Could your boss be an actual psychopath?

I was reading this week about the leadership style of Neil Woodford, the disgraced fund manager who has decided to make a comeback plus others in that industry who portray ‘destructive leadership’ where their actions actually work against the good of the company. It made me think about senior leaders I have worked for over the years and their leadership styles.

I don’t think I have worked with anyone who practised destructive leadership but I suspect I have worked for a few psychopaths in my time.

Is that being a bit dramatic? Well, as reported by the Independent following research by a forensic psychologist, from a statistically significant sample around twenty percent of corporate bosses were found to be psychopaths. This is around the same percentage as in the prison population.

The executives studied showed characteristics such as an inability to empathise, insincerity and being superficial. All of these are indicators of psychopathic tendencies.

In this article I’ll describe some of the great bosses I’ve had, along with some pretty awful ones. However, as you may know some of the individuals I describe I’ve changed names and given them all traditional English male names even though they cover a variety of genders, nationalities and ethnic origins. I hope that doesn’t cause offence in these woke times we live in.

Most senior execs I’ve worked with have been highly intelligent and good communicators, but it is how they used their gifts that distinguished the good from the bad, and whether they had a positive or negative influence on me and the rest of their team.

Senior directors often need to act in what some would view as a harsh way for the good of the business. That comes with the territory but for me it was how they did this that was a good indicator of whether they were a good leader or not.

It has been my experience that you can always treat people fairly and with dignity even when carrying out an action that is harsh and has a very negative outcome for the individual. But it is more difficult to do this and the poor and lazy leaders therefore seem to act with impunity and do not bother about the impact their actions have on individuals, including the negative views towards the company of those that remain employed but witness their colleagues being treated unfairly (survivor syndrome).

I’ve worked with leaders who have fretted about such decisions and ensured we acted as fair as possible but also those for whom once a decision is taken to part company with an individual it’s as if they no longer exist.

Does such an approach show insincerity, a lack of empathy and a tendency to be superficial? I would argue that it does, especially where there was in the past a good relationship between the two. This type of boss is unlikely to change or realise the impact of their callous actions, largely because they are probably a psychopath!

The good news is that the flip side of the above research is that eighty percent of senior execs are not psychopaths and I’ve had the privilege to work with some greats. For example Dan, a charismatic leader who was always exceptionally well prepared. He worked huge hours and this enabled him to always be one step ahead of his team, his boss, and the competition. He was loyal to his team, got to know them well enough to know what mattered to them and was motivational bordering on inspirational. He was happy to be challenged but you needed to be right if you did, and if you turned up to a meeting unprepared you were in for a torrid time. I have no problem with that.

But every one of his senior team would have walked over broken glass for him. Dan was massively respected but he also recognised that he didn’t necessarily need to be everybody’s friend. Some 20 years after leaving the organisation there are directors who reported into him who still fantasise about working for him again.

Likewise David, a thoughtful and skilful coach type leader who challenged the team by asking the right questions and facilitated them finding the right answers. There was no shouting or knee jerk dismissals but you knew if you hadn’t been good enough, and his style was such that his team also were fiercely loyal. This approach led to real development for everyone that reported into David as they were challenged to interrogate their actions and be the best that they can be. Many of David’s direct reports went on to have impressive careers.

Then there was Doug, again very intelligent but another very different style to David and Dan. Doug knew his strengths and weaknesses very well and focused on the things he could do well. He then recruited the best people he could find into the roles he wasn’t as comfortable with, and trusted them to do what they were employed to do. He would sometimes pay over the going rate to get the best but then he expected them to perform, and they invariably did due to the culture that had been built by Doug and his senior team.

Doug used to get so frustrated when he was paying a good salary to one of these senior recruits but then had to get involved in the detail of areas he wasn’t knowledgeable or interested in, or to manage them closer because they were underperforming. Quite rightly his view was that they needed to either improve or leave. As the old HR saying goes “If you can’t change the people, change the people!” This style, like the above 2, proved very successful and led to a high performing senior team.

There have been some other great leaders I’ve worked with but I think I’ve exhausted the point now about the positive impact they can make so I’ll move on to the leaders I’ve worked with who had the capability to be really good but didn’t use the gifts they had been given to good effect, leading to poor performing teams, a lack of individual development and poor morale. This is unforgivable in my book. What a waste of an opportunity to make a real difference to peoples’ lives.

Dick was a funny looking, tubby little man but who was very intelligent and had a surprisingly high level of confidence about his own abilities. He was one of those senior people we have all come across – clever enough to keep his job and sound credible to the CEO but nobody knows what they actually do.

Dick didn’t challenge poor performers and was quite lazy, often disappearing for large parts of the day with no visible outputs of what he had been doing. To me he was the worst type of leader as he was intelligent and knowledgeable enough to have made a real difference to the company and his team. He could and should have helped them to develop the company and themselves and further their own careers but chose not to. He could and should have also challenged areas that needed to improve, and closely manage people that needed to perform better but he did none of these. This meant that when he did eventually act it seemed inconsistent and unfair as others were allowed to get away with being poor.

My favourite quote about Dick is from a very senior person at the company that had worked with him for several years. When he asked me how I was getting on with Dick I expressed a few reservations about issues not being tackled and he replied “yes, Dick has some good strengths but nobody could accuse him of having a backbone”. Enough said!

