Your Colleague May Very Well Be A Psychopath.

When you nonchalantly refer to your colleague or boss as a “psycho” there may actually be some truth to it! Psychopathy, antisocial behavior, psychopathology and personality disorder is actually more prevalent in the general population than most people think, and it therefore also more prevalent in everyday workplaces. Workers don’t simply leave their ingrained patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving and relating at the door. Sometimes the people that we work with do show cognitive, social, affective, interpersonal and lifestyle behaviors or patterns that fall outside of what is considered normal, typical, or expected given a particular situation or context. Sometimes they can act in very expected ways in organizations, but outside work borders these may be considered less optimal, less favorable and oftentimes socially and inter-personally unacceptable and sometimes even criminal. Just because it is expected or rewarded within an organization does not mean it is normal. The end should never justify the means.

Psychopaths very often don whatever mask they need to achieve their goals. They can be the successful leader, or the top sales person, or the self-proclaimed expert helping organizations reach their highest goals, and yes, they can even be the victim when their ploys and games come to light. The fact that they are essentially corporate chameleons means that they are often left undetected until it’s too late. In addition to their ever-changing masks, while they are without real feeling or emotion, they are extremely skilled at mimicking emotions as part of their elaborate facade, grooming and manipulations. I think organizations and leaders must be well placed to know, recognize and identify behavior which violates social norms, even when those occasionally drive achieving targets and goals. Leaders must learn ways to recognize the behavior and ways to manage it, create boundaries and a psychologically safe working environment for all. Leaders must first admit that it is exists, and secondly, recognize that it is often at their hands, actions and inaction that such antisocial behaviors are directly and indirectly rewarded and maintained in the work place. That is not to say that they are responsible for a psychopath’s behaviors, but they certainly contribute mostly unknowingly to psychopaths getting away with their games. That is why leadership reflection is so important. This article addresses psychopathy and personality disorders in the work place. Psychopaths can operate under the radar for years never being caught, but it is just a matter of time where that behavior does come to light. Just because they haven’t reached that level, doesn’t mean they won’t. Harmless workplace psychopathy may in fact not be that harmless for some, it could be a hint of what’s to come for the psychopath, and if you ask any unsuspecting workplace victim, you will know that there is nothing harmless about this.

Let’s start with a few basic questions:

• Do you ever feel like you are walking on egg shells with some colleagues?
• Does a colleague wear a mask and changes that mask dependent on the situation?
• Do you ever get a sense that there is just something off about a colleague?
• Do you feel uneasy around a colleague?
• Do you not trust a certain colleague based on their previous behaviors?
• Do you feel that you have been set-up or positioned to take the blame by a colleague?
• Do they behave in ways that would suggest that they are not concerned with others?
• Do you get a sense that some peers feel they are superior to others?
• Do you have a peer that always needs to be the center of attention?
• Does a leader claim other people’s successes and blames others for their failures?
• Have you had an overly charismatic and charming peer that often feels fake?
• Do you ever experience any of the above, but you can’t quite pin point why?

It is very likely that if you answer yes to a range of these questions that you could be the witness or target of psychopathic behavior. When you are around a psychopath you often have a very visceral gut feeling that something is off or not quite right, unless you have been groomed and therefore believe everything they say. A close friend often says that sometimes there are no explanations for other people’s bad behavior other than that some people are 'just not very nice' (sic- expletive replaced with something more appropriate for LinkedIn), but I think it goes deeper than just that. Very often what you are experiencing is a result of witnessing or being subjected to a range of behavioral patterns or ways of thinking and relating that don’t conform to social norms. Don’t ignore those gut feelings. Not everyone is benevolent.

You are unlikely to be subjected to the extreme levels shown in Hollywood movies that show psychopaths as murderous deviants and villains or to the behaviors of people who get sectioned or mandated to locked psychiatric wards or to forensic settings, but most would be surprised that they are dealing with people who exhibit these behaviors daily at work. The working play ground is rife with psychopaths and others who display antisocial behavior, a dangerous lack of empathy and remorse, unhealthy competition, narcissism, arrogance and other serious personality traits, challenges and disorders.

Team work and playing nice are typically espoused as being key abilities and behaviors for leaders and employees. However, while playing nice might be publicly espoused, it is often not what is rewarded or expected. The truth is that some behaviors that are rewarded in the boardroom and corporate play-ground are the very same behaviors that would lead to social and relational issues and may even qualify for a diagnosis outside of the corporate work environment. Playing politics is often cited as a needed corporate skill, yet it is also often the very means by which psychopaths operate.

Everyone has heard about working in a dog-eat-dog world, and there is more than a sense of truth to that. When you look at the definition behind “dog-eat-dog” it lists a set of clearly antisocial traits: aggressive, brutal, competitive, cutthroat, merciless, ruthless, unmerciful, vicious. Very much a list of words that describe antisocial and psychopathic behavior!

Organizations that operate on high performance and achievement orientation, meritocracy, positional authority, hierarchical cultures and structures often drive and reward highly competitive behaviors that leave a lot to be desired. They tend to be focused more on driving and achieving targets, and operate according to competition, rivalry, conflict and opposition rather than creating trust based and enduring relationships, or compassion for self and other. Compassion and competition are very rarely compatible. We see behaviors such as extreme and unhealthy competition, targeted aggression, lack of empathy and some phenomenally extreme levels of self-serving arrogance and narcissism. Some industries are known for this type of behavior and actively go out and recruit for people who can demonstrate highly ambitious, energetic, driven and competitive natures and histories of achieving outcomes at any cost.  Some organizational cultures insidiously promote this type of behavior.

