Executive Psycopaths
October 12, 2004I read about this report from the Harvard Business Review about the psychopaths working in the executive ranks. The thesis is that true psychopaths are probably attracted to the business world–the pace and constant change appeal to them, it’s a challenge. And conversely, some of the traits of the psychopath–charm, decisiveness, love of the fast lane–may look like leadership qualities and thus the psychopaths will tend to get promoted.
Unless that is management can recognize the negatives–the cunning and manipulative nature that psychopaths hide. The problem is that the truly gifted psychopath is very good at hiding those traits from management–they may of course expose it to fellow workers since the psychopath doesn’t care about those people.
There are some screening tools being developed to identify the psychopaths at work, but it’s still a ways off before those become available. That’s why the author of this paper suggests giving rank-and-file easy ways to express concerns about colleagues. To help expose the psychopaths today that are working among us.
While I think the thesis of this paper makes sense and there’s some good recommendations, what annoys me about the paper was that it was really just a summary sheet. A one-pager, for which Harvard Business Review charged me $6 to download it. That seems like a rip-off to me.
Still, it was an interesting read. It explains a lot about some of the managers I’ve encountered, especially in the San Francisco office.
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