10.5465/AMBPP.2019.160 WHEN VULNERABLE NARCISSISTS TAKE THE LEAD: EXPLORING A BIFACTOR MODEL OF NARCISSISM AND ABUSIVE SUPERVISION INTENT SUSANNE BRAUN Durham University, Durham University Business School, Mill Hill Lane, Durham DH1 3LB, United Kingdom BIRGIT SCHYNS NEOMA Business School YUYAN ZHENG Durham University, Durham University Business School ROBERT G. LORD Durham University, Durham University Business School ABSTRACT In a sample of 926 German-speaking managers, a bifactor model of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) differentiated between a general narcissism factor and two specific sub-factors, grandiosity and vulnerability. Vulnerability predicted abusive supervision intent through internal attributions and shame in response to failure. INTRODUCTION Abusive supervision, the “sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper, 2000, p. 178), is one form of workplace aggression from leaders directed at their followers. Meta-analytic findings support that abusive supervision threatens positive organizational functioning (Mackey, Frieder, Brees, & Martinko, 2017; Schyns & Schilling, 2013). Seeing that follower perceptions of abusive supervision relate negatively to desirable outcomes and positively to undesirable ones, it is unsurprising that management scholars seek to better understand what contributes to leaders showing abusive supervision (Zhang & Bednall, 2016). We are interested in leaders’ traits, cognitions, and emotions as distal predictors which help explain why leaders feel driven to engage in abusive supervision (Antonakis, Day & Schyns, 2012). Our theorizing specifically draws on a self-regulatory perspective (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001) and the distinction between grandiosity and vulnerability (Pincus et al., 2009) to explain abusive supervision intent. Narcissistic Grandiosity and Vulnerability From a self-regulatory perspective, narcissism is of a paradoxical nature. Narcissists possess inflated egos implying grandiose self-views, yet the vulnerability of a super-ego requires continuous affirmation from others (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). This paradox is reflected in the distinction between narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability, spurring a controversial debate about the conceptualization and measurement of narcissism (Edershile, Simms, & Wright, 2018; Jauk, Weigle, Lehmann, Benedek, & Neubauer, 2017; Miller, Hoffman, Gaughan, Gentile,