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Entitled at the top: are leaders more selfish than the rest of us? (2016)

“…generosity is often strategically demonstrated to attain status (and) may decrease once status-attainment goals are achieved…”

APS Association for Psychological Science ‘Minds for Business’ website article.

Based on the peer-reviewed paper ‘To give or not to give? Interactive effects of status and legitimacy on generosity.’

Nicholas A. Hays, Michigan State University; Steven L. Blader, New York University,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18 Jul 2016.

Leaders’ propensity for generosity seems to depend on whether they feel like they’ve earned their high-status position, according to new research.

High-status CEOs – who have a greater sense of hubris and thus are likely to have an exaggerated sense of their value to their organizations – extract more compensation and yet devote less time and effort to advancing organizational goals compared to lower-status CEO.

“Because generosity is often strategically demonstrated to attain status, generosity may decrease once status-attainment goals are achieved,” the researchers write.

“Complementing previous work indicating that generosity leads to status increases, we find that once an individual has obtained high status, the legitimacy of that status determines whether he or she tends to behave more or less generously than low-status group members.”

Access the full article with more details of the research here: Entitled at the top

Access the original peer-reviewed paper here: To give or not to give?

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