Of course, such people would never talk about their behavioral strategies of manipulating others or attempting to annihilate people who challenge them as these are often hidden out of sight under a thin veil of manipulation, charm and grooming behaviors.  They often focus on their charisma to wow, to groom and to draw people closer into their world. Their targets and observers become so captivated by their outward appearance of self-proclaimed success, expertise, confidence and stories and very often fail to see the true underlying nature and personality issues with such people. For such disordered individuals, people are insignificant and are seen as pawns. They are simply a means to an end. They are to be used, positioned and manipulated all as part of the transaction of achieving some self-serving goal, whether that is recognition, fame, large financial bonuses or simply the glory of achievement or the self-validation that they are in fact superior to their co-workers. Getting one over on others comes with the thrill without guilt or empathy and only acts as further proof as to how smart and superior they are to others. They often believe that others deserve to be treated this way. Furthermore, the degree of psychopathy can vary across the population, with some showing extreme disorder, and others simply showing some traits and behaviors. Babiak and Hare (2006) note that some psychopaths are very intentional about who they target, and others are more opportunistic and feed on those that are vulnerable.

Now I am in no way recommending that you go out and start calling your boss or your colleague a psychopath or accusing them of having a severe personality disorder but having a clear idea of what behavioral traits such people exhibit and engage in is very much half way to dealing with the problem. Furthermore, just because a person may display some psychopathic behaviors or traits, a diagnosis is a lot more complex than reading down a list of diagnostic criteria. That does however not detract away from the very important discussion that psychopathy is often alive and well in corporate environments and is not only rewarded but maintained by those rewards and expectations. While this is not a new idea in the world of social science, and clinical and organizational psychology, organizations are often unaware that the behaviors they are looking for and rewarding are actually very often the behaviors displayed by psychopaths who would otherwise likely be diagnosed accordingly. If you can’t see how this would impact trust, relationships, culture, scripts and rules on how things get done, then you are setting yourself, your colleagues and your organization up for failure and ultimate chaos, which is the only thing that psychopaths ultimately bring.

Psychopaths typically operate according to their own rules and pose a significant risk to colleagues and the organization. Most organizations are not even aware that this is happening until it is too late, and chaos ensues. Organizations must not only provide a physically safe environment, but they must also provide a psychologically safe environment. We must be aware of the unintended consequences of the organizational structures, culture and behavioral rewards as they often breed and maintain more dysfunction.

We know that many of these behavior patterns are long and enduring, and that they deviate from accepted ways of responding and behaving in society. We know that these affect the way people think, their mimicked emotional responses, relational and interpersonal functioning and their ability to control impulses in socially and culturally accepted ways. We also know that very often some of these behaviors are rewarded in corporate settings.

Babiak and Hare (2006); the authors of the book Snakes In Suits, offer a process by which psychopaths operate i.e. assessment – manipulation – abandonment. Assessment is the time at which they take time to get to know a person’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities as these are key information for their attacks to be successful. Manipulation is exactly what it says, which is when the psychopath will groom relationships, build trust and actively create the stories that so often surround psychopathic behavior. Abandonment is the ending of that relationship once it no longer offers any gain. Abandonment is done swiftly, often unexpectedly and more often than not ends in chaos. By the time you are observing the behaviors it may already be too late. A psychopath would have spent significant time in assessing and grooming their victims.

Below I will provide a set of case studies to show that some of these behaviors and personality traits are those that we see in every day working environments, they can be viewed as just what is needed or as saviors to whatever challenge your organization or team is facing.  They are smart, charismatic and confident and often operate on their world through subtle and overt manipulations that often leads to chaos. Sometimes they are so common and seem harmless and innocuous that we no longer pay attention to them or have either been groomed to discount them or just assume they are part of the organizational culture. Just because they are prevalent and sometimes overlooked or rewarded, does not mean that they don’t have an extremely negative impact on output, on teams, on relationships and pose a very real threat and risk if left unchecked or unmanaged. Failure to address issues and to set appropriate boundaries also affects the person as they are not being given the opportunity to learn new ways of thinking, behaving or relating to others. We must however be honest that some of these deeply engrained patterns of thinking, behaving and relating are relatively resistant to change, so organizations must be proactive in identifying the behaviors, and be quick to address the behaviors, set boundaries, listen to and protect their victims and provide a psychologically safe and supportive environment.  That may include termination, and if the person has engaged in illegal activity, should include informing the authorities.

