Psychopathy in the workplace

The presence of psychopathy in the workplace—although psychopaths typically represent a relatively small percentage of workplace staff—can do enormous damage when in senior management roles.[1] Psychopaths are usually most common at higher levels of corporate organizations and their actions often cause a ripple effect throughout an organization, setting the tone for an entire corporate culture. Examples of detrimental effects are increased bullying, conflict, stress, staff turnover and absenteeism; reduction in productivity and in social responsibility.[2] Ethical standards of entire organisations can be badly damaged if a corporate psychopath is in charge.[3] A 2017 UK study found that companies with leaders who show "psychopathic characteristics" destroy shareholder value, tending to have poor future returns on equity.[4]

Academics refer to psychopaths in the workplace individually variously as workplace psychopaths, executive psychopaths, corporate psychopaths, business psychopaths, successful psychopaths, office psychopaths, white-collar psychopaths, industrial psychopaths, organizational psychopaths or occupational psychopaths.[5] Criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare coined the term "Snakes in Suits" as a synonym for workplace psychopaths.[6]

General

Oliver James identifies psychopathy as one of the dark triadic personality traits in the workplace, the others being narcissism and Machiavellianism.[7]

Workplace psychopaths are often charming to staff above their level in the workplace hierarchy but abusive to staff below their level.[8]

Workplace psychopaths maintain multiple personas throughout the office, presenting each colleague with a different version of themselves.[9]

Hare considers newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell to have been a strong candidate as a corporate psychopath.[10]

Incidence

Hare reports that about 1 percent of the general population meets the clinical criteria for psychopathy.[11] Hare further claims that the prevalence of psychopaths is higher in the business world than in the general population. Figures of around 3–4% have been cited for more senior positions in business.[6] A 2011 study of Australian white-collar managers found that 5.76 percent could be classed as psychopathic and another 10.42 percent dysfunctional with psychopathic characteristics.[12]

The organizational psychopath

The organizational psychopath craves a god-like feeling of power and control over other people. They prefer to work at the very highest levels of their organizations, allowing them to control the greatest number of people. Psychopaths who are political leaders, managers, and CEOs fall into this category.[5]

Organizational psychopaths generally appear to be intelligent, sincere, powerful, charming, witty, and entertaining communicators. They quickly assess what people want to hear and then create stories that fit those expectations. They will con people into doing their work for them, take credit for other people's work and even assign their work to junior staff members. They have low patience when dealing with others, display shallow emotions, are unpredictable, undependable and fail to take responsibility if something goes wrong that is their fault.[5]

According to a study from the University of Notre Dame published in the Journal of Business Ethics, psychopaths have a natural advantage in workplaces overrun by abusive supervision, and are more likely to thrive under abusive bosses, being more resistant to stress, including interpersonal abuse, and having less of a need for positive relationships than others.[13][14][15]

Careers with highest proportion of psychopaths

According to Dutton, the ten careers with the highest proportion of psychopaths are:[16]

  1. CEO
  2. Lawyer
  3. Media (TV/radio)
  4. Salesperson
  5. Surgeon
  6. Journalist
  7. Police officer
  8. Clergy
  9. Chef
  10. Civil servant

Behavioral patterns
Suspected psychopath Robert Maxwell[17]

The workplace psychopath may show a high number of the following behavior patterns. The individual behaviors are not exclusive to the workplace psychopath, though the higher number of patterns exhibited, the more likely he or she conforms to the psychopath profile:[18]

