Leaders are often told to be modest. Talking about your own achievements can easily be interpreted as arrogance, particularly in the workplace. But new research suggests that when the person talking about success is a respected leader, self-promotion can have a surprisingly positive effect.

Research discussed by INSEAD shows that employees can become more hopeful, inspired and motivated when a superior talks about his or her professional accomplishments. Intriguingly, the same is not necessarily true when the person doing the bragging is a colleague.

The research was conducted by Kelly Nault of IE Business School and Andy J. Yap of INSEAD and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across nine experimental studies involving around 2,600 participants in the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore, the researchers examined how people respond when others promote their own achievements at work.

The difference between a boss and a colleague

Context appears to matter enormously.

When colleagues promote their own accomplishments, their success can invite comparison. Someone else’s promotion or professional triumph may lead us to wonder why we have not achieved the same thing.

A respected superior occupies a different position. Employees may regard that person as a role model — someone whose career represents a possible version of their own future.

In that situation, hearing about an achievement can become more than a story about someone else’s success. It can become a roadmap.

But the researchers identified an important condition: the achievement must appear attainable.

In one experiment, participants were less inspired when success depended on something they could not reproduce, such as having spent one’s childhood in Japan. They responded much more positively when the achievement resulted from meeting sales targets for six consecutive months.

The same applies to relevance. Hearing that a senior colleague has acquired an expensive Rolex may demonstrate financial success, but it tells an aspiring employee very little about how to advance professionally. A story about reaching a target, winning responsibility for an important project or developing a skill can be much more useful.

Leadership is also about making success visible

There is an interesting lesson here for future leaders.

Leadership is not simply a matter of displaying success. It is about making the path towards success understandable.

A leader who says, “Look what I have achieved,” may merely be showing off. A leader who explains what was achieved, which obstacles had to be overcome and which actions made the difference is doing something else: providing information that others can use.

This distinction is especially relevant for young professionals.

Students and young executives are surrounded by successful people, but the finished result is usually far more visible than the process that produced it. We see the CEO, professor, entrepreneur or senior partner. We rarely see the thousands of decisions, failures, adjustments and years of work that preceded that position.

Good role models can make that process visible.

The INSEAD findings suggest that leaders should therefore not automatically hide their own accomplishments in the name of modesty. When achievements are relevant and realistically attainable — and when leaders explain the actions behind them — talking about success may encourage others to imagine their own future success.

Perhaps the lesson is not that leaders should brag more.

It is that leaders should tell better stories about how they got where they are.

Source: Research by Kelly Nault (IE Business School) and Andy J. Yap (INSEAD), The Self-Promotion Boost: Positive Consequences for Observers of High-Rank Self-Promoters, discussed by INSEAD Knowledge, 4 December 2023.