Individual and organizational consequences of CEO personality : three empirical studies

The objective of this thesis is to study Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) with particular focus on narcissism as a personality trait. The first two papers take an ex-ante approach, investigating how the narcissistic personality predicts leadership emergence to the CEO position. Doing so opens up a new field of inquiry around CEOs, which may provide further nuance in explaining the organizational outcomes that narcissistic CEOs have been ascribed to. Conversely, the third paper takes an ex-post approach, shedding light on how narcissistic CEOs structure their Top Management Teams (TMT), as it relates to gender diversity. The thesis is theoretically positioned at the intersection between CEO narcissism and two other literature streams: leadership emergence and gender diversity in TMTs. In addition to academic contributions, this thesis offers practitioner insights to boards who are in the process of selecting their firm’s next leader and to women who are not yet aware of the perils of narcissistic leadership.