Previous studies have established connections between CEO narcissism and certain corporate outcomes, such as digital transformation. However, this new research introduces gender as a critical variable in the equation.
The Three Faces of Narcissism
To understand these differences, we need to recognize that narcissism has three key components:
- Leadership authority (the “bright side”) – encompassing the desire to lead, aspiration for power, and belief in one’s ability to influence
- Grandiose exhibitionism – the tendency toward self-promotion and attention-seeking
- Exploitativeness and entitlement (EE) – the “dark side” linked to aggression, counterproductive work behaviors, and reluctance to forgive
Dr. Tom Arbo, one of the study’s authors, notes that the EE facet displays the largest gender difference. Women tend to be more agreeable than men, even when comparing female and male executives. This suggests that female narcissistic CEOs might be better at suppressing the darker aspects of narcissism while leveraging its potentially beneficial elements.
Prosocial vs. Individualistic Narcissism
What we’re seeing is that narcissistic women leaders tend toward what psychologists call “prosocial” or “communal” narcissism. This variant emphasizes social connection and leverages traits like empathy (even if it’s the calculated “cold empathy” often seen in narcissists) and networking ability.
Male narcissists, by contrast, are more likely to be individualistic, relying on fear, ambition, bullying, and exploitation as leadership tools. Female narcissistic leaders appear more capable of restraining these destructive tendencies while amplifying the confidence and decisiveness that can make narcissistic leaders effective.
Quantifying the Performance Gap
The research provides specific metrics that highlight the performance advantage of narcissistic female CEOs:
- Companies run by female CEOs who scored 25% more narcissistic than the average female were significantly more successful
- A moderately narcissistic female CEO is associated with a 14% increase in profitability and a 13.5% increase in valuation compared to non-narcissistic female CEOs
- Narcissistic female CEOs outperform equally narcissistic male CEOs by 10% in profitability and 20% in company valuation
These numbers suggest a clear hierarchy: narcissistic female CEOs at the top, non-narcissistic female CEOs in the middle, and male CEOs (narcissistic or not) at the bottom of the performance pyramid.
Social Constraints and Evolutionary Traits
What explains this performance gap? The researchers suggest several factors:
Social role expectations constrain female CEO behavior. Women are expected to be nurturing and warm, which may limit the expression of narcissism’s darkest aspects. While CEO narcissism has been linked to unethical behaviors, these tendencies appear less severe in narcissistic female CEOs.
Women may also possess higher rates of empathy-related evolutionary traits that further restrain narcissism’s destructive potential. This evolutionary explanation suggests that traditional gender roles – though increasingly challenged by modern research – may have shaped psychological tendencies that influence leadership styles today.
The Language of Narcissism
The researchers used an interesting methodology to assess narcissism levels – analyzing language patterns during unscripted Q&A sessions and presentations. They focused particularly on the use of first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my), which narcissists tend to use more frequently than first-person plural pronouns (we, us, our).
This approach allowed them to tap into the spontaneous speech patterns that reveal personality traits more authentically than scripted communications.
Narcissism as a Corporate Asset
Another fascinating study in the same journal explored the impact of narcissistic Chief Financial Officers on corporate digital transformation. The researchers found that narcissistic CFOs promote digital transformation by enhancing their own power and corporate innovation capabilities, ultimately boosting productivity and profitability.
Taken together, these studies suggest something counterintuitive: narcissism, often viewed as a liability, may actually be an asset in corporate leadership – particularly when exhibited by women in CEO positions or by CFOs driving digital transformation.
The optimal leadership combination might be a narcissistic female CEO paired with a narcissistic male CFO, creating a powerful dynamic that enhances company value, profitability, and overall performance metrics.
Beyond Corporate Settings
While the research focused on corporate leadership, there’s reason to believe these findings might extend to other contexts. Narcissistic female political leaders, for instance, might outperform their male counterparts by similarly balancing narcissism’s advantages while minimizing its destructive potential.
This represents a significant shift in our understanding of narcissism in leadership contexts. Rather than viewing narcissism as universally problematic, we might need to consider how its expression differs across genders and how these differences impact organizational outcomes.
The emergence of narcissism as a potential corporate asset – particularly in female leaders – challenges conventional wisdom and opens new avenues for leadership development and selection. Companies seeking competitive advantage might do well to consider how the right kind of narcissistic leader could drive superior performance, especially when that leader is a woman.
