Narcissistic Leadership, Employee Silence, and Organizational Cynicism: A Study of Physicians in Egyptian Public Hospitals

Abstract

This paper focuses on physicians in four public hospitals located in Egypt to explore the effect of narcissistic leadership on cognitive, affective and behavioral cynicism dimensions with and without the mediating effect of physician silence.The authors employed a convenience sampling in which every physician was handed a questionnaire form to fill. This targeted a decrease in the likelihood of research bias. In total, the authors distributed 320 forms and collected 229 completed questionnaires forms. The structural equation was employed to determine the effect of narcissistic leadership on physicians’ organizational cynicism dimensions (cognitive, affective and behavioral). The same equation was later employed to assess the mediating role of the physicians’ silence on the aforementioned relationship. The authors found that narcissistic leadership has a positive effect on physicians’ silence. Moreover, physicians’ perceptions of the narcissism of their leaders stimulate their cynicism behavior and negative feelings towards these narcissists. Lastly, the authors discovered a significant role for physicians’ silence in mediating the relationship between narcissistic leadership and physicians’ cognitive, affective and behavioral cynicism.