  • Public humiliation of others (high propensity of having temper tantrums or ridiculing work performance)
  • Malicious spreading of lies (intentionally deceitful)
  • Remorseless, devoid of guilt
  • Frequently lies to push his/her point
  • Produces exaggerated bodily expressions (yawning, sneezing, etc.) as a means of gaining attention
  • Rapidly shifts between emotions – used to manipulate people or cause high anxiety
  • Intentionally isolates persons from organizational resources
  • Quick to blame others for mistakes or for incomplete work even though he/she is guilty
  • Encourages co-workers to torment, alienate, harass, and/or humiliate other peers
  • Takes credit for others' accomplishments
  • Steals and/or sabotages other persons' work
  • Refuses to take responsibility for misjudgements and/or errors
  • Responds inappropriately to stimuli, such as with a high-pitched and forced laugh
  • Threatens any perceived enemy with discipline and/or job loss in order to taint employee file
  • Sets unrealistic and unachievable job expectations to set employees up for failure
  • Refuses or is reluctant to attend meetings with more than one person
  • Refuses to provide adequate training and/or instructions to singled out victim
  • Invades personal privacy of others
  • Has multiple sexual encounters with other employees
  • Develops new ideas without real follow-through
  • Very self-centered and extremely egotistical (often conversation revolves around them – great deal of self-importance)
  • Often "borrows" money and/or other material objects without any intentions of giving it back
  • Will do whatever it takes to close the deal (no regard for ethics or legality)

How a typical workplace psychopath climbs to and maintains power

The authors of the book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work describe a five-phase model of how a typical workplace psychopath climbs to and maintains power:[6]

  1. Entry – psychopaths may use highly developed social skills and charm to obtain employment into an organisation. At this stage it will be difficult to spot anything which is indicative of psychopathic behaviour, and as a new employee one might perceive the psychopath to be helpful and even benevolent.
  2. Assessment – psychopaths will weigh one up according to one's usefulness, and one could be recognised as either a pawn (who has some informal influence and will be easily manipulated) or a patron (who has formal power and will be used by the psychopath to protect against attacks)
  3. Manipulation – psychopath will create a scenario of “psychopathic fiction” where positive information about themselves and negative disinformation about others will be created, where one's role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilised and will be groomed into accepting the psychopath's agenda.
  4. Confrontation – the psychopath will use techniques of character assassination to maintain their agenda, and one will be either discarded as a pawn or used as a patron
  5. Ascension – one's role as a patron in the psychopath's quest for power will be discarded, and the psychopath will take for himself/herself a position of power and prestige from anyone who once supported them.

Why psychopaths are readily hired

Leading commentators on psychopathy have said that companies inadvertently attract employees who are psychopaths because of the wording of their job advertisements and their desire to engage people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to be successful in business.[5][6] However, in one case at least, an advert explicitly asked for a sales executive with psychopathic tendencies.[19] The advert title read "Psychopathic New Business Media Sales Executive Superstar! £50k - £110k".[20]

Corporate psychopaths are readily recruited into organizations because they make a distinctly positive impression at interviews.[21] They appear to be alert, friendly and easy to get along with and talk to.[22] They look like they are of good ability, emotionally well adjusted and reasonable, and these traits make them attractive to those in charge of hiring staff within organizations. Unlike narcissists, psychopaths are better able to create long-lasting favorable first impressions, though people may still eventually see through their facades.[23] Psychopaths’ undesirable personality traits may be easily misperceived by even skilled interviewers. For instance, their irresponsibility may be misconstrued by employers as risk-taking or entrepreneurial spirit. Their thrill-seeking tendencies may be conveyed as high energy and enthusiasm for the job or work. Their superficial charm may be misinterpreted by interviewers as charisma.[6][23] It is worth noting that psychopaths are not only accomplished liars, they are also more likely to lie in interviews.[24] For instance, psychopaths may create fictitious work experiences or resumes.[23] They may also fabricate credentials such as diplomas, certifications, or awards.[23] Thus, in addition to seeming competent and likable in interviews, psychopaths are also more likely to outright make-up information during interviews than non-psychopaths.

Why psychopaths are readily promoted

Corporate psychopaths within organizations may be singled out for rapid promotion because of their polish, charm, and cool decisiveness.[25] They are also helped by their manipulative and bullying skills.[22] They create confusion around them (divide and rule etc.) using instrumental bullying to promote their own agenda.[26]

Psychopaths are able to maintain calm when others are reacting to normal stress and dangerous situations which makes them good fits for jobs such as the military, politics, and finances. Psychopaths are well versed in impression management and ingratiation, both skills that can be used to impress people in positions of power.[27]

Bad consequences

Boddy identifies the following bad consequences of workplace psychopathy (with additional cites in some cases):[2]

