Leader status and team performance—the role of leader popularity and leader narcissism

Drawing on social influence theory, we propose and test a conceptual model explaining how, why, and when leader status may improve team performance. Based on multisource data from 250 team leaders and their supervisors and followers, we found that leader status is positively related to leader popularity and that the relationship between leader popularity and team performance is negatively moderated by leader narcissism, such that the relationship is positive only when leader narcissism is low. Furthermore, leader narcissism negatively moderates the indirect effect of leader status on team performance via leader popularity, such that the indirect effect is positive only when leader narcissism is low. The implications and limitations of our research are discussed.