Meta-analytic studies suggest that the gender differences in narcissism have indeed been declining over the past few decades, largely because women have become more narcissistic, rather than men becoming less so. This change reaffirms the danger of encouraging women to lean in or act more like men to climb the corporate ladder. We are only inviting them to strengthen a problematic leadership model and augment rather than reduce current incompetence rates.

Narcissists may charm others initially, but these first impressions usually wear out in the end. For example, a recent study collected longitudinal data from 175 retail stores in the Netherlands, spanning three years. The results showed that the more employees knew—and interacted with—their managers, the more negatively the employees viewed managers with higher narcissism scores. In other words, as long as bosses had limited interactions with their employees, their narcissism did not automatically translate into a negative reputation. However, it was far more unlikely that narcissists maintained a good image with employees after prolonged interactions with them. These results are consistent with much research showing that it can be particularly difficult for narcissists to maintain long-term relationships.

Their analyses revealed that leaders’ technical expertise was the single most important predictor of their subordinates’ engagement—even more than their salary! Moreover, by examining longitudinal data from teams that changed leaders, Artz and his team highlighted a clear causal effect: when a newly appointed leader inherited an established team in the organization, the morale of the team rose if the new leader had higher levels of technical expertise than his or her predecessor had.

More precisely, traits such as confidence, narcissism, psychopathy, and charisma advance individuals’ careers without improving the success of the groups they lead. Clearly, we would be better off if we sifted out individuals with such traits, as opposed to rewarding them. The success of teams and organizations is more important than an individual’s personal success, especially when individual victory harms the rest of the group.

As this book has tried to show, organizations can take concrete steps both to improve the performance of their leaders and to increase the representation of women in leadership. They can stop interpreting displays of overconfidence, narcissism, psychopathy, and charisma as signs of leadership potential. They can also acknowledge the importance of EQ, which should be a core competency in any data-driven model of leadership potential. Paying more attention to EQ would augment both the quality of leaders and the number of female leaders, increasing the overall levels of personal effectiveness, self-awareness, and transformational leadership in organizations.