Psychopath Boss

How To Tell If Your Boss Is A Psychopath

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This article was originally published by AskMen UK. It has been edited lightly for a North American audience.

Psychopaths are everywhere. It’s a recognised medical statistic that 1% of the general population is psychopathic.



And they’re trendy too, taking center stage in high-profile examples like Jon Ronson’s investigative bestseller The Psychopath Test, taking a murderous turn in pretty much all horror movies ever made, and most recently, the "corporate psychopath" was portrayed by Richard Gere in Arbitrage.



It’s no wonder we’re morbidly fascinated with them. It’s a mental disorder that is unnerving and enigmatic — though doctors can work out how to spot one and the dangers of the syndrome, we don’t know what’s truly going on in their minds.



Psychopaths, by their very nature, are trying to trick us, putting on a mask of a person totally different to what lies beneath. And, by our very nature, we want to uncover them. Like a real-life Men In Black, we know they walk among us, and ticking off the boxes to decipher who actually is one is thrilling. It appeals to our human self-doubt and (also like Men In Black) the feeling of not quite fitting in; it feeds on our own worries by instilling the thought, "maybe I am a psychopath..."



Chances are, if you’re thinking that, you’re actually a normal, reasonable, non-psychopathic person. That’s an empathetic reaction, something psychopaths are incapable of. Psychopaths are defined by their abilities in manipulation, lack of empathy and remorse, chronic irritability and easily formed but superficial interpersonal attachments, in the globally recognized PCL-R test.



Paul Babiak, Ph.D, industrial psychologist and author of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work underlines, “you see the surface or 'mask' they want you to see and don’t see what lies beneath unless you know what to look for.”



The Type Of Psychopath That Could Be Sitting Right Next To You

Psychopath expert Babiak says that although the psychopaths we see in movies and in the media are almost always criminal ones — horrific murderers and deranged serial killers — there’s a second type of psychopath living among us: the "successful" psychopath. “These manage to get jobs in organisations, abuse and demoralize staff and wreak havoc on their organisations’ performance. I’ve also interviewed many victims whose stories are filled with emotional, psychological and financial abuse. The damage done by psychopaths, be they spouses, family members or coworkers is astounding… and sad,” says Babiak. “Unfortunately, the media portrayal of the psychopath as serial killer or 'psycho' has done a lot of harm by misleading the public into thinking you can spot them a mile away and that they are all in prison — this is simply not the case."



If the statistic that 1% of the population could be psychopathic was worrying, Babiak has found a more disturbing one — that figure bloats to 3.9% in management candidates.



So why are psychopaths four times more likely to be found in management? “Corporate psychopaths are motivated by a need for thrills, a desire to play 'head games' with people, and won’t stop until they win at any cost,” says Babiak.



Corporate psychopaths move up the career ladder and into high-power business and management situations because they’re so adept at emulating the qualities we’d associate with a great leader.



How To Spot If Your Boss Is A Psychopath

There’s a big difference between the "boss from hell'"and a genuine psychopath. Bosses can be categorized into three types, according to Babiak.



1. The Ideal Boss: “This is the boss we all dream of having, and if we’re lucky, we may meet one or two in our entire career,” says Babiak.



2. The Unskilled Boss: “Those who are good people deep down but just never got the training needed to manage people effectively,” adds Babiak. These are the most common.



3. The Psychopathic Boss: “The psychopathic boss is the one who sucks up to you to get what he or she wants, stabs you in the back, lies to your face, takes credit for your work and blames you for their own mistakes,” notes Babiak.



"A company that hires a psychopath is almost always thrilled and excited when they first start out as they present themselves as the savior or knight in shining armor — ready, willing and able to save the company from the brink of disaster (or so they say)," says Babiak, "However, it’s very difficult to see the real person once you’ve been taken in by the mask." Over time, sometimes within the span of just a couple of months, they will covertly begin to:

1. Abuse coworkers



2. Ignore rules that others readily follow



3. Take unnecessary risks that can affect profits, morale and possibly the company’s good name.

4. Undermine the corporate culture of openness and trust, causing teamwork to disintegrate.



Sound like your boss? Keep reading. Here's how to spot the "psychopathic bond" and how to deal with a psychopath...