Ambition, an individual trait that we show to be empirically distinct from the Big Five dimensions of personality, has been under theorized and researched as an important determinant of both career success and unethical behavior. We argue that the specific goals or focus of ambition, as well as the level of general ambition, are important. Study 1 used a large sample of working adults and found that general ambition and extrinsically-focused ambition were associated with a willingness to engage in political behavior and career success. Study 2 surveyed a second sample of working adults and found that extrinsic ambition was associated with an increased tendency to misrepresent qualifications when applying for a job. In Study 3, using four distinct scenarios, we found that extrinsic ambition was associated with people's willingness to engage in unethical behavior. The data make the case that ambition is an important trait useful for understanding people's careers and that there are at least two forms of ambition. Moreover, like some other personal traits such as narcissism, ambition can be a double-edged sword, associated both with career achievement and being willing to take ethical shortcuts to achieve success.

Over the past few years, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella and Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan have led a remarkable cultural transformation at Microsoft. Charles O’Reilly explains how they did it.

Much of the research on organizational culture has been driven by the assumption that culture is associated with organizational performance. Surprisingly, the evidence for this linkage is ambiguous for two understandable reasons. First, there has been a proliferation of definitions and measures of the construct itself which has made aggregation of findings across studies confusing. Second, demonstrating that culture affects objective firm performance requires large cross-organizational samples—but the modal approach to measuring culture using surveys or qualitative research has made this difficult. Using a natural language processing measure of culture with a sample of 309 large U.S. companies, we show how (1) the norms and values that define culture may be understood as representing three underlying cultural archetypes (performance-orientation, people, and customers) and (2) that these archetypes are related to objective firm performance in understandable ways. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on organizational culture.

A growing body of research has documented the negative impact narcissistic leaders can have on the organizations they lead. Studies have shown that when in positions of authority, grandiose narcissists often have subordinates who are frustrated, fearful, less willing to share information, and less satisfied with their jobs. In two studies, we contribute to this research by showing how narcissistic leaders create environments that are lower in psychological safety. We further show that these effects are exacerbated because narcissistic leaders are also more likely to create organizational cultures that are less collaborative and place less emphasis on integrity. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on leadership.

Organizational culture is widely seen as an important element in a firm’s success or failure. While there is almost universal agreement that leaders define and shape organizational culture, there is little research exploring how and why they do this. We propose that a leader’s personality and values are the cornerstone of organizational culture. Using a validated natural language processing instrument, we used earnings call data to collect data on the personalities of 460 CEOs in 309 firms and matched this to organizational culture ratings based on Glassdoor employee ratings for the period 2015–2019. Results show strong, interpretable associations between a CEO’s personality and the culture of the firm—and this association is strengthened the longer the CEO is in the role. Further, by examining 128 succession events during this period, we also show that, consistent with attraction-similarity-retention logic, there is some weak evidence that the existing culture of a firm can be related to the selection of a new CEO. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on organizational culture.

A compelling growth ambition is a critical enabler for new ventures.

Michael Arena, Glenn Carroll, Charles O’Reilly, John Golden, and Scott Hines discuss how remote work can undermine organizational innovation. They propose an approach which overcomes these limitations.

We investigate ambidexterity and management system alignment at the project level. Drawing on Burns and Stalker's (1961) notions of organic and mechanistic systems of management, we examine whether differences in management systems are associated with performance for exploration and exploitation projects. We take advantage of a unique opportunity to design a quasi-experimental field study of 46 projects in a high-technology engineering firm to test whether the alignment of organic systems to exploration projects and mechanistic systems to exploitation projects is associated with increased project success. We also test whether misalignment reduces project performance. Importantly, we find that exploration project outcomes are strongly impacted by management system alignment/misalignment whereas exploitation project outcomes are unaffected. Our findings further suggest that project leaders can enhance or impede project alignment and success regardless of formal structure.

Research has shown that grandiose narcissists often rise to positions of power in organizations, even though there is little evidence that they perform better. Indeed, some studies show various deleterious effects on both their companies and the people who work for them. Prior research suggests that one reason for narcissist's success is that they are more skilled at organizational politics. One plausible implication is that narcissists are more willing to use a broad range of power tactics, in part because research shows that narcissists are less prone to feeling guilt for their behaviors. Using a sample of fully-employed adults (n = 270), we show that narcissism is correlated with a greater willingness to use tougher, more aggressive political tactics, an effect that is stronger to the extent that people are less guilt prone. Because research shows the importance of political skill for career success, our findings help account for why narcissism may produce more favorable career outcomes.

Research has shown that a leader's personality can affect organizational culture. We focus on leader narcissism and examine how it affects two specific organizational culture dimensions collaboration and integrity. In two field studies and three laboratory studies, our results reveal that people who are more narcissistic are less likely to demonstrate collaboration and integrity in their behavior, and when we examine leaders specifically, we find that those higher in narcissism prefer and lead organizational cultures that are less collaborative and place less emphasis on integrity. In our laboratory studies, we show that narcissists endorse policies and procedures that are associated with cultures with less collaboration and integrity, and that employees follow the culture in determining their own level of collaboration and integrity, suggesting that narcissistic leaders' behavior is amplified through culture. We discuss the potentially enduring impact that narcissistic leaders have in engendering cultures lower in collaboration and integrity to enable future theory-building connecting leader personality to organizational culture.

