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Narcissism is often cited as a construct that is likely related to unethical leadership. Still, only a handful of empirical studies have examined the relationship between narcissism and workgroup outcomes, and practically none have linked narcissism to leader behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to use narcissism scores to predict behaviors associated with unethical leadership in a controlled setting.

Participants completed a measure of narcissistic personality. Participants also completed an administrative assessment center (AC). Qualitative analysis was used to code the behaviors in the AC into dimensions associated with unethical leader behavior.

Narcissism was related to the display of unethical behaviors during the AC. Scores on the narcissism scale correlated positively with behaviors associated with unethical leadership, including one-way communication, control of power, insensitivity to others, an unrealistic assessment of the environment, manipulative communication, and pseudo-transformational behaviors.

This is one of only a few studies that demonstrate a relationship between narcissism and observed unethical “bad” leader behaviors. Quantifying this relationship suggests that measures of narcissism could be used in leadership selection. Quantifying this relationship could also be used by coaches as they work to improve leader behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between intelligence and behavior during leader development.

As part of a leader development program, a variety of measures are collected, including measures of intelligence and measures of performance (e.g. assessment center performance, a 360-degree appraisal). The participants are given performance feedback from a variety of sources then asked to form developmental goals. The goals are examined for goal quality and goal-feedback correspondence, and examined in relation to intelligence.

Intelligence was positively related to goal-feedback correspondence. Intelligence was also related to goal quality after controlling for variance attributed to professional discipline.

Personality, gender, age, and other variables were not included in this study. Other factors, such as the cultures of the organizations from which the individuals hailed, were also not included. Moreover, the conclusions were based on the behaviors exhibited in one leader development program. Future research should address these limitations.

Leader development is expensive and is becoming more popular. The results of this research could help organizations better determine who is likely to benefit from the investment in leader development.

In addition, a unique method is presented in the study for measuring leader development behavior based on goal quality and goal-feedback correspondence. Generalizability theory is applied in order to determine the reliability of the measures.