The current economic slowdown and transitions that companies are going through is creating a favourable environment for corporate psychopaths. This was just one of the warnings posed by Dr. Paul Babiak at the 2008 Meyler Campbell Annual Lecture – ‘Psychopaths in the Boardroom’ at the Royal Society of Medicine on Wednesday November 12th.
In his talk, Dr. Babiak, a leading industrial and organizational psychologist and co-author of the highly acclaimed book ‘Snakes in Suits – When Psychopaths Go to Work’, provided an overview of the modern-day corporate psychopath. They look and dress the same way as most business people, are charming, persuasive, charismatic, often fun to be around and, at first glance, seem to demonstrate strong leadership skills.
In reality, however, they are unable to build teams, have no respect towards individuals, lack integrity and wisdom, and are only interested in their own success – not the company’s. The long-term damage to companies includes low morale, ill-informed decision-making, increased risk and reduced productivity.
Dr. Paul Babiak warned that the frenzied nature of modern business spurred on by the current economic crisis, with the constant downsizing and reorganisations, provides a fertile environment for psychopaths who thrive on chaos. On some occasions, psychopaths can enter companies as corporate saviours but before long, will start to inflict considerable damage.
In his lecture, Dr. Babiak outlined some of the main characteristics and beliefs of psychopaths including their ability to be charming, likeable, and self-confident but at the same time insincere, untrustworthy and insensitive to the feelings of others. They also have a belief in their superiority over other people and the law, a sense of entitlement, and a belief that all blame lies with other people.
Dr. Babiak outlined Dr. Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), a psycho-diagnostic tool built on criminal data that provides a clinical rating scale for 20 characteristics of psychopaths.
According to Dr. Babiak, one of the biggest challenges in identifying corporate psychopaths is that in day-to-day activities, they often bear the hallmarks of good leaders through their charm, charisma, and larger than life personalities.
Using the Psychopathy Checklist as a basis, Dr. Babiak described how he and Dr. Hare have developed the ‘B-Scan’, a non clinical tool rooted in business language which can be used to assess corporate managers, identify potentially destructive individuals and contribute to selection, management development and succession planning.
The ‘B-Scan’ instrument is based on four features of the psychopath:
In research conducted by Dr. Babiak and Dr. Hare of 200 executives from eight international companies, 3.5% were found to have psychopathic tendencies.
Dr. Babiak continued in the lecture that the key characteristics of business environments ideal for psychopaths include flat, non-hierarchical organisations; ever changing roles; inadequate performance measurement systems; fast career moves; and risk taking – so prevalent in some businesses over the last few years.
Dr. Babiak also charted the path through an organisation of a corporate psychopath. This tends to cover a number of stages:
In a question and answer session following Dr. Babiak’s presentation, a number of questions focused on the implications for coaching of the corporate psychopath. The general agreement was that one should not coach psychopaths, the key question being how to identify such people.
Other suggestions on how to protect your organisation from psychopaths included more group action (at the interview stage for example, psychopaths much prefer dealing one-to-one with people where it is easier to manipulate); more critical thinking; a documentation of everything; and effective interview screening, performance management and succession planning processes. When red flags emerge, it is also important to listen to what people have to say, investigate diligently, keep an open mind, and corroborate details from multiple sources.
Dr. Paul Babiak, Ph.D., is an industrial and organizational psychologist and president of HRBackOffice, an executive coaching and consulting firm specializing in management development and succession planning. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company. He lives in Dutchess County, New York, with his wife.
Meyler Campbell trains and develops senior business people to coach in demanding contexts through its fully accredited Business Coach programme. Meyler Campbell also hosts Europe’s most dynamic learning community for business coaches and leaders. This was the fourth Meyler Campbell Annual Lecture, an opportunity for business coaches to listen to new thinking by a world expert from a related field. Past speakers include Professor Carol Kauffman of Harvard University and one of America’s leading academics and thinkers on coaching; Professor Felicia A Huppert, Director of CIRCA (the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ageing); and Professor Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and The Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD.