Counterproductive work behavior
Main article: Counterproductive work behavior

Boddy suggests that because of abusive supervision by corporate psychopaths, large amounts of anti-company feeling will be generated among the employees of the organisations that corporate psychopaths work in. This should result in high levels of counterproductive behaviour as employees give vent to their anger with the corporation, which they perceive to be acting through its corporate psychopathic managers in a way that is eminently unfair to them.[2]

According to a 2017 UK study, a high ranking corporate psychopath could trigger lower ranked staff to become workplace bullies as a manifestation of counterproductive work behavior.[33]

Corporate psychopath theory of the global financial crisis

Boddy makes the case that corporate psychopaths were instrumental in causing the 2007–08 global financial crisis.[25] He claims that the same corporate psychopaths who probably caused the crisis by greed and avarice are now advising government on how to get out of the crisis.[2]

Psychologist Oliver James has described the credit crunch as a “mass outbreak of corporate psychopathy which resulted in something that very nearly crashed the whole world economy.”[34]

For example, during this financial crisis, the behaviour of some key people at the top of the world's largest banks came under scrutiny. At the time of its collapse in 2008 the Royal Bank of Scotland was the world's fifth largest bank by market capitalisation. CEO Fred "the Shred" Goodwin was known for taking excessive risks and showing little concern for his mismanagement, which led to the bank's collapse. Goodwin's demeanour toward colleagues was unpredictable and he is said to have lived a luxury lifestyle while fostering a culture of fear.[35]

Renowned psychotherapist Professor Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries singled out Goodwin and former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond as exhibiting psychopathic behaviours in his working paper on the SOB, "seductive operational bully - or psychopath lite"[36]

Screening

From an organizational perspective, organizations can insulate themselves from the organizational psychopath by taking the following steps when recruiting:[18]

The following tests could be used to screen psychopaths:

There have been anecdotal reports that at least one UK bank was using a psychopathy measure to actively recruit psychopaths.[40][41]

Workplace bullying overlap
Main article: Workplace bullying

Narcissism, lack of self-regulation, lack of remorse, and lack of conscience have been identified as traits displayed by bullies. These traits are shared with psychopaths, indicating that there is some theoretical cross-over between bullies and psychopaths.[29] Bullying is used by corporate psychopaths as a tactic to humiliate subordinates.[5] Bullying is also used as a tactic to scare, confuse and disorient those who may be a threat to the activities of the corporate psychopath.[5] Using meta data analysis on hundreds of UK research papers, Boddy concluded that 36% of bullying incidents were caused by the presence of corporate psychopaths. According to Boddy, there are two types of bullying:[2]

  • Predatory bullying – the bully just enjoys bullying and tormenting vulnerable people for the sake of it
  • Instrumental bullying – the bullying is for a purpose, helping the bully achieve his or her goals.

A corporate psychopath uses instrumental bullying to further his goals of promotion and power as the result of causing confusion and divide and rule.

People with high scores on a psychopathy rating scale are more likely to engage in bullying, crime, and drug use than other people.[28] Hare and Babiak noted that about 29 per cent of corporate psychopaths are also bullies.[6] Other research has also shown that people with high scores on a psychopathy rating scale were more likely to engage in bullying, again indicating that psychopaths tend to be bullies in the workplace.[28]

A workplace bully or abuser will often have issues with social functioning. These types of people often have psychopathic traits that are difficult to identify in the hiring and promotion process. These individuals often lack anger management skills and have a distorted sense of reality. Consequently, when confronted with the accusation of abuse, the abuser is not aware that any harm was done.[42]

In fiction
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gollark: Mine was mostly made for an esoteric programming languages Discord server, so it has an interface for TIO.run, a reminder system for some reason, a fortunes command, and a random number generator.
gollark: What do your bots do?
gollark: 407 here, apparently.
gollark: It actually has a fun feature where I can execute arbitrary code in it for testing.