Case 1: William the self-proclaimed expert savior

William was an external marketing partner who demanded that everybody respected him as an expert. William threw the word ‘expert’ around as a means of promoting his opinions and silencing other key stakeholders. William’s opinions were loud and strongly held but loosely evidenced. He responded to emails in an emotionally aroused way that were designed to be divisive and aggressive and to silence others. There was no awareness or respect for boundaries and the only views he respected were his own. He did not play by the organization’s rules. As an external partner he thought he was above having to follow the rules and convinced others this was in fact true. He made himself untouchable and created narratives among senior leaders about how vital he was to maintaining other key stakeholder relationships, despite offering very little value and often being the source cause of significant conflict. His stories were so convincing that leaders just let him get on with whatever he wanted and turned a blind eye to his behaviors. William was triggered by words that would send him into uncontrollable moods and rants. He was so rigid in how he thought about things that if someone used a synonym or a word different to how he saw it, it would end up in targeted personal attacks, often that would last for days to months. He would make sure that he told everyone how expert he was, as a means to discredit and silence others whom he perceived as a threat. William held a grudge for years. The trouble was William actually did not really understand business, the organization or the department and for the most part displayed poor business acumen yet he used the word 'expert' to convince and fool everyone. He was warm, congenial and professional when dealing with senior leaders, but was more like a Jekyll and Hyde when it came to anyone else. The transformation was stark. It was all smoke and mirrors. He was impulsive and unpredictable. People walked on egg shells around him and were compelled to either engage in CYA behaviors or try to avoid having to collaborate with him altogether. When employees raised concerns about his behavior, he had a tendency to react in overly defensive and aggressive ways actively going out of his way to publicly smear the persons reputation or abilities.  William made sure than no one ever won except for himself, thereby prolonging the perceived need that he was essential. No-one walked away unscathed. Everyone that worked with William reported the same experience, yet leadership was wrapped around his finger and never paid attention to what their employees were saying. William did not play nice with others.

Case 2: Peter the charismatic leader

Peter was a well-respected and charismatic leader. He led through charisma, charm and by manipulating those around him by applying subtle and innocuous consequences and rewards to those in relationship with him. He had spent years in perfecting his image, and crafting relationships that further enhanced his social status and his leadership image. He created a bubble in which he was viewed and demanded godlike treatment. When challenged, either directly or indirectly, he engaged in divisive and splitting behavior that was intentionally used to attack whoever was posing a threat to his perfectly crafted and honed public persona. Behind closed doors he was a bully. A number of young female interns felt uncomfortable around him and he often talked about females in an overly suggestive and unprofessional manner. He was driven by status and ego and had a profound need to be loved by others and to be seen as the expert savior. He flashed his smile a lot. He was a skilled listener which made people draw close. He had close relationships, but they were transactional in nature which were carefully chosen and groomed either to enhance his social stature or so he could swoop in and be the hero. He used charm and charisma to groom and maintain those relationships. He was a vile and devious predator in action and displayed zero care for his victim’s careers or their character. He truly was a wolf in sheep’s skin. He demanded loyalty and engaged others to do his dirty work. After facing a bullying investigation, he engaged in a pervasive and psychopathic smear campaign to not only discredit his victim but to attempt to totally annihilate his victim. His victim posed a significant threat to his fragile ego and his perfectly crafted social persona. He used his charm and position so the organization turned a blind eye to his very overt and obvious retaliatory behaviors. He engaged in spreading rumors and actively lying about his victim. Even when his victim left the organization he actively and obsessively pursued him. Peter often pretended to be other people on social media so that he could get access to his victims locked social media accounts under false pretenses, which he had been stalking for months. He crossed boundary after boundary. He went on to get arrested for assaulting someone else and chose to take his life once all the evidence was coming to light rather than face his victims and the consequences of his behaviors. He likely knew that he was powerless to maintain that perfectly crafted image with all the demonstrable evidence mounting against him from his recent bullying investigation and then the arrest for assault. He had vehemently denied being a bully, but he couldn’t deny being arrested for assault and likely knew it was a matter of time before that information surfaced. The organization supported this senior leader and absolved him of blame for the bullying despite clear evidence of his bullying behaviors and clear retaliatory behavior during and after the investigation. The organization turned a blind eye to what was clearly retaliatory behavior and in so doing engaged in secondary bullying. The organization never apologized to the victim despite hard evidence of bullying at Peter’s hands.  Peter and the organization did not play nice with others.

Case 3: Meg and Annie the formidable team

Meg and Annie operated by their own rules. They worked in covert ways that actively undermined others. They claimed other people’s successes and pushed their failures on to others. They never accepted any responsibility for their actions. They targeted particular individuals and tag-teamed and tormented them for sport. They had no power on their own, but they fed off the energy of each other and they lied for each other to cover for their behaviors. They were cunning and devious. They openly lied, misrepresented the truth and conveniently omitted key information that did not support their opinions. They used their position to humiliate people publicly- if it wasn’t done in public it wasn’t fun to them. They actively and intentionally set people up for failure. They both felt that they were more experienced, more skilled, more educated, and more everything than anyone else. Meg and Annie paired as a team and did not play nice with others.

