Toot Your Own Horn? Leader Narcissism and the Effectiveness of Employee Self-Promotion:

Self-promotion is a form of impression management aiming to present to others a positive image of oneself by emphasizing one’s strengths, contributions, or accomplishments. In the workplace, self-promotion is often targeted at leaders, with employees trying to show a positive image and impress their leader. Self-promotion does not always impress observers though, and we propose that leaders high on narcissism are more likely to be impressed by employee self-promotion than those low on narcissism for two reasons. First, narcissists endorse and engage in self-promotion themselves, and the similarity-attraction principle suggests that people more easily develop affective regard for and show more positive behavior towards those who are more like them, resulting in having a better relationship with them. Second, because narcissists are instrumental and exploitative, they are particularly sensitive to self-promotors’ message that they are an important and influential group member who potentially forms a useful ...