Prof. Don Moore host Haas Profs. Jennifer Chatman and Cameron Anderson for a conversation about management lessons drawn from their recent research on toxic personalities and the damage they inflict.
Chatman, a leading expert on organizational culture, has published several papers on the ways in which narcissistic leaders weaken their organizations and cause long-lasting damage. Recent research by Anderson, who studies power and status, found that people with disagreeable personalities are prone to aggressively push ahead of others, but thwart their own careers through lack of collaboration. Even so, both of these personality types are all too common in the ranks of management.
“What our research showed in our most recent paper is that narcissistic leaders tended to create organizations that were significantly lower in collaboration and integrity,” said Chatman. “This integrity piece is very important and comes straight from the narcissist’s view that they are not subject to the rules. One of our research papers showed that narcissistic leaders lead firms that are embroiled in significantly more lawsuits.”
Anderson is an expert on topics relating to power, leadership, and conflict resolution and teaches courses in Power and Politics in Organizations, Negotiations, and Conflict Resolution.
Chatman is the Paul J. Cortese Distinguished Professor of Management and a faculty member in the Management of Organizations (MORS) Group at Berkeley Haas. Her research, teaching, and consulting work focuses on how organizations can leverage culture for strategic success and how diverse teams can optimize performance.
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“New Thinking in a Pandemic: Business, Economics & Inclusion” is a twice-monthly series hosted by Berkeley Haas faculty to highlight cutting-edge, high-level thinking and analysis on a range of topics around business, economics, and equity during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond. The series is streamed live on YouTube, where viewers can ask questions via chat.