Case 4: Blaire the compulsive

Blaire obsessively and compulsively demanded her team’s attention every second of the working day. She displayed an inability to regulate her emotions, and so she sought to manage every aspect of her team’s work. She would contact her team obsessively through multiple channels, not giving them an opportunity to respond before they were bombarded with multiple additional communications. She displayed signs of emotional dysregulation and signs of anxious avoidant behaviors. She believed she needed to direct every aspect of the work every second of every day. She refused access to key stakeholders and leaders. She spoke down to everyone thinking that her leadership role entitled her to do so. She got her team to do all the heavy lift and then excluded them from key meetings where she presented the work as her own. What her leaders saw was that she got the job done. What they didn’t see was how Blaire treated her team which was often in blatant violation of the organizations core values and was even at times ethically questionable. Leaders chose not to see the persistent attrition on work efforts led by Blaire. Blaire would simply explain this away by blaming and gossiping those who left. Leaders simply took this at face value, thereby ruining workers reputations in the process. This was a long-standing and known pattern that predated anyone on the team. Despite having a reputation that preceded her, and evidenced complaints about these behaviors, she was promoted to an even more senior role. She was a perfectionist, preoccupied with details, rules, and schedules. She was incapable of developing warm or trusting relationships with her team. Blaire did not play nice with others.

Case 5: Selma the absent leader

Selma was a mid-senior leader who consistently failed to address issues and avoided dealing with conflict. She used laughter as a mechanism to diffuse issues that she knew needed addressing. She was unable to develop stable relationships, acted erratically and paid no attention to how her behaviors negatively impacted those around her. Her primary concern was to get promoted, and did not care who she had to walk over or use to get there. She had no insights that it was her own behaviors that were holding her back. She was full of excuses and constantly arrived late to meetings, if at all, without ever offering an apology nor showing concern for those waiting. She believed her time was more important than others. She believed that others should simply wait for her. When giving feedback she did so harshly, without thinking about how to deliver that feedback or whether it was even her feedback to give. She did not care about the impact of that feedback. People actively tried to avoid working with her and she had a reputation for being indifferent, absent and taking advantage of others. Selma did not play nice with others.

Case 6: Casey the self-absorbed project manager

Casey was a project manager who went about his day thinking that he was in fact God’s gift to all creation. He was all about the flash: the Armani suit, the Rolex watch, Italian designer shoes, a Tumi briefcase and the very clear display of wealth acquired through his self-made success. He drove the latest car which he changed frequently, and proudly talked about his flying status and points as if they were a real badge of honor. His sense of value was clearly through these external trappings of wealth. The only thing that overpowered his expensive cologne was his arrogance and attitude. He was outwardly confident. People admired this confidence. He talked over people and interrupted them as he believed what they had to say was not worth the time to listen to. He made bold statements that were often discriminatory, to either intentionally get a rise out of people, or simply because that is what he believed. He once publicly claimed that he found people “disgusting” and often made jokes that were discriminatory to almost every minority group. There was no apparent empathy or the ability to take another person’s perspective. He often spoke about the optics of what things looked to an observer rather than for any meaningful application, relationship or outcomes. He had no insights into his blind spots. He believed his top salary meant he was special and used this as evidence of being superior. He felt he was the only right or smart one. He believed he was owed the world and demanded it from people. He was entitled and had no sense of reality. He believed that his sole function was to look good while making loads of money and believed he was entitled to large bonuses, perks and to use the corporate credit card for whatever he wanted. He was overly competitive and aggressive in how he dealt with others. He thrived on the idea that he could and did treat people badly. He operated on the world and others transactionally for what he could get from them. If he did not see an immediate or easy gain, he would cut off those relationships considering them worthless. He did not take feedback. He believed he was superior. Psychologically he craved the validation of others and was lonely, depressed and anxious. He did not know how to mange his feelings and so engaged in drug, alcohol and sex addictions to dull his feelings. He believed this was simply a perk to be able to afford designer drugs and top shelf alcohol. He believed that having a put together outward appearance or appearing to be confident would fool others (and it did). He treated others with disrespect as he felt entitled to do so because he genuinely felt superior. Casey achieved all his targets and did well at performance time and was promoted to a higher level before he was ready. At this level he was given the opportunity to continue to perfect his manipulations and take advantage of the team and the organization. Casey did not play nice with others.

Case 7: Harry the hysterical

Harry was a senior leader who ruled over a medium size team. Everything was urgent and everything seemed to be a fire. Harry reacted in ways that were overly dramatic, and which were very rarely warranted by whatever fire he was trying to put out. For the most part these fires were non issues. He sought attention from his whole team, sometimes for very minor things. He had a tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill. He was intense and his emotions were often erratic. There was no predicting which way he would react, but often seemed like everything was catastrophic. Even minor things like a few spelling mistakes or being a few minutes late resulted in the urgent need to call a team together and scold and reprimand them for something that was actually not such a big deal in the scheme of things. Harry was known as the drama king. Harry did not play nice with others.

Case 8: Patty the eccentric

Patty’s behaviors were often described by her team and peers as being skittish, suspicious and overly paranoid. She was often looking for evidence that confirmed her suspicions that others were always actively working against her or sabotaging her efforts. She was often argumentative with others and her relationships were often described as transitional and cold. Patty did not play nice with others.

Case 9: Jackie the vicious

Jackie was a shift lead at an offsite school building which meant that senior leaders never saw he behaviors. She ruled with an iron fist. She believed that the way she thought or felt was right and should never be challenged, especially by more junior or new people. When it came to shift transitions, she insisted that it was highly detailed when someone was handing over to her to minimize her personal risk, but when she was handing over to others, she wanted it to be quick, superficial and not detailed. She was not concerned for the potential risk that this posed for the team or the students. Jackie was impulsive and unable to regulate her emotions. She was driven by her belief that she was entitled to treat others in any way she saw fit. Jackie verbally abused targeted people and physically assaulted a team member who insisted that the team follow an outlined process to ensure safety. Jackie used her position to gain favor and to attempt to discredit her victim once it came to light. Jackie would have gotten away with the assault as she had successfully convinced leaders that her victim was in fact the perpetrator until an eye witness came forward. The organization responded by leaving Jackie in position and moving the victim to a different site. Jackie and the organization did not play nice with others.

