Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (23 page)

The secretaries jumped in unison when the first binder hit the trash can. Throwing projects into the trash was one of the dramatic things Smith did to accentuate his disappointment, disapproval, and disgust with the work product. The effect is powerful at the time, especially with the professional staff who take great pride in their binders and presentations. Soon the voices started to penetrate the air—loud voices: first Smith’s and then Jones’s, then back and forth, then a bit of quiet, then more loudness. It was always hard to hear the exact words through the walls, but occasionally one or two would slip through. Sometimes curse words, but not this time.

Smith had studied Jones long enough to know that foul language wouldn’t work on her; he was shrewd—he had to wear her down with intellect. He had to convince her that her work was less than optimal or even rather poor. He would threaten her with reassignment, demotion, or termination, but would leave the door open for her to redeem herself down the road. He would convince her, of course, of all these things, as no one left Smith’s office until he or she was
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convinced. Jones could not pretend to be convinced—she would actually have to be convinced—and she would, eventually. And, she would be thankful for Smith’s help and guidance. Jones would fall into line as her coworkers and predecessors; Smith counted on it.

Smith prided himself on his ability to break people down and then build them up again—but not too far up, just enough to keep them on a leash. He needed to control people and couldn’t stand it when someone had a thought, an idea, an insight that he, “the boss,”

should have had. He hated to be wrong, as well—and, of course, in his own mind, never was. At least this was the theory some of the staff members had developed about Smith. Others were more humorous: some hypothesized about his being dropped on his head by the doctor who delivered him, having been raised by wolves, left in a field by aliens, or bitten by a mad dog in his youth. Humor helped make the situation tolerable but didn’t always heal the psychological wounds. It was much harder for some than others to come to terms with Smith’s behavior.

His attacks were not confined to the office. Those on his staff—

almost half of the company—were fair game just walking the halls, working in meetings, or sitting in their cubicles. When Smith entered a department, a veil of tension seemed to spread through the atmosphere; heads went down and people acted busier than they really were. It was even money that he would strike: rage rising in an instant, followed by an equally rapid return to calm and a smile. But sometimes he just made the rounds of the offices smiling, wishing people well, asking about their kids’ soccer practice, and just being nice. It was so disconcerting. The new staff were always taken in by this approach and often concluded that Smith was a warm, caring, easy-to-talk-to boss. No one dared warn them, however, about what lay behind the smiling exterior, for no one was sure who might be one of Smith’s spies.

What really irked everyone was the fact that sometimes Smith was right. His ideas sometimes really were better than the staff’s, and sometimes he did know more than they did. Nevertheless, all would
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agree, there were other, less venomous ways to communicate that didn’t involve the destruction of the egos of staff or morale of those trying to do a good job for the company.

Jones seemed to have a solid ego, not overly inflated like some or shrinking like others, quite healthy by most accounts, and she was definitely working her hardest to do a good job. The secretaries wondered how Jones would handle it.

A few more crashes, yelling and shouting, and desk pounding were heard coming through the wall. Then silence. The secretaries lowered their heads to their desks and computer screens as they heard the door open. Jones emerged, standing as tall as she could, but clearly taken aback by what had just transpired. She headed down the hall quickly, clasping her folders to her chest.

As if on cue, the secretaries rose in unison. They each, taking their handbags, headed down the hall toward the women’s room.

Smith’s secretary indicated to the wide-eyed part-timer to watch the phones and handle any visitors. “It’ll be okay,” she said, realizing that the young person didn’t really want to be left alone in the office.

At the door to the restroom, they stopped but did not go in.

Jones was far senior to them, and their relationships were strictly professional. After a few knowing looks, the two junior secretaries returned to their desks. Today, Smith’s secretary would stand guard and not let anyone interfere with Jones’s privacy.

Following training programs and talks, we frequently are approached by audience members who, having just learned about the traits and characteristics of psychopathy, conclude that their boss, peer, or subordinate must be a psychopath. Although it is neither appropriate nor even possible for us to offer an opinion, we are admittedly struck by the audacious behaviors attributed to their coworkers by these individuals—and the similarities they exhibit to psychopathic behavior. Over the years, additional individuals have reported similar concerns to us after having read about psychopaths in Without
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Conscience or in newspapers and business magazines. Some of the personal stories we hear most likely are descriptions of true psychopaths, but, of course, many are not. What is clear is that a large number of people believe that they do work for a boss, or with a coworker, from hell.

We estimate that about 1 percent of the population has a dose of psychopathic features heavy enough to warrant a designation of psychopathy. Perhaps another 10 percent or so fall into the gray zone, with sufficient psychopathic features to be of concern to others (see page 27). Most people have very few or no psychopathic characteristics. But what about the business world? There can be no simple answer to this question, for the philosophy and practices of organizations range from ethical and altruistic to callous and grasp-ing, perhaps even “psychopathic.” Presumably, the former would have fewer resident psychopaths than would the latter, although no doubt there are exceptions. For example, a religious or charitable organization—by its nature trusting and lacking in street smarts—

might provide a comfortable niche for a smooth-talking, charismatic psychopath.

Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence concerning the number of psychopaths in business, for several reasons. First, few organizations will provide the sort of access to their staff and files required to do proper assessments with a standardized instrument, such as the PCL: SV. Second, psychopaths have a talent for hiding their true selves, so one could expect many to go unnoticed and uncounted, leading to an underreporting of psychopathy in business. In the case of particularly successful psychopaths, it may be only the patsies (former pawns) who see behind the masks. Third, psychopathic-like traits and behaviors are also exhibited by some individuals who are not truly psychopathic, which could lead to overreporting, that is, viewing someone as a psychopath when he or she is not. Nonetheless, based on many anecdotal reports and on our own observations, it is likely that psychopathic individuals make up much more than 1 percent of business managers and executives.

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Disordered Personalities at Work

In the journal
Psychology, Crime, and Law
, researchers Board and Fritzon administered a self-report personality inventory to a sample of British senior business managers and executives. They concluded that the prevalence of histrionic, narcissistic, and compulsive personality disorders was relatively high, and that
many
of the traits exhibited were consistent with psychopathy: superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity, manipulativeness, grandiosity, lack of empathy, exploitativeness, independence, rigidity, stubbornness, and dictatorial tendencies.

Many people demonstrate what might appear to be psychopathic characteristics at some point in our lives; readers need only review themselves against the definitions and descriptions of psychopaths (see page 27) to see how this might be possible. But we should be careful not to confuse the presence of a few psychopathic-like traits with the disorder itself. How many times have you been abusive at work, but are quite the opposite with your family or life partner? Or you may be charming and manipulative with business associates, but forthright with friends. Or you may not feel guilt or remorse while

“cheating” on your taxes, but feel terribly guilty if you hurt your child in any way. Or you may have had to defend a difficult business decision that hurt coworkers but feel bad inside nonetheless. Judging oneself or others on the basis of one or two traits or behaviors that appear to resemble those of psychopaths (but typically are much less severe) is dangerous. Only a relatively few individuals demonstrate most of the expected traits and characteristics in a consistent manner across all aspects of their personal, professional, and social lives.

Even so, it is often difficult to see behind their chameleon-like façade. Psychopaths demonstrate the expected traits and characteristics in a consistent manner across all aspects of their lives, but they may hide them well.

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“Boss from Hell”?

Your boss is cold, hard-driving, and ruthless. Before concluding that he is a psychopath, you should carefully consider the possibilities that your judgment is at fault and that his behavior is more a reflection of a personal leadership style than of a psychopathic personality.

Because management style is rooted in training, personality, and experience, there are as many styles of management as there are managers. It is not surprising, then, that the match between employee expectations of how a boss should act and the supervisory style actually exhibited by the boss is not often perfect, leading to disappointment, conflict, and misinterpretation.

How employees view management or leadership style and its impact on performance and effectiveness has long been the subject of study by organizational psychologists. One of the earliest investiga-tions into the styles of supervisors was conducted from 1946 to 1956, but the findings still have relevance today. Employees were asked to describe their leaders’ behaviors on the job, and leaders in turn were asked to describe their own behaviors and attitudes. A large-scale mathematical analysis of the hundreds of descriptions was then conducted in an attempt to categorize the responses into the smallest number of critical items. The results of these Ohio State studies showed that there are two large groups of behaviors, or “factors,” that go into our evaluation of our boss’s style. These factors are labeled consideration and initiating structure.

Consideration refers to those behaviors and attitudes that deal with the interpersonal interactions between employee and boss.

Highly considerate bosses treat people with respect, consider the egos and self-esteem of others in their decisions, and build working relationships on mutual trust. Bosses low on consideration are, as might be guessed, perceived to be uncaring and inconsiderate of the feelings of employees; they are seen as distant and cold. It is easy to see that reports of bosses berating employees in front of others, ignoring
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them when common courtesy demands otherwise, and failing to build relationships based on mutual trust and respect might actually reflect a boss low on consideration, rather than a true psychopath.

Initiating structure, the second supervisory factor, means that a leader is expected to decide on the work goals and tasks to be completed, flesh out the roles of the team members, and delineate the standards of performance or key success measures—in essence, to

“lead.” Bosses high in this factor take an active part in determining what needs to be done and how to do it. Traditional boss roles, such as planning, organizing, communicating, setting expectations, and defining the “big picture” fit in the high end of this factor. Bosses low in initiating structure tend not to be involved in the work at hand. A boss who dominates or who issues orders every step of the way may just be too high on initiating structure and not a true psychopath. Conversely, if the boss is rarely involved or even interested in the work you do, he or she may be very low in this factor—a “laissez faire leader”—or may not be a leader at all. Low structuring is not necessarily an indication of psychopathy either, although you may feel personally slighted and possibly angry.

Most people want a boss who is considerate and trusting and who builds rapport. Whether we also want our bosses to be high or low on initiating structure depends on whether we want someone to tell us what our job is and how to do it (most appropriate for new jobs or untrained employees), or we prefer to do our job with little interference from the boss (most preferred by seasoned workers).

Both are equally valid styles as long as there is a match between employees’ needs and the boss’s approach to management.

While this two-factor model of leader behavior is well founded and makes intuitive sense when describing observed supervisory behavior, subsequent research on leadership has shown that these two variables alone (that is, how much consideration and structuring make up the boss’s style) are not enough to predict who will be an effective leader. Whether a boss is high or low in these factors is not related to how effective a supervisor will be; the boss-employee
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relationship is much more complex than this and involves other things, not the least of which is the work situation itself. Yet we all tend to refer to these factors (sometimes by other names) when asked to rate how “good” or “bad” our leaders are.