When Leaders Drain Rather Than Inspire: Narcissistic Leadership, Emotional Exhaustion, and the Path to Job Burnout

Narcissistic leadership has emerged as a critical organizational issue, as leaders characterized by arrogance, self-centeredness, and lack of empathy often undermine employee well-being and long-term sustainability. This review develops a conceptual framework that explains how narcissistic leadership contributes to job burnout, with emotional exhaustion positioned as the key mediating mechanism. Using an AI-assisted narrative review design, Scopus AI outputs—summaries, expanded summaries, concept maps, and linkages—were systematically synthesized to identify thematic clusters and disciplinary patterns. The findings reveal three core pathways: psychological strain, organizational culture, and employee outcomes, with emotional exhaustion emerging as the pivotal bridge linking narcissistic leadership to burnout. Explicit moderator hypotheses are proposed, highlighting the buffering roles of intrinsic motivation, leader accountability, and positive leadership climates, alongside organizational culture as a contextual mediator. Practically, the review advances concrete interventions, including validated leader selection tools, 360-degree feedback systems, accountability protocols, and measurable KPIs such as engagement, burnout, and turnover. While the AI-assisted methodology strengthens transparency and triangulation, the heterogeneity of primary studies limited the feasibility of effect-size aggregation, underscoring the need for future empirical validation across diverse cultural contexts. Taken together, the review contributes theoretically by clarifying the psychological and cultural mechanisms of toxic leadership and practically by equipping organizations with actionable strategies to safeguard employee well-being.