Case study 10: Cait the victim

Cait was entering a new profession and was allocated a mentor to help her get settled and support her in this new transition. She worked in a position of trust. Cait was charming and charismatic, and used her accent as a weapon to lure people close. She told great stories and was engaging and funny. She was for the most part a loner, though at any one time she had one close ‘friend’. She poured her heart and soul out to this person, then would trash them and destroy the relationship before moving on to the next. She was already starting to develop this pattern amongst her colleagues in the first few months of her new role. There were also increasing rumors from colleagues that were expressing concerns about Cait’s unusual approach to professional relationships, her behaviors, her peculiar beliefs, superstitions and her god-like attitude. She was particularly needy, but her mentor assumed this was simply due to onboarding and settling in to a new role. Soon, the demands for time and neediness slowly crept in to the point that it started to violate the boundaries and agreements with her mentor. She had a long history of burning through troublesome relationships. She found endings particularly hard. Her mentor tried to support her as long as possible but after some time felt it best to end the mentor relationship. The mentor escalated the issue to management and suggested that a new mentor be assigned outlining what had happened and the potential risks that Cait was posing to the team, clients and the profession. Cait took the termination of the mentoring relationship personally and as a direct assault. It was a hit to her excessively inflated ego. Under unbiased conditions, Cait would have been assessed to be unfit. However, this did not happen as she systematically went out of her way to set up her ex-mentor, creating narratives on how poorly she had been treated, and how the mentor had crossed boundaries. None of which were true. She told everyone that she had ended the mentoring relationship and that her mentor was the one struggling to let go. Cait engaged in a systematic smear campaign all while engaging others with her very elaborate victim narrative. She worked hard at projecting the blame to keep the heat and eyes off herself. The organization was lulled by her charm, accent and the fake narratives she was spinning.  Once this had been addressed by the organization, the behavior faded away, but reemerged many years later where Cait engaged in further defamatory behaviors towards her mentor when she and the mentor were working in different organizations. Cait had clearly held onto a grudge and had been planning her revenge for years.  Cait did not play nice with others.

In working environments, there is a tendency for a set of behaviors to be rewarded. Fierce competition and self-promotion are among these. While many of these behaviors are considered good business acumen, outside of corporate environments they may be viewed more seriously due to their typically antisocial nature founded on a lack of empathy, manipulation and a lack of remorse for the impact of their behavior on others.

Not Playing Nice

Many of these behaviors can be summarized into not playing nice with others. Before we continue let’s unpack what this means by asking a series of targeted and informed questions that are based on actual behaviors that are often seen in work settings:

• Have you ever worked with a colleague who persistently fails to follow organizational or team rules and norms?
• Have you ever experienced a colleague who has a persistent tendency to misrepresent the truth or bend the truth to suit their agenda and personal goals?
• Have you come across a colleague who seems to be reactive and impulsive, rather than being able to plan ahead?
• Have you ever felt victimized by a colleague who persistently engages in personal attacks and is persistently aggressive and irritable with everything all the time?
• Have you ever felt attacked by a colleague who disagrees on absolutely everything and then later claims it to be their original idea to get the credit?
• Have you ever come across a colleague that intentionally delays and resists everything, only to be the person to point blame at others when things are delayed due to their behavior?
• Have you worked with colleagues who have a persistent and blatant disregard for others such as demanding their opinions are the only ones that matter?
• Have you ever worked with a colleague who persistently fails to sustain appropriate work behavior and displays irresponsibility in the way they deal with colleagues or with their work?
• Have you worked with a colleague who persistently excuses or rationalizes their poor behavior because they claim they are an expert or superior as if expertise allows to them to act poorly?
• Have you worked with a colleague who persistently shows a complete lack of empathy or remorse for the negative impact of their actions on their colleagues?
• Have you worked with a colleague who is perceived negatively by multiple people for their arrogant behavioral transactions with everyone they come across time-and-time again?

Chances are if you have answered yes to these questions, you are likely to have come across a colleague with psychopathic and antisocial tendencies. The list of questions is based on common corporate behaviors that are mapped over the diagnostic criteria for people who display pervasive patterns of antisocial behavior. Many people think such things are reserved for mental health services or Hollywood thrillers, but the truth is that our working environments are rife with such individuals and pervasive antisocial behavior. In fact, these behaviors are sometimes highly prized and rewarded which acts as one of the key maintenance factors as to why it is seen so prevalently in the workplace.