See also

References
  1. Walker, I (2005), Psychopaths in Suits, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  2. Boddy, CR (2011), Corporate Psychopaths: Organizational Destroyers.
  3. Boddy C, Ladyshewsky RK, Galvin PG Leaders without ethics in global business: corporate psychopaths Journal of Public Affairs Vol. 10 June 2010 pp. 121–38.
  4. Wisniewski TP, Yekini LS, Omar AMA Psychopathic Traits of Corporate Leadership as Predictors of Future Stock Returns Social Science Research Network Jun 2017
  5. Clarke J Working with Monsters: How to Identify and Protect Yourself from the Workplace Psychopath (2012).
  6. Baibak, P; Hare, RD (2007), Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work.
  7. James O Office Politics: How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing and Dirty Tricks (2013)
  8. Boddy. C. R (2005) “'The Implications for Business Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility of Corporate Psychopaths” in 2nd International Conference on Business Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility, ed. M. Hopkins, Middlesex University Business School, London
  9. Clifford C Why psychopaths are so good at getting ahead CNBC 18 Nov 2016
  10. Hare R D Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us 1993
  11. Hare, RD (1994), "Predators: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us", Psychology Today, 27 (1): 54–61.
  12. Saft J As psychopath CEOs destroy value, nice ones create it Reuters 21 Jun 2017
  13. "If you're succeeding under a bully boss, you may be a psychopath". Ladders | Business News & Career Advice. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  14. "Flourishing under an abusive boss? You may be a psychopath, study shows". ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  15. "An abusive boss is bad news for your work life — unless you're a psychopath". Business Insider. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  16. Dutton K The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success (2012)
  17. Peters, Lucia (July 13, 2017). "8 Suspected Psychopaths From History". Bustle. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  18. Faggioni M & White M (2009) Organizational Psychopaths – Who Are They and How to Protect Your Organization from Them
  19. Rodionova Z Company posts job advert for sales executive with psychopathic qualities The Independent 19 Oct 2016
  20. McKenzie L Media firm seeks ‘psychopath’ for sales role BT News 20 Oct 2016
  21. Cleckley H The Mask of Sanity (1988)
  22. "Do You Work with a Psychopath? | The Exhausted Woman". The Exhausted Woman. July 14, 2015. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  23. "The Corporate Psychopath".
  24. Roulin, N., & Bourdage, J. S. (2017). Once an Impression Manager, Always an Impression Manager? Antecedents of Honest and Deceptive Impression Management Use and Variability across Multiple Job Interviews. Frontiers in Psychology, 8.
  25. Boddy, C. R The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis Journal of Business Ethics August 2011, Volume 102, Issue 2, pp 255–259, DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0810-4
  26. What Corporate Climbers Can Teach Us 'Dark' Personality Traits Can Help People Rise Through Ranks Wall Street Journal 14 Jul 2014
  27. "Why psychopaths are really good at getting ahead". TheJobNetwork. May 25, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2020.
  28. Nathanson, C.; Williams, K. M.; Paulhus, D. L. 2006, "Predictors of a Behavioral Measure of Scholastic Cheating: Personality and Competence but Not Demographics", Contemporary Educational Psychology vol. 31, pp. 97–122.
  29. Harvey, M. G., Buckley, M. R., Heames, J. T., Zinko, R., Brouer, R. L. & Ferris, G. R. 2007, ‘A Bully as an Archetypal Destructive Leader', Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 117–129.
  30. Babiak, P., Neumann, C. S., & Hare, R. D. (2010). Corporate psychopathy: Talking the walk. Behavioral Sciences & the Law 28(2), 174–193.
  31. O'Boyle, E. H., Jr., Forsyth, D. R., Banks, G., & McDaniel, M. (2011). A meta-analysis of the dark triad and work outcomes: A social exchange perspective. The Journal of Applied Psychology 97, 557–579.
  32. Bruk-Lee, V., & Spector, P.E. (2006). The social stressors-counterproductive work behaviors link: Are conflicts with supervisors and coworkers the same? Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 11, 145–156.
  33. Glowatz E Bad Jobs: If Your Boss Is A Psychopath, You Might Act Like One Too Medical Daily 6 Jan 2017
  34. Psychopath Night Channel 4 (2013).
  35. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/fiddling-while-rbs-burned-new-book-reveals-fred-the-shred-goodwin-s-fatal-obsessions-8795202.html
  36. Kets de Vries, Manfred (2012). "The Psychopathy in the C Suite: Redefining the SOB". INSEAD: 14. Retrieved December 25, 2016. why was Fred Goodwin, the CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, able to get away with the things he did?... What's clear is that many of these SOB 'masters of the universe' have been busily destroying the universe for personal gain Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  37. de Silva, P (2014) Tackling psychopathy: a necessary competency in leadership development? Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry Vol 18 Iss 5 September/October
  38. Babiak P. & Hare R. D.Business-Scan (B-SCAN) test
  39. Mathieu, C; Hare, R D.; Jones, D N.; Babiak, P; Neumann, C S. Factor structure of the B-Scan 360: A measure of corporate psychopathy. Psychological Assessment Vol 25(1), Mar 2013, 288–293.
  40. Corporate Psychopaths, Transcript of Interview with Clive Boddy, Author, part 1 July 28, 2013
  41. Basham B Beware corporate psychopaths – they are still occupying positions of power The Independent 29 Dec 2011
  42. Ferris, P.A. (2009). The role of the consulting psychologist in the prevention, detection, and correction of bullying and mobbing in the workplace. Consulting Psychology Journal 61(3), 169–189.

