Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (33 page)

When teamwork is in their own interest or is useful to them (as a means of manipulating others), they will attempt to take over the
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team. In doing so, they often come across as domineering or bullying. Not surprisingly, psychopaths describe themselves as team players, lacing their descriptions with examples of how the team was so poorly led that they were forced to take over and save the project.

The psychopath is a real team player; but there really is only one member of his team.

Teamwork is critical to the success of modern organizations. The ability to form or participate on a team is critical, and those who cannot do so are seldom successful. The best sources of information about these disruptions are the other team members. Problematic executives will always justify their behaviors toward the team, but the decreases in morale, productivity, and cohesion will be evident to those who are experiencing them firsthand. Routine solicitation of feedback from team members about the team and each participant’s actions is a way to capture this important information.

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Living peacefully in any civilized society requires the citizenry to share a variety of life-sustaining things. Likewise, corporate citizens need to share resources in the interest of the greater good, reflected in higher profits, job security, or a stress-free workplace. Because they do not see others as equals or as having any legitimate claim to resources, psychopaths (as well as some narcissists and Machiavellians) see no need to share resources. In fact, their parasitic, competitive nature drives them to actively siphon off resources from others. Psychopaths do not readily share credit for a job well done, important information required by the task at hand, money needed to implement a project, workspace, time, and personal effort, among other things.

Not sharing information is a common offense, and is often justified, upon confrontation, by a “need to know” rationale. While certain governmental agencies charged with national security can operate in this mode, keeping secrets from one’s boss or a subordinate in most organizations is not justified. “The right hand not
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knowing what the left hand is doing” is a common embarrassment in organizations under the best of circumstances; to purposefully create such dilemmas is contrary to organizational success.

However, it is easy to understand why psychopaths hoard information. The failure of others makes it easier for them to appear successful. Knowledge really is power in an organization. Psychopaths who keep others “out of the loop” use the power this gives them to their own personal advantage, which they see as more important than the interests of the organization. When a psychopath does share information, it is with an ulterior motive. Keeping others in the dark can make others look stupid, and this is a form of neutralization used by psychopaths against their detractors. For example, “They wouldn’t understand” was the condescending rationale used by one psychopath we met to justify not sharing information with his coworkers. Another claimed to be protecting the department from the disruptions of a coworker, stating, “She would only get upset and then we’d have a bigger problem”; a statement designed to bolster the psychopath’s superiority and plant the seeds of distrust of the “emotional” coworker. Clearly, comments that discount the value of coworkers or teammates, especially their ability to think and reason as equals, are consistent with the elevated (grandiose) self-perceptions psychopaths have of themselves. They are too self-centered to see the danger of this approach, let alone its unfairness or unethical nature.

An extension of the inability to share information is the inability to share credit with others (unless there is some benefit to the psychopath). Credit sharing can be difficult to measure, as upper management does not have easy access to the truth about the relative contributions of employees. Complaints from coworkers who feel that they are not getting the information and other resources they need to do a good job, or who feel they are contributing to the outcome but not getting proper credit, may be the only hint that something is amiss. Supervisors and human resources staff should pay attention to complaints of this kind, some of which may turn out to
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be groundless. Others may uncover serious managerial and morale problems.

d i s pa r at e t r e at m e n t o f s ta f f Because psychopaths see people playing different roles in their psychopathic drama (that is, pawns, patrons, patsies, and police), they will treat some better than others. This disparate, and often subtle, treatment of others may never really be known except to the individuals themselves. And, for reasons explained in chapter 10, they may never come forward to report their feelings. As a result, it may take a very long time for coworkers and management to figure out what is really going on, if they see it at all.

Unfortunately, it is usually only the most gross or egregious treatment of others that gets attention and prompts action. But even this treatment is readily explained away and justified by the corporate psychopath. For example, one psychopathic manager promoted a junior staff member as a reward for her good work, even though another person in the department had more experience and was more deserving of the promotion. The person who was passed over was considered a rival by the psychopath because he had received some positive attention from others in the company. The promotion was designed to block the potential rival’s career and to guarantee continued support from an obedient, indebted junior person.

In another case, an individual who had been in a supervisory position for only three years was nominated as a high potential, with an eye toward taking a position as vice president within the next two years. Although there were clearly more qualified people in the organization, the psychopathic nominator was able to persuade the succession committee of his choice. In this case, considerable money, from a limited fund, was spent on developmental activities over the objections of others on the committee. At the end of two years, the

“high-potential” candidate was no more ready to assume the responsibilities of a vice president’s job than at the time he had been nominated. When he was not promoted he left in disgust, having been promised a great career by his psychopathic boss.

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In a third case, a truly high-potential secretary worked for a boss who was well connected politically, but completely incompetent. Realizing the talent of his secretary, he promoted her into an assistant position and began giving her increasingly larger projects to complete. On the surface, this looked like good management practice.

The employee was highly motivated, worked toward an MBA at night at a well-respected school, and completed each assignment perfectly. Over time, it became clear to the assistant that her boss really did not know what he was doing and was giving her work that he should be doing. She persevered, however, thinking that her efforts would eventually be recognized by either her boss or those around her. But with the increase in responsibility came increased badgering, abuse, and, ultimately, bullying. Wanting to do a good job, and still learning to be more confident in her own abilities, the assistant took the abuse, convincing herself that she had to pay her dues. Yet in every case, her work was garnering praise for her boss. After five years of abuse, she began sending her résumé to recruiters and discovered the true value of her background, education, and experience. Wanting to stay at the company, however, she went to human resources.