Dr. Robert Hare, was one of the fore leaders in researching and understanding psychopathy and who developed the PCL-R, which is a clinical rating scale used by professionals to assess and evaluate Psychopathy in forensic settings. It is still used today as the gold standard in assessing psychopathy. The PCL:SV is a version of the tool that can be used to assess for psychopathy in other non-forensic populations. The PCL:SV highlights four domains of Psychopathy viz. Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle and Antisocial. Each domain has a list of traits typically displayed by psychopaths:

• Interpersonal: Superficial, grandiose and deceitful
• Affective: Lacks remorse, lacks empathy and doesn’t accept responsibility
• Lifestyle: Impulsive, lacks goals and irresponsible
• Antisocial: Poor behavioral control, adolescent and adult antisocial behavior

How many of your peers, or how frequently do you see people displaying manipulative relational skills, controlling others, insisting their way is the only right way, or displaying a complete lack of empathy?

In order to understand, we must begin to recognize the typical traits displayed by psychopaths who typically have pervasive patterns of disregarding others and violating other’s rights. Of course, in the work environment, this may include

• Failing to conform to organizational or team rules and norms
• Misrepresenting the truth to manipulate others
• There is a tendency to not be able to think strategically in terms of planning for the future beyond transaction and being reactive and impulsive
• There is a complete lack of regard for others they work with
• They are highly focused on themselves and meeting their own needs, particularly at the expense of others
• They act in irresponsible ways and engage in high risk-taking behaviors and activities
• They deal with people at surface level and fail to develop close, trust-based relationships with peers, leaders and clients
• Competition and getting one over are key means of operating and self-rewards

While some may be psychologically and genetically predisposed to act in those ways, there are certainly organizational factors that trigger, precipitate, and perpetuate these dysfunctional and antisocial ways of behaving. Leaders must have insight into such environmental maintenance factors:

• Organizations must consider how the process of performance management may promote and reward dysfunctional behavior and unhealthy competition. Do your organizational processes breed unhealthy competition or to achieve at the expense of others? Does your performance process focus on the results and pay no attention to how those were achieved? Does your organizational culture advocate and support the notion that the end results justify the means? Leaders must look more closely at individual performance and outputs and understand how these were achieved, who really did the work and what was the impact on the team and others in getting these results.
• Leadership culture is often one that sends messages about what is priority, and how to go about getting work done. In unhealthy leadership cultures, there is often messages around modus operandi that can often be perceived as being less desirable or ethical. Poor leaders ignore challenges and ignore behavior if a person is achieving targets. Leaders who do not address poor behaviors (either out of fear for a psychopath or not seeing the true impact), ultimately leads to not only reinforcing that behavior but signaling to both the perpetrator and the staff that such behavior is acceptable and therefore creates a psychologically unsafe environment.
• The narratives and processes around how organizations develop their staff, leads to complex behavior around claiming expertise. Completing one training does not equate to being an expert, yet often you will find that many people proclaim expertise as a means to gain access to rewards and get one over on others. It is clearly a manipulation strategy that is often used to promote one’s own voice and opinions and to silence others.
• Often employees who are targeted as being the ‘identified problem’, are actually the victims of elaborate retaliatory behaviors or smear campaigns designed to discredit them by psychopaths who are threatened by their presence or whatever it is they represent to them. Very often the identified employee is the victim not the problem.

Typically, these types of antisocial behaviors do not correspond to many of the core values that organizations and leaders publicly espouse. Which brings the need for a far broader conversation and questions that needs to be openly discussed in leadership circles at every level of an organization:

• Are the behaviors that are rewarded in alignment with the organizational values or are they in stark contrast?
• How can leaders address antisocial behavior directly and in a timely and safe manner?
• How can leaders support those victims who are brave enough to speak out against such behavior rather than vilifying or ignoring them?
• How do we really develop and define expertise objectively in an organization that will minimize opportunistic manipulation of self-proclaimed “expertise” in antisocial ways?
• How can leaders support those that find themselves as unwilling victims of antisocial behavior in the workplace?
• What can leaders and organizations do to create a physically and psychologically safe environment?
• How can organizations avoid closing ranks and taking a position of denial as a means of minimizing law suits when employees become victims of workplace psychopathy?
• What needs to happen when it is the leaders who are behaving in these ways?
• How can leaders and organizations create an awareness about the difference between mental health, personality disorders and psychopathy?
• Leaders must consider if the organization itself is acting in psychopathic ways and whether cultures, processes and rules are maintaining corporate psychopathy?

These are very complex issues but essential conversations and questions that need reflecting and acting upon. Leaders can’t simply put their heads in the ground and hope that the problem goes away or ignore that such behavior occurs in their teams or organizations. First step is that they must admit that it does occur, and very often is rewarded and maintained by their actions or lack of action. Turning a blind eye has the exact effect of directly rewarding the behavior.

The reality is that workers and leaders are people, and everyone may be predisposed to a variety of mental health issues and personality disorders. Sometimes these are masked and sometimes they serve employees very well in environments that reward and seek out such behavior. It is true that not everyone is a psychopath or has a personality disorder, but certainly many employees may display a full range of challenging personality traits and behaviors. In your corporate journey you may come across the narcissistic personality type who craves attention, demonstrates behaviors that are self-centered, privileged and grandiose. You may often come across employees who display very real obsessive and compulsive behaviors. We certainly find an army of passive-aggressive personality types, and those who could be seen as borderline whose behavioral repertoire includes unstable relational patterns, anger and impulsivity. The schizotypal personality type may come across as being aloof and indifferent, while the schizoid personality type may not engender warm relational patterns or pay much attention to praise or critical feedback. The list goes on. We should expect to see all ten personality disorders and variations in the work place.

