Adam Grant’s Research Finds Bosses Who Want Everyone in the Office All Week May Be Narcissists,

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Adam Grant’s Research Finds Bosses Who Want Everyone in the Office All Week May Be Narcissists,

It’s really not about productivity.

EXPERT OPINION BY MINDA ZETLIN, AUTHOR OF ‘CAREER SELF-CARE: FIND YOUR HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, AND FULFILLMENT AT WORK’ @MINDAZETLIN

Adam Grant's Research Finds Bosses Who Want Everyone in the Office All Week May Be Narcissists,

Adam Grant. Illustration: Inc; Photo:

In the last two years, companies from Amazon to Morgan Stanley to Instagram have summoned employees back to the office five days a week. They’ve offered various reasons for this dictate. Some claim it improves productivity, although that’s not supported by the evidence. Others say the reason is to increase collaboration or strengthen the company’s culture. Those are certainly good reasons to bring people together some of the time, but not all day every workday.

Wharton psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant, along with Wharton researchers Marissa Shandell and Courtney Elliott have spent the past six years studying this question. Why do some business leaders insist on having everyone in the office five days a week when others don’t? Those who want everyone back in the office full-time don’t trust their employees less, the researchers wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times. They don’t want their company more, either.

The only trait that consistently predicted objections

“The only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism–the tendency to be self-centered and entitled,” they wrote. “The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status–and the more they favored return-to-office mandates.” The researchers drew that conclusion after surveying thousands of upper executives, middle managers, and frontline supervisors. They followed up with surveys and experiments that targeted narcissism specifically. In one clever experiment, they told leaders how a “bold, assertive ego” led to success for founders like Steve Jobs. They followed up with a conversation about remote work. Leaders who’d discussed the value of a big ego were likelier to say they wanted everyone in the office.

Narcissists need an audience.

The researchers guess that narcissistic bosses may want their employees in the office to exert more complete control over them. Or, they may want an admiring audience for their own exploits. I think there’s another possible explanation. Narcissistic bosses may have trouble assessing employees’ efforts if they can’t actually watch them working. To lead a remote or team, you need metrics that will help you understand what employees are accomplishing. That may be more challenging for a narcissist, since it means taking attention off of themselves.

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Most of us believe we make data-driven decisions. The truth is, most of our decisions are based more on emotions than we want to admit. That may be doubly true for a decision such as calling people back to the office, where emotions are likely to run high on both sides. The fact is, though, research shows that companies do not economically benefit from having everyone at work fulltime. So if you’re thinking about calling everyone in five days a week, consider the possibility that it might be for the benefit of your ego, rather than your company’s bottom line.