Does Your Boss Want You Back in the Office?
New research suggests leaders with stronger narcissistic traits are more likely to oppose remote work.
One of the biggest workplace mysteries of the post-pandemic era is why so many companies have insisted on dragging employees back to the office despite mounting evidence that many jobs can be done just as well remotely. A new paper offers an answer that has little to do with productivity, collaboration or corporate culture. Instead, it points to something far more personal: narcissism.
That’s the central finding of a new paper by researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Across three studies, the authors examined whether leaders' narcissistic tendencies help explain why some have become such vocal opponents of remote work. And the results were striking.
Using archival data from 259 Fortune 500 CEOs, the researchers found that leaders who displayed stronger markers of narcissism — measured through established proxies like the prominence of their photographs in annual reports, the size of their signatures, and their relative compensation — were significantly more likely to resist remote work and to advocate for employees returning to the office.
Two follow-up studies found the same pattern using more straightforward personality assessments. Even when the researchers accounted for factors like trust and other personality traits, narcissism still stood out as a strong predictor of resistance to remote work.
The researchers argue that narcissistic leaders don't necessarily believe remote work hurts productivity. Rather, they suggest, remote work threatens something much more personal: their sense of power and status.
Face-to-face workplaces provide narcissistic leaders with a steady stream of what psychologists call “narcissistic supply” — attention, admiration and visible displays of authority. Remote work, by contrast, flattens hierarchies. Leaders become one more square in a Zoom grid. Employees can mute themselves, turn off their cameras, delay replying to messages and generally exercise greater autonomy.
“Video calls demote narcissistic leaders from the corner office to a square on a screen that is the same size as those of their direct reports, thwarting their agentic desire to feel special,” the authors write.
They add that in virtual environments, leaders find it “more difficult... to command the attention — and gauge and bask in the admiration — of their employees.”
To be sure, the paper (which, by the way, is titled “Worship Me at The Office Altar: Why Narcissistic Leaders Resist Remote Work”) does not suggest that every CEO calling employees back into the office is a narcissist. Nor does it imply that every return-to-office policy is misguided. There are, of course, legitimate reasons why some jobs benefit from in-person work. But it does suggest that personality may play a larger role in workplace policy than many organizations — and bosses —might care to admit.
That’s particularly important because the stakes are high: Return-to-office mandates have been linked to higher employee turnover and have been cited as one reason why some women — who still shoulder a disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities — are scaling back their careers or leaving the workforce altogether.
Management decisions are often presented as objective, evidence-based responses to business needs — as calculated and rational thought processes. But this is a good reminder that decisions are ultimately made by people — with egos, motivations and, yes, insecurities of their own. And sometimes, awkward as it is to admit, the person designing the workplace may simply want to be the biggest presence in the room.
Caroline Fairchild
Brittany Jones-Cooper
Kathleen Davis