It is no surprise as workers are humans, yet we often assume that people who come to work do not have these challenges or simply leave them at home when they assume their work persona. That is simply not realistic, we see these characteristics and behaviors frequently and in abundance. The reality is that there is a substantial prevalence of personality disorders in the general population and therefore in the work place! It is unrealistic to think that people with ingrained patterns of maladaptive behaviors, thinking and relating would simply not bring those to work.

There is obviously value in being aware of such antisocial and severe personality behaviors just as a means of ensuring a psychologically safe working environment and to minimize the relational impacts and risk on others. We also know that there are increased rates of co-morbidity with other mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and relational and domestic problems. So, knowing this and being aware that some of these behaviors are present, gives leaders a very real opportunity to work towards creating a culture of well-being, inclusion and transparency for everyone. Being able to recognize antisocial and personality behaviors may be giving organizations and leadership an intimate insight into other potential challenges that their employees may be facing. People can hide that they have mental health issues, but they can’t hide deeply ingrained and pervasive behavioral, social, relational and cognitive patterns- these will surface and certainly be experienced or witnessed by others. It is not a matter of if chaos will ensue, but when.

I am not suggesting that organizations and leaders understand the types of pathology, key dimensions, polarities, foundations, taxonomies, clusters of diagnostic criteria, differential diagnoses or the various therapeutic approaches on how to deal with such behavior. However, I am calling for more awareness about psychopathy, personality disorders and mental health in the work place. I am also inviting leaders to see how organizational processes and expectations reward and maintain these behaviors, all at the potential expense of other employees and ultimately the organization itself. Leaders must be able to spot these behaviors and set appropriate boundaries and create a trust based and psychologically safe working environment for everyone. Leaders must become adept at identifying the behavior, as the ways in which psychopaths operate and communicate can often be quite indirect and very skilled in flying under the radar. Leaders must learn to recognize and decode the intentions behind behaviors and actively set boundaries and stop encouraging or rewarding dysfunctional behavior, even if that behavior gets you and your team closer to achieving some target or goal. We must appreciate how to recognize the development of personality issues and how this can often be seen in relatively innocuous corporate behavior such as unusual physical boundaries, claiming expertise, making an inappropriate joke, engaging in fierce competition, interrupting or slamming a door when someone doesn’t get their way to more the obvious volatile and aggressive behavior sometimes displayed by people at work.

What can organizations and leaders do?

