Selecting leaders based on personal accomplishments and self-promotion can create more narcissistic leaders.

Leader development could fuel narcissism.

Leadership development, including the followers, is better.

Recently, in a blog post and publication, we suggested that certain HR practices can fuel leader narcissism in organizations (Mitchell, et al., 2026). Leader-centricism may be to blame because there is a tendency to hire, promote, and develop leaders who are self-centered and self-promoting. Another strategy for combating leader narcissism is to focus on the followers. Here are four ways to do this:

Change the Leader Mindset. There is a pervasive belief that leaders create leadership, but leadership requires a collaboration between leaders and followers. Once we realize this, we can stop viewing leaders as the epicenter of leadership and move beyond an HR focused solely on leaders and leader development. Redefining leadership as composed of both leading and following will limit the primary focus on those at the top and consider more holistic ways of........

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