Further reading
Books
  • Barnes, P (2012) Surviving Bullies, Queen Bees & Psychopaths in the Workplace
  • Thiessen, W (2012) Slip-ups and the dangerous mind: Seeing through and living beyond the psychopath
  • Vaknin S and Rangelovska L (2006) The Narcissist and the Psychopath in the Workplace
  • Gregory, D W (2014) Unmasking Financial Psychopaths: Inside the Minds of Investors in the Twenty-First Century
Academic articles
  • Babiak, P. (1995) ‘When Psychopaths go to Work: A Case Study of an Industrial Psychopath', Applied Psychology, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 171 – 188.
  • Babiak, P. (2000) “Psychopathic Manipulation at Work,” in ed., C.B. Gacono, The Clinical and Forensic Assessment of Psychopathy: A Practitioner's Guide (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum): 287–311
  • Babiak, P, C.S. Neumann, and R.D. Hare (2010) “Corporate Psychopathy: Talking the Walk,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, no. 2: 174–193
  • Boddy, C. R. (2005) ‘The Implications of Corporate Psychopaths for Business and Society: An Initial Examination and A Call To Arms', Australasian Journal of Business and Behavioural Sciences, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 30 – 40.
  • Boddy. C. R. (2005) “'The Implications for Business Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility of Corporate Psychopaths” in 2nd International Conference on Business Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility, ed. M. Hopkins, Middlesex University Business School, London
  • Boddy, C. R.: (2006) "The dark side of management decisions: organisational psychopaths", Management Decision, Vol. 44 Iss: 10, pp. 1461 – 1475
  • Boddy, C. R.: (2010) ‘Corporate Psychopaths and Organisational Type', Journal of Public Affairs 10(4), 300–312.
  • Boddy, C. R. (2010) ‘Corporate Psychopaths and Productivity', Management Services Spring, 26–30.
  • Boddy, C. R, Ladyshewsky R, Galvin P (2010) Leaders without ethics in global business: Corporate psychopaths – Journal of Public Affairs Volume 10, Issue 3, pages 121–138, August
  • Boddy, C. R (2011) Corporate psychopaths, bullying and unfair supervision in the workplace Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 100, Issue 3, pp 367–379
  • Boddy, C. R (2012) The impact of corporate psychopaths on corporate reputation and marketing The Marketing Review 12 (1), 79–89
  • Boddy, C. R (2013) Corporate Psychopaths, Bullying and Unfair Supervision in the Workplace Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume 18, Issue 2, March–April, Pages 204–218
  • Boddy, C. R (2014) Corporate psychopaths, conflict, employee affective well-being and counterproductive work behaviour Journal of Business Ethics
  • Lee I. B. American Business Law Journal Volume 42, Issue 1–6, 65–90, Winter/Spring 2005 Is There a Cure for Corporate ‘‘Psychopathy?
  • Pech, R.J., & Slade, B.W. (2007). “Organizational sociopaths: rarely challenged, often promoted. Why?,” Society and Business Review, Vol. 2 Iss: 3, pp. 254 - 269.
  • Smith SF, Lilienfeld SO (2013) Psychopathy in the workplace: The knowns and unknowns Aggression and Violent Behavior 18 204–218
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