• Create psychologically safe environments for all employees. This involves creating boundaries, addressing unusual behaviors, listening to concerns and tracking emotional language. Create a transparent culture of well-being. Leaders can be trained in having an awareness of mental health and of antisocial psychopathic-like behavior.
• Leaders and organizations can deal with people with psychopathic tendencies or other personality issues with respect and empathy. They are still people. When I trained to be a clinical psychologist we talked about "non-collusive empathy" which essentially draws out the need to still treat them with respect, dignity and empathy, but to do so in a way that sets clear boundaries and does not collude with any of the behaviors.
• HR departments can drive initiatives that highlight mental health in the work place and offer supports through employee assistance programs and employee resource groups. Training departments can work with experts to create training opportunities to help people understand mental health in the work place, how to recognize the signs, what to do and any coping mechanisms. They can organize talks from local experts and community services. Health benefits can include mental health counseling. HR departments can also fund and sponsor large scale mental health initiatives and programs that are designed to improve coping skills, well-being and resilience. HR should instill polices, practices and a culture of zero tolerance for employee abuse. These issues need to become part of the every day conversation and culture. Organizations can even go as far as to appoint Chief Well-Being Officers as a needed senior leadership role. These types of roles should be a role in itself and not tagged onto someone else’s already busy agenda and day. That way well-being will get the focus, attention and credibility it needs. HR departments can act swiftly in addressing psychopathic abuse and exit strategies if this occurs.
• Leaders must create an environment and culture of respect as a priority. They need to encourage respect and model respect, and address disrespect. Until respect becomes linked to performance and rewards, it will never be front and center.
• Make it safe to talk about mental health in teams and the workplace. Those with mental health issues need to be able to talk and share this as much as those who are being impacted by their colleagues
• Leaders must deal with these issues in a consistent manner. Setting those boundaries is key. They must be applied consistently every time, so that everyone observing or experiencing will know how leadership will respond. Knowing and respecting the boundaries is key. Enforcing them is also as important. If people know what is expected it makes it easier to address any violations. Don’t wait for something to happen before setting boundaries. Have an open conversation with people around appropriate boundaries before they are needed.
• Create an anonymous forum for employees to be able to express concerns and raise complaints about behavior that violates norms. People may not want to come forward out of fear of retaliation and may have even received threats from the work place psychopath about blowing the whistle. People need an opportunity to talk about this and escalate if and when needed. While I do recommend such a forum, I am also aware that occasionally these forums can be used by the psychopath in their elaborate manipulation strategies. Furthermore, how organizations respond to anonymous tips speaks volumes about the organization. I have witnessed first hand how an anonymous forum led to a leadership witch hunt, which was spawned on by a workplace psychopath as a means to flush out the mole who spoke against him.
• Leaders must be compassionate and develop a deep empathy and understanding of the very real and pervasive impact of mental health on the individual and teams. If someone is raising a concern, don’t dismiss it, make sure that you meet with them as soon as possible. Don’t wait or schedule a time that is too far from their request. Acting in a timely manner may make all the difference, especially if there are any safety or threat related issues. Take the time to listen and provide support. Help them understand what resources are around to support them. Make sure that you are documenting incidences with facts. Psychopaths have a skill of blaming people and making others believe that they are the cause of the way they are feeling, so be understanding and help them know that they are not the cause and are not to blame and are in fact victims. Validating a victim’s experience goes a long way to helping them build healthy narratives, trust, resilience and moving on from the experience in a healthy manner.
• Whatever you do, don’t close ranks and abandon the victim out of fear of law suits. Organizations that do this are themselves acting in psychopathic ways as they are clearly displaying a complete lack of empathy and remorse for how they are treating victims. They are acting in self preserving ways at the expense of the real victim.
• Leaders must create a culture of containment and a psychologically safe environment. Helping people understand how to regulate and to maintain their emotions at work and help them understand the consequences of acting out and disrespect for others. Chaos is very often not contained but leaks out and has a damaging ripple affect across multiple areas of the organization. A culture of containment should also be about minimizing these damaging ripple effects that workplace psychopaths can cause.
• Leaders must educate themselves that having a mental health issue does not mean that they don’t know what is right from wrong. People with mental health issues do know what is right from wrong, the only time when this is impaired is when they may be facing clear mental capacity issues. Let’s be clear here, psychopaths are using manipulative behaviors very intentionally and are well aware of what is right from wrong. They simply do not have any empathy or remorse for what they do. They should be held accountable for their behaviors. The only time organizations must consider if this is more complex is if the person is showing a lack of mental capacity – the presentation is very different. Mental health does not excuse nor preclude poor behavior unless there are significant capacity issues, in which case it is likely that the person would not be fit to work at that point.  Psychopathy is not a mental health issue in the traditional sense, it is more deeply ingrained patterns of thinking, relating and behaving based on personality traits.
• Organizations must support leaders to address this as a whole community. Leaders must be supported and encouraged to manage this with others, it is not their sole responsibility to manage an antisocial employee on their team. Besides it is unwise and unsafe to do so. It takes a community. Support is needed all around.  
• Leaders must be taught and encouraged to reflect on the ways in which they lead, and if that allows, rewards, excuses, escalates and maintains some dysfunctional behavior. That is not to say that they are to blame or responsible, but such behavior makes them easy targets for work place psychopaths as they can easily manipulate the leader to overlook indiscretions, fly under the radar, push boundaries, ignore complaints, and reward and provide access etc. Often leaders can unknowingly become complicit in the behavior, as they are targeted and groomed to act in ways that undermine or are contrary to the organizational rules. Once they realize, it is often too late.
• Teams must be encouraged and supported to do the same when it is their leader that is acting in these antisocial ways, and leadership and organizations must act swiftly to support such teams. Organizations must take an approach of 'team holding' when supporting teams who have been witness or subjected to psychopathic behavior.

It is highly likely that at some point in your career you would have had a gut feeling that something was not quite right with a peer or a leader. It is also highly likely that you have be subjected to a range of antisocial behavior or behavioral patterns that are typically exhibited by psychopaths or by people who have severe and enduring personality disorders. Bringing our whole selves to work is exactly what most people do. They simply cannot leave these behavioral, social and relational patterns and ways of thinking and behaving at the work entrance. I think we must also be responsible and mindful that the exhibition of some of these behaviors, especially as an isolated incident does not make someone a psychopath. If there is a long-term and deeply ingrained pattern of social, cognitive, relational, and behavioral traits that seem to be pervasive and persistent then you may very well be seeing something more clinical in nature. I think we must also be mindful in our nomenclature and to be careful to use words that are inclusive and non-pejorative. I think we need to be able to identify and recognize the behavioral patterns and antisocial behavior, but we must be very cautious about labeling the person. I don’t ever advocate or recommend calling anyone ‘psycho’ or a psychopath. We know that the prevalence of personality disorders is high in the general population and we must therefore assume that this is therefore also true for working environments.

Some sources believe that you are likely to be exposed to psychopathic behavior or traits at least once per day in the working environment. This poses a significant and interesting challenge for organizations, HR departments, leaders and the average worker. They need to understand what these behavioral patterns look like and how to deal with them. Organizations and leaders must take an honest look at how their behaviors, cultures and processes may in fact be actively precipitating, perpetuating and maintaining dysfunctional behavior by rewarding or ignoring it. Leaders must create a psychologically safe environment where everyone is supported, where mental health is part of the everyday conversation and culture; and where dysfunctional behavior is addressed compassionately but swiftly and no longer rewarded; even if it achieves targets. There is some suggestion in the literature that social determinants are reduced for those who display these distinctive behaviors and personality issues. This may mean that there is in fact nothing that organizations can do to minimize the impact of antisocial behavior in the work place. If this is the case, we are all held hostage by dysfunction. I think this further highlights the need for setting and enforcing clear boundaries, supporting victims and having clear exit strategies for workplace psychopaths. Organizations and leaders must know when to cut ties with employees who are displaying persistent patterns of psychopathic behavior and how to listen and support those who witness or are victims of a workplace psychopath.

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