Many employees have wondered why their bosses insist on a full return to the office rather than allowing hybrid work. A study published last month found that narcissistic leaders, those with a tendency to be self-centred and entitled, were more likely than others to resist remote work. The study concluded that remote work "interferes with their motivations for power and status".
The research was conducted by three Wharton School researchers: PhD candidates Marissa Shandell and Courtney Elliott, and professor Adam Grant, who is known for his work in organisational psychology. Over six years, they carried out three separate studies involving more than 1,000 company executives, middle managers and supervisors. These examined the relationship between bosses' personalities and their views on remote work.
In the first study, the authors analysed 259 Fortune 500 chief executive officers, using established indicators of narcissism from previous research. They then examined public statements by the same CEOs about remote work.
In the second study, the researchers surveyed 359 leaders, measuring narcissism using the "short dark triad" scale, along with other traits and motivations including Machiavellianism, psychopathy, power and status motivation, and trust in employees. They then measured the leaders' self-reported attitudes toward remote and hybrid arrangements.
The final study was an experiment with 546 leaders. Participants were randomly assigned to either a "narcissism condition" group or a control group before filling in a survey. Those in the narcissism group were prompted to read about successful CEOs described as confident, self-centred visionaries willing to prioritise their own ambitions and instincts over others' input. Leaders in that group subsequently expressed greater resistance to remote work.
Across all three studies, narcissism was the only factor that consistently predicted leaders' objections to remote work. Summarising their findings for the New York Times, the authors concluded: "The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status — and the more they favoured full-time return-to-office mandates."
Since the pandemic ended, some corporate leaders have pushed harder than others to get staff back to the office. In 2023, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk criticised "the laptop class" for wanting the right to stay home, when service workers didn't have the same choices. Last year, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon made an impassioned, expletive-laden speech to staff about getting back in the office full-time.
Around a third of US companies have made it mandatory to return fully to the office. Yet despite those mandates, official statistics show about 22.6% of US employees still worked remotely at least part-time as of March 2026. The latest data from Great Britain shows around 28% of working adults were still working under hybrid arrangements in early 2025. Hybrid work is more common in Australia. Official [figures from August 2025](https
