There’s good evidence that much leadership behavior borders on the psychopathic, but is this simply a response to organizational cultures that are themselves suffering from a fundamental sickness?

We’ve probably all seen articles that point to the close similarities between the symptoms listed as evidence for a diagnosis of psychopathic illness and typical behaviors of many managers. According to the Oxford-based psychometric testing consultancy OPP, around one in six bosses in British corporations show symptoms of psychopathic behavior. I doubt the figure is lower in the USA. How often have you encountered bosses who show behaviors such as these:

• Manipulating other people to achieve their own selfish goals, with no consideration for the effect on the people being manipulated.
• Telling bare-faced lies; or at least being cavalier with the truth much of the time.
• Acting cruelly or unethically with no apparent sense of remorse, shame, or guilt.
• Relishing the taking of risks, and acting on impulse far more than cool consideration.
• Showing arrogant, self-important behavior, seemingly based on delusions of grandeur.
• Being belligerent, quick tempered, and displaying little or no empathy for others.
• Being focused on immediate gratification, with no thought given to any long-term consequences.

Maybe we should stop playing the blame game

While it can be fun — and often cathartic — to point to the boss’s lousy behavior as proof that, as you have long believed, the person is mentally deranged as well as terminally stupid, it doesn’t really help. Aside from being unkind and lacking in self-awareness (what are your subordinates saying about you?), I doubt that the boss is really to blame — at least in the majority of cases.

He or she is simply responding to the unreasonable demands of a sick system of management.

It’s the organization that may be sick

Today’s macho organizations simply don’t allow for the human element in their cold analysis of costs and benefits; nor do they accept that bosses who feel bad about being asked to lay people off or force them into excessive work have a legitimate concern.

The general attitude, from the organizational point of view, is that if any boss is too “soft” to do what is required, he or she should be replaced. They clearly lack “the right stuff” for leadership. In an environment where business is treated like a cross between all-out warfare and a Hollywood cowboy film, bosses are expected to be the cold, unemotional types who shoot first and ask questions afterwards — if at all.

Too many organizations expect bosses to produce results using whatever means it takes. If that includes manipulating people, acting unethically, telling lies, throwing temper-tantrums, or using superficial charm to hide deceit, that hardly matters. To the macho, “results first” organization, any means short of total illegality are okay. Sometimes, as we have seen, illegality is also accepted. Get the results and don’t get caught is the implicit instruction.

Sick organizations make for sick managers

Suppose your position and job depend on doing things that inwardly make you cringe. Suppose that you are told, again and again, that you have to be tough and unemotional in enforcing corporate edicts. If you aren’t, you’re not going to be promoted and may even be fired. What will you do?

My guess is that, faced with constant pressure and reared in the belief that this is what management is all about, most people try to accommodate themselves to doing what is asked. They shut down their empathy and emotions, since it’s too painful to do otherwise. To keep others from reminding them of what they have done, they cultivate an attitude of bravado and arrogance. And to make themselves feel it is all worthwhile, they keep telling themselves how important and valuable to the company this behavior makes them.

The result is a generation of managers being trained to act like psychopaths.

Organizational culture change is the only cure

If we want to restore sanity to our organizations, the only way is to stop the current macho culture dead in its tracks.

Macho organizations mandate immediate gratification, because they’ve swallowed the nonsense that the only measure of “success” is the quarterly profit figure. Worse, they have been persuaded to link executives’ pay and bonuses to that single measure. They demand cruelty and manipulation, since no account is taken of any impact from actions other than financial ones. They promote people with superficial charm and cold hearts, because they make more money that way.

So long as we continue to accept the fiction that this is what management requires, and teach it in our business schools, nothing will change. So long as we reward financial traders and speculators, and allow them to make or break businesses, there will be no space for compassion or empathy in the workplace.

There’s a lot of talk about regulation at the moment; talk but no action. Regulation to control financial malpractices alone won’t help that much. What we need is regulation to bring about a longer-term, more civilized, and mentally healthier style of corporate management. It’s time society spoke out against the psychopathic organizations in our midst.

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