She learned that her boss had been complaining about her so much and so often—blaming her for failures on projects to which she was not even assigned—that she could never be considered for promotion. In fact, she had come close to termination on more than one occasion. Both she and the human resources staff member were surprised that she had no knowledge of her “poor performance record.” All she had ever heard was that there was more for her to learn; all HR had ever heard was that she was an incompetent secretary. Taking her aside, the HR member offered her a transfer to a lower level in a different part of the company, but privately suggested she move on to another company where her talents would be rewarded; her boss was just too well connected.

Vigilance and skepticism on the part of individuals in authority may be the only way to see through this type of scenario.

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i n a b i l i t y t o t e l l t h e t r u t h Most of us were taught, as children, not to lie, and we grew up to be reasonably honest people. Young psychopaths learn how to lie very well. Interviews of criminal psychopaths reveal the most grossly distorted stories and blatant lies, presented in an entertaining, somewhat self-serving, but altogether matter-of-fact style. Even in the face of contrary evidence, the psychopath can lie so well that listeners doubt themselves first, rather than question the psychopath.

Honesty is one of the most important traits in an organization.

We have almost never seen an executive’s file in which he or she was rated less than perfect on honest and ethical behavior. The problem is twofold. First, it is unpleasant and not socially acceptable to claim that someone is dishonest or unethical. And second, just how do you measure honesty? Is offering a customer a less-than-quality product dishonest business or good materials management? Is avoiding questions about layoffs and downsizing until final decisions are made dishonest or good employee relations? These are difficult calls to make—they are challenges to organizational responsibility and effectiveness—but the psychopath can easily slip through the fog, by appearing honest and ethical on the surface, yet doing things that many would agree are dishonest and unethical.

Pathological lying is a hallmark of psychopaths. They cross back and forth easily between lying and honesty during conversations because they do not have the guilty feelings the rest of us have when we try to tell a lie. Their lies are always woven with a thread of truth, which, if questioned, they indignantly point out in their own defense. Questioning a well-positioned corporate psychopath’s honesty can bring its own punishment in the form of retribution against the challenger: “Can you believe what Harry said to me? He called me a liar when I shared with him the information about . . .” one of our psychopaths told an executive about a coworker he wanted to derail.

Organizations can forgive mistakes if the intention was honest and motivated by the best interest of the company. Psychopaths
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often use these excuses to get themselves out of a jam if caught in a lie, making it difficult to separate the honest employee from the dishonest.

i n a b i l i t y t o b e m o d e s t Not everyone is modest, yet it is an admirable trait where it exists.

Modest people do not brag about their accomplishments but typically enjoy doing a good job for its own sake or accepting only an occasional pat on the back as reward. Many who are modest shun the spotlight, preferring to let the record speak for itself. Modesty may be valued by most employees, but immodesty can be equally accepted, if it is justified. Occasionally letting others brag about their successes helps to build relationships. But there is a thin line between justifiable pride and arrogance that is not lost on coworkers.

Both narcissists and Machiavellians tend to be immodest, but it is the psychopath’s arrogance that stands out so clearly to coworkers.

Unfortunately, when dealing with higher-ups, the ability of psychopaths to manage and promote their arrogant self-perceptions, and to package them as self-confidence and strong leadership, effectively hides their true nature. Genuine modesty among psychopaths is so rare as to be nonexistent. Its absence, while not an indication of psychopathy directly, can help to corroborate other suspicions.

i n a b i l i t y t o a c c e p t b l a m e Taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes and not blaming others is highly valued in corporations, as well as in society. Psychopaths rarely, if ever, take responsibility for their actions, even if they clearly made mistakes or their actions and decisions led to failures. But they go a few steps farther; they will not only blame others but also create

“evidence” that others are to blame. This takes effort, but psychopaths easily integrate it into their game, seizing on opportunities to bring harm to others’ careers or professional standing. Clearly, this is a form of lying and quite different from the shifting of blame or pointing fingers that most of us sometimes engage in. This is active,
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instrumental aggression. Because covert blaming is hard to uncover, it often takes a series of failures of projects under the functional control of the psychopath to produce any significant results.

Fast-paced companies are particularly vulnerable to this problem, as they tend to move people too quickly into new jobs without sufficient evaluation of their current performances. For example, after a year and a half on the job, a manager with psychopathic tendencies was promoted to a higher-level job in a different division. He came with a reputation of decisiveness, good communication skills, and charismatic leadership. His success at initiating innovative new products earned him a reputation as a genius among others in the field. Six months after he left his old position, things started to go wrong. Sales were down, rework was up, and profit margins sagged.

The products he had championed were simply not meeting the expectations of either the customers or the company. Despite the fact that his decisions regarding the product were faulty, and implemented contrary to the data collected by the marketing research and manufacturing departments, he easily and effectively blamed those left behind for not picking up the ball. He blamed manufacturing for not being able to build the product to the tight specification of his design; he blamed marketing research for selecting the wrong demographics, and he blamed his replacement for not giving the project the attention and care he had given when he was in charge.