Research over the past decade has shown that grandiose narcissists are often successful at attaining leadership positions in organizations. However, there is no evidence that narcissists lead higher performing firms, and while they see themselves as more competent leaders, there is no evidence for this, either. In fact, research shows that narcissistic leaders have numerous negative effects on the entities they lead. This raises a question: Why are narcissists so successful in attaining leadership positions? We suggest that the defining characteristics of grandiose narcissism (grandiosity, self-confidence, entitlement, and a willingness to exploit others for one's own self-interest) may make them more effective organizational politicians than those who are lower in narcissism. We report the results of three studies that show: (1) those higher in narcissism are more likely than those who are lower to see organizations in political terms (opportunity), (2) they are more willing to engage in organizational politics (motive), and (3) they are more skilled political actors (means). We discuss the implications of these results for organizational dynamics and career processes.

The role that a CEO’s personality plays in corporate outcomes is a topic of considerable interest, particularly the relation between narcissistic CEOs and performance. Common perception is that CEO narcissism is highly prevalent, and considerable research suggests that narcissism is associated with worse outcomes. The majority of studies, however, are based on “unobtrusive” methods that do not directly measure the CEO’s personality through a validated questionnaire but instead on indirect evidence thought to be indicative of narcissism. In this Closer Look, we test some basic assumptions about the relation between narcissism and corporate outcomes using a sample of CEOs whose personality is formally assessed by long-time directors who know and have worked closely with that CEO. While most of the research into narcissism and outcomes is negative, we find unexpected associations. We ask: • Would the results of existing literature be replicated if CEOs were subject to a valid personality evaluation? • What contribution does a CEO’s personality have to outcomes, and how does it manifest itself through strategy, risk, and culture? • How much discussion does the board have about the personality of their CEO? What actions do they take when they identify personal tendencies that might be of concern? • Are narcissists better at corporate “window dressing” than their less narcissistic peers?

A substantial body of research has documented that grandiose narcissists are characterized by high self-esteem, a sense of personal superiority and entitlement, overconfidence, a willingness to exploit others for self-gain, and hostility and aggression when challenged. We report two studies (N = 452) that explore how these dispositions affect their decision making. We show that grandiose narcissists' overconfidence, impulsivity, and a willingness to ignore expert advice results in a higher likelihood of making a bad decision. In addition, after getting the wrong answer, grandiose narcissists are more likely to blame others and remain self-confident in their judgment.

Transformational leaders challenge the status quo, provide a vision of a promising future, and motivate and inspire their followers to join in the pursuit of a better world. But many of these leaders also fit the American Psychiatric Association classification for narcissistic personality disorder. They are grandiose, entitled, self-confident, risk seeking, manipulative, and hostile. This article reviews the literature on narcissism and shows how what we think of as transformational leadership overlaps substantially with grandiose narcissism. As grandiose narcissists can appear as transformational leaders, it is important to distinguish between what leadership scholars have characterized as “transformational” and these “pseudo-transformational” candidates.

Facing imminent disruption, many large, established firms have embraced innovation as a way to develop new growth businesses. To succeed in the face of disruptive change requires established firms to master three distinct disciplines: ideation, to generate potential new business ideas; incubation, to validate these ideas in the market; and scaling, to reallocate the assets and capabilities needed to grow the new business. This article illustrates how two successful firms (Amazon and IBM) have developed approaches that address all three disciplines.

The personality of leaders has been shown to have important effects on their followers. Recently, organizational researchers have become increasingly concerned with the potentially destructive consequences of narcissistic leadership. Evidence indicates that grandiose narcissists both aspire to and frequently achieve leadership roles in organizations. However, because narcissists are principally motivated to pursue their own interests, have lower ethical standards, and are willing to transgress social norms, they can put the institutions they lead at risk. We report three studies showing that individuals who are more narcissistic are more willing to lie, cheat, and steal than those who are less narcissistic. We discuss the implications of these results for organizations.

Although some researchers have suggested that narcissistic CEOs may have a positive influence on organizational performance (e.g., Maccoby, 2007; Patel & Cooper, 2014), a growing body of evidence suggests that organizations led by narcissistic CEOs experience considerable downsides, including evidence of increased risk taking, overpaying for acquisitions, manipulating accounting data, and even fraud. In the current study we show that narcissistic CEO's subject their organizations to undue legal risk because they are overconfident about their ability to win and less sensitive to the costs to their organizations of such litigation. Using a sample of 32 firms, we find that those led by narcissistic CEOs are more likely to be involved in litigation and that these lawsuits are more protracted. In two follow-up experimental studies, we examine the mechanism underlying the relationship between narcissism and lawsuits and find that narcissists are less sensitive to objective assessments of risk when making decisions about whether to settle a lawsuit and less willing to take advice from experts. We discuss the implications of our research for advancing theories of narcissism and CEO influence on organizational performance.