Donald on the other hand was not lazy. He was ridiculously focused and worked 24/7. Massively intelligent and a skilled communicator in terms of getting his way, he really could have been an excellent leader but he used his strengths in a negative way. Even when he was wrong he used his exceptional analytical skills to win the discussion and would actually often dismiss people who had challenged his view, such was his ‘god complex’ (defined as  individuals who perceive themselves to be omniscient and omnipotent, and treat others as mere mortals).

Another descriptive word for Donald may be narcissist, a recognised personality disorder defined as being ‘a mental condition in which the individual has an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others’. This description seems to fit Donald perfectly.

Although he was hugely talented, Donald’s approach led to people being intimidated by him and feeling very insecure about their jobs and also afraid to challenge even if they were right. Clearly that approach is not conducive to a high performing team – and it wasn’t! It led to a very cautious and stale team with high staff turnover.

Recalling Donald’s management style reminds me of the worst insult my wife has said to me – and we celebrate our silver wedding anniversary in a few months so there have been a few whoppers over the years for me to pick from!

My role is about words, and often to persuade people to act in a certain way. Because of that I can generally form a good argument but my wife, fabulous as she is, doesn’t have a role where you need to use words to do this and when we had disagreed about something she said to me “there’s no point arguing about this Pete because even though I’m right you’ll win the argument like you always do so there’s no point in me trying”.

Ouch! That was a big lesson for me. I hope I have learned it but clearly just because you can win a discussion doesn’t mean you should, and if you continue to do so it will lead to problems. Some leaders urgently need to learn this – maybe I should introduce them to my wife!

Finally regarding poor leaders there was Des, who had a good strategy but was so abrasive that people were scared of him. Des attracted grievances against him due to his style but HR and the senior team were weak and batted them away without treating them seriously. They allowed the behaviour to continue and dismissed his insults to people in the grievances as ‘throwaway lines’ that didn’t therefore need to be tackled, as if that made them somehow less offensive.

This approach led to a resentful team who didn’t try and stretch themselves for fear of criticism from Des, and also high staff turnover and even Tribunals from disgruntled ex-staff, which took vast amounts of time and resources to defend.

Clearly an organisation has every right to accept the poor behaviour of directors if it chooses, and to treat their negative traits as ‘allowable weaknesses’ if they feel that overall the director is doing a good job.

But there are unintended consequences of such a decision and in my experience allowing such behaviour does far more harm than good in the long run. Also, evidence shows that this approach leads to a senior team being so far away from being a high performing team and achieving the synergies that go with that that even if the individual is impressive, a more measured approach would almost certainly be more successful as the team would then feed off each other, tackle issues together and build on each other’s successes.

Interestingly, all of the six leaders described above developed, and published to a fanfare, an impressive set of company Values. But there was a marked contrast in how the Values were used, the good leaders using them in a positive way to encourage others to act in a way that does the right things for the staff, company, customers etc whereas the poor leaders talked about how great the Values are but simply ignored them in terms of their own style and how they expected their senior team to act, leading to the Values actually becoming a symbol of all that was wrong with the organisation and sarcastic comments from staff who rightly observe that the Values are meaningless in such an organisation.

Having a good leader is one of the true great experiences at work. It can be inspirational and a time where you grow, improve and look forward to going into work each day. Unfortunately, however, having a poor leader can be incredibly demotivating in so many ways. Clearly each individual will react differently to this. My approach was to always try and uphold my own values and beliefs even if it was to my detriment. Although there was one occasion around 12 years ago where I did not do this and the way I treated that individual has haunted me ever since.

Generally this approach of being true to myself has served me well and I have had an enjoyable, rewarding and successful career so far but, whereas I can sleep at night and look myself in the mirror, it has led to me missing out on two well paid jobs because my approach differed from the senior leader at the time and they decided I wasn’t the right fit for their team or the organisation.

Having said that I don’t regret either of these instances as if I had been appointed into the roles they simply wouldn’t have worked out. Funnily enough it was Dan, above, who advised me prior to an interview on one of these occasions. I told him about my concerns about the MD and how he wanted to treat people unfairly. Dan simply said “be yourself, Peter”. I didn’t get the job but it was good advice and I went on to join a fabulous company shortly after.

If you have read my previous blogs you will know that the best recruitment advice I can give is to look for individuals who are intelligent, good communicators and have a good attitude. In my experience this type of individual will succeed in whatever role you give them and will develop into a real asset for the company. However, based on the above just be careful that you have not employed a psychopath. They are more trouble than they are worth!

As to how to deal with a difficult manager, observing your boss, no matter how good or bad they are, and adapting accordingly can always pay off. I remember early in my career I had a particularly challenging boss who was actually very good but he did like to put people on the spot and intimidate them. It was a financial institution and he had a habit of barking at people ‘what did the FTSE finish at last night?’ as soon as he walked in to the office. So I found a telephone investment line that summarised the main financial information from the previous day and as soon as I saw him arrive in the building on any given day I’d call it, pretend I was talking to a customer and get the FTSE result. He’d hang around until I had finished my call and then ask me and I’d answer him spot on every time. We got on great and he promoted me!

In summary my advice would be that if you have a boss who shows psychopathic tendencies they are unlikely to change and so if you’re happy in work, live with it but if you’re not, leave. Also, as I was advised by Dan before the interview, always be true to yourself. There is something so reassuring about being proud of who you are and upholding your own standards even if those around you don’t.

Have a great week, take care, and if you have any HR queries please don’t hesitate to contact us.