RTO Resistance Can Be About Power—Three Studies Point to Leader Ego

Three studies suggest that some leaders resist remote work because physical distance limits opportunities to exercise control, display rank and receive attention. Across the research program, leaders higher in narcissism expressed stronger opposition to remote arrangements, with power emerging as the clearest experimental pathway.

This is a group-level finding, not a diagnosis of executives who favor office attendance. The evidence cannot establish one person’s motives from an RTO memo, and it does not rule out legitimate requirements involving equipment, security, training, customers or closely interdependent work.

What the three studies establish

The peer-reviewed research program comprised an archival analysis of 259 Fortune 500 CEOs, a preregistered three-wave survey of 359 leaders and a preregistered experiment with 546 leaders. Higher narcissism predicted greater remote-work resistance in all three studies; power and status mediated the survey relationship, while the experiment supported power but not status as a mediator.

That combination is stronger than a collection of anecdotes. The archive tested whether the relationship appeared in executives’ public behavior, the survey measured leaders’ traits and motives directly, and the experiment tested whether inducing a temporary narcissistic mindset changed stated preferences.

The methods do not carry equal causal weight. The archive and survey show associations that could still reflect unmeasured influences. Random assignment gives the experiment greater leverage over causality, but only for the manipulated mindset and the responses produced under experimental conditions—not for every real-world mandate.

The CEO archive relies on revealing but indirect signals

The archival study examined public statements about remote work and estimated CEO narcissism from photograph size, signature size and compensation relative to another highly paid executive. It also used board chairmanship and prestigious outside directorships as exploratory proxies for power and status motivation.

These indicators make it possible to study prominent executives without asking them to complete a personality questionnaire. They also create the archive’s central limitation: a prominent photograph, large signature or compensation gap is not a clinical assessment and may partly reflect corporate conventions, governance structures or pay practices.

The study therefore supports an across-company pattern, not a verdict on any named CEO. Its power-and-status analysis was exploratory, and the reported relationship depended partly on whether an industry relied on frontline employees. That qualification matters because location requirements may reflect how work is produced, not merely what a leader prefers.

The survey measures motives more directly

The second study separated its measurements across three waves: leader narcissism first, power and status motivations later, and resistance to remote work afterward. Higher narcissism was associated with stronger resistance through both motives, even after the analysis accounted for trust, the Big Five personality traits and the other Dark Triad traits.

This helps distinguish the proposed explanation from two simpler stories: that resistant leaders merely distrust employees or that another broad personality characteristic accounts for the pattern. It also extends the evidence beyond chief executives to people holding leadership roles at other organizational levels.

Self-reports remain an important constraint. Respondents may not fully recognize why they prefer one work arrangement, and answers collected in a study cannot reproduce the financial, legal and operational pressures surrounding an actual policy. Time-separated measurement reduces some common survey problems, but it does not make private motives directly observable.

The experiment narrows the causal claim

In the experiment, leaders were randomly assigned to a narcissism-activation condition or a control condition. Participants in the activation condition subsequently expressed greater resistance to remote work, and increased power motivation helped explain the difference; status motivation did not change significantly.

The supported causal claim is therefore limited: activating narcissistic thinking can increase stated remote-work resistance under controlled conditions, partly by increasing the desire for power. It does not demonstrate that narcissistic leaders caused a particular company’s mandate, nor does it reproduce constraints such as leases, secure facilities, physical equipment or customer-facing duties.

In their Wharton commentary on the research, the study’s authors explicitly caution that leaders who reject remote work are not necessarily egomaniacs and that teams can have sound reasons to meet in person. That boundary is essential: experimental evidence about a psychological mechanism is not permission to label an individual from a policy decision.

A board can audit the policy without diagnosing the leader

The useful governance question is not whether an executive appears narcissistic. It is whether the attendance rule has a specific operational rationale, fits the roles covered and can be revised when evidence changes. A Johns Hopkins leadership brief similarly recommends examining whether workplace policy reflects organizational needs or personal preferences for visibility, influence and control.

• Which work requires co-location? Identify the equipment, protected information, hands-on instruction, customer coverage or tightly coupled collaboration involved. “Culture” alone does not specify a location dependency.
• What result should attendance improve? Define an observable outcome—such as onboarding progress, production accuracy or decision time—and establish a baseline and review point.
• Why does the rule fit each role? Operational reasoning often produces different requirements for different workflows. A uniform schedule needs evidence that those jobs share a material dependency on place.
• Were narrower responses considered? Scheduled collaboration, targeted training or redesigned management routines may address a defined problem without requiring the same attendance pattern from everyone.
• Whose costs enter the decision? Governance should consider commuting, retention, accommodations and access to distributed talent alongside property commitments and managerial convenience.
• What evidence could change the policy? A rule with measurable objectives, employee input and a scheduled reassessment is less dependent on any one leader’s preferences.

Tone is a poor diagnostic tool: a blunt mandate may answer a genuine operational constraint, while a carefully presented policy may still lack one. Role-specific reasoning, documented outcomes and openness to revision provide better evidence of whether office attendance serves the organization.

The three studies make leader ego a credible factor to investigate, not a default explanation for every RTO decision. Boards and employees can respect that distinction by scrutinizing the policy’s evidence instead of speculating about the executive’s personality.

Also read:

• Remote Work Holds at About 22% of the U.S. Workforce in 2026
• Your Office Reveals Less About Personality Than Who Controls the Work
• Boss vs. Leader: The Never-Ending Battle Between Power and Leadership