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Photo Credit: Michael Waraksa

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Try to avoid working for a company with a narcissist at the top. That’s because narcissistic C.E.O.s tend to overspend on investments and deliver substandard results. On top of that, they are often paid more than their humbler yet better-performing peers, according to a recent study.

Researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing the signatures of about 450 chief executives at public companies. The size of a person’s signature is positively associated with many of the traits of narcissism, such as ego, exploitativeness and dominance, said Charles Ham, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland and one of the C.E.O. study’s authors, along with Nicholas Seybert, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, and Sean Wang, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

All the signatures came from annual reports or news releases, which provided a consistent benchmark for comparing them. (Don’t try this at the office; the sample needs to be large and the format unvarying.) Then the researchers looked at the executives’ level of investment and tracked later results. Given the data, it appears that the narcissists talked a good game but could not live up to it. Not surprisingly, their tenure at companies was shorter, too.

Narcissists may do the most damage at the top, but they can disrupt workplaces at all levels. They possess very little empathy and have grandiose views of themselves, leading to feelings of entitlement and a constant need for admiration, said S. Mark Young, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.

Narcissists are cutthroat and scheming, Professor Young said. They tend to dominate the conversation and will do just about anything to be the center of attention, even if it’s negative attention.

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Phyllis Korkki is assignment editor for The New York Times Sunday Business section, with a focus on the workplace and job hunting.