Every workplace has people who are a little more self-interested than their colleagues. Maybe they bend the rules to get ahead, or they know exactly how to charm the right person at the right time. While much of the conversation about “dark” personalities at work has focused on bosses, a growing body of research is turning the lens on employees who carry these traits. What happens when a manipulative, self-serving employee encounters a particular type of leader? And does the cultural context of the workplace change the equation?
A new study published in The Journal of Psychology explored exactly this. Researchers examined how three so-called “dark personality traits” in employees interact with different leadership styles to shape workplace behavior and attitudes among Chinese workers. The central finding: employees who score high in Machiavellianism, a trait defined by strategic manipulation and distrust, were more likely to engage in harmful workplace behaviors and feel mentally drained when they worked under a leader who was focused solely on goals and showed little concern for relationships.
What the “dark triad” means and why it matters at work
The dark triad is a set of three personality traits that psychologists have studied extensively: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. People high in narcissism tend to have an inflated sense of self-importance and entitlement. Those high in Machiavellianism are strategic, calculating, and often willing to manipulate others to get what they want. Psychopathy, considered the most extreme of the three, is marked by impulsive behavior and a lack of responsibility or empathy. All three traits share a common thread: individuals who score high on them tend to prioritize their own interests, sometimes at the expense of others.
Past studies have shown that employees with these traits can sometimes achieve career success and earn promotions. But the same traits can also lead to counterproductive behavior, like sabotaging coworkers or wasting company resources. What has been less clear is how the behavior of a boss might trigger or suppress these tendencies, especially in cultures outside the West.
The research team and their question
Gloria Xiaocheng Ma, a researcher in work and organizational psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, led the study alongside colleagues Marise Ph. Born, Paraskevas Petrou, and Arnold B. Bakker. The team wanted to know whether certain leadership styles could act as a trigger for employees with dark triad traits, prompting them to behave in more negative ways at work, or dampening their positive contributions.
Specifically, the researchers drew on something called trait activation theory. This is the idea that personality traits do not constantly drive behavior. Instead, traits get “switched on” by situations that are relevant to them. In the same way that a competitive person might only become aggressive when placed in a high-stakes contest, a manipulative employee might only act out when placed under a certain kind of leader. The researchers hypothesized that a leadership style focused on pushing for goals while ignoring team relationships would be the trigger most relevant to dark triad employees.
How the study was designed
The team recruited 534 full-time employees across various industries in China to participate in a three-wave online survey. In the first wave, participants completed a personality questionnaire measuring their levels of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. One week later, they answered questions about their general work behaviors and attitudes, covering six areas: in-role performance (how well they fulfill their job duties), organizational citizenship behavior (helping behaviors toward colleagues or the company), work engagement (feeling energized and dedicated at work), counterproductive work behavior (actions that harm the organization or coworkers), emotional exhaustion (feeling mentally drained by work), and turnover intention (planning to leave the company).
One more week later, participants were randomly assigned to read one of four fictional leadership scenarios. Each scenario described a manager named John who led an insurance sales team. The scenarios varied along two dimensions. “Agency” referred to how focused the leader was on achieving goals, setting targets, and enforcing standards. “Communion” referred to how focused the leader was on building warm relationships, listening to employees, and creating a supportive atmosphere. This produced four combinations: high agency-high communion, high agency-low communion, low agency-high communion, and low agency-low communion.
After reading their assigned scenario, participants imagined working for that leader and reported how they would behave and feel. In total, 332 employees completed all three waves. The researchers used hierarchical regression analysis, a statistical technique that adds variables in stages to see how each contributes to the outcome, to test their hypotheses.
What the data revealed
The interaction the researchers were most interested in did show up, but only for one dark triad trait and two outcomes. Employees high in Machiavellianism reported higher counterproductive work behavior and greater emotional exhaustion when assigned to the high agency-low communion leader, compared to other leadership styles. In other words, when a goal-pushing, relationship-ignoring boss was described, employees with manipulative tendencies were the ones most likely to say they would engage in harmful workplace actions and feel burned out.
Specifically, the link between Machiavellianism and counterproductive work behavior was significantly stronger under high agency-low communion leadership than under both low agency-low communion leadership and low agency-high communion leadership. The link between Machiavellianism and emotional exhaustion was significantly stronger under high agency-low communion leadership compared to low agency-high communion leadership. These findings partially supported the researchers’ hypothesis.
For narcissism and psychopathy, no such interaction with leadership style was detected. The researchers suggest this may be because Machiavellians are uniquely sensitive to their environment. They have been described in past literature as “social chameleons” who adapt their behavior depending on the situation. Narcissists and people high in psychopathy, by contrast, may behave more consistently regardless of who is supervising them.
The direct effects of personality and leadership
Beyond the interaction effects, the study also found direct links between the dark triad traits and work outcomes. Narcissism was positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with emotional exhaustion, suggesting that narcissistic employees may bring a certain energy and resilience to their roles. Machiavellianism was positively associated with in-role performance, which the researchers speculate could reflect these employees’ skill at leveraging interpersonal relationships, a valued asset in Chinese culture.
Psychopathy, on the other hand, was linked only to negative outcomes: lower in-role performance and higher emotional exhaustion. This aligns with its reputation as the “darkest” of the three traits.
As for leadership styles, the results were striking in the context of Chinese culture. High agency-high communion leadership, the style that combined goal focus with warmth, was associated with the best outcomes across the board: higher performance, more helping behaviors, greater engagement, and less exhaustion, turnover intention, and counterproductive behavior. Low agency-high communion leadership, a style that prioritizes relationships but neglects goal-setting, was also linked to several positive outcomes. This contrasts with findings from Western, individualistic cultures, where this type of leader has been associated with less favorable results.
Both low-communion leadership styles, whether paired with high or low agency, were associated with poorer outcomes for employees. The researchers interpret this as evidence that in a collectivistic culture like China, where interpersonal harmony is highly valued, relationship-oriented leadership is particularly important.
What this means for businesses
For organizations operating in collectivistic cultural settings, these findings suggest that leaders who focus exclusively on targets and deadlines while neglecting team relationships may inadvertently bring out the worst in certain employees. This is particularly relevant for managing employees who score high in Machiavellianism, as these individuals appear especially reactive to leadership environments that feel cold and controlling.
The practical takeaway is that leadership training in such cultures might benefit from emphasizing the importance of communion, meaning warmth, listening, and relationship-building, alongside the traditional emphasis on goal-setting and performance standards. For multinational companies placing managers in Chinese offices or similar collectivistic environments, a customized approach to leadership development that accounts for cultural expectations could help reduce counterproductive behavior and employee burnout.
Important caveats
There are a few limitations worth noting. The study relied on hypothetical leadership scenarios rather than observations of real leader-follower interactions. How someone says they would react to a fictional boss may differ from how they actually behave day to day. The study also used self-report questionnaires, meaning employees rated their own personality traits and anticipated behaviors. People with dark triad traits may be inclined to present themselves more favorably, which could affect the results.
The effect sizes in this study were small to medium, which is common in personality research but means the practical impact of any single factor on its own is modest. And because each participant was only exposed to one leadership scenario, the study could not capture how the same individual might shift their behavior under different bosses over time.
Still, the study adds a useful piece to the puzzle of how personality, leadership, and culture interact in the workplace. It suggests that the right (or wrong) boss can activate tendencies that might otherwise stay dormant, and that what counts as the “right” boss may depend on where in the world the office is located.
