Crazy at the wheel: psychopathic CEOs are rife in Silicon Valley, experts say
Crazy at the wheel: psychopathic CEOs are rife in Silicon
Valley, experts say
Attributes of a psychopath can be good for running a
business, says SXSW panel, but weak HR departments and investors can enable bad
behavior
Studies show a high prevalence of psychopaths among
high-level executives in a corporate environment, compared to the general
population.
By Olivia Solon Wednesday 15 March 2017 05.00 EDT Last
modified on Wednesday 15 March 2017 10.13 EDT
There is a high proportion of psychopathic CEOs in
Silicon Valley, enabled by protective investors and weak human resources
departments, according to a panel of experts at SXSW festival.
Although the term “psychopath” typically has negative
connotations, some of the attributes associated with the disorder can be
advantageous in a business setting.
“A true psychopath is someone that has a blend of
emotional, interpersonal, lifestyle and behavioral deficits but an uncanny
ability to mask them. They come across as very charming, very gregarious. But
underneath there’s a profound lack of remorse, callousness and a lack of
empathy,” said forensic and clinical psychologist Michael Woodworth, who has
worked with psychopathic murderers in high security prisons, on Tuesday.
“They have certain characteristics like fearless
dominance, boldness and a lack of emotion. Many successful presidents have
scored highly [on the psychopathy scale],” said Woodworth.
According to recent studies there’s a high prevalence of
psychopathy among high-level executives in a corporate environment: 4-8%
compared with 1% in the general population.
This makes sense, according to Silicon Valley venture
capitalist Bryan Stolle because “it’s an irrational act to start a company”.
“You have to have a tremendous amount of ego [and]
self-deception to embark on that journey,” he said. “You have to make
sacrifices and give up things, including sometimes a marriage, family and
friends. And you have to convince other people. So they are mostly very
charismatic, charming and make you suspend the disbelief that something can’t
be done.”
However, the positive attributes are accompanied by
manipulation.
“One of the main things that makes them extremely
difficult to organisations is their willingness to manipulate through
deception,” said Jeff Hancock, a Stanford social scientist who studies
psychopathy.
“Psychopaths will handpick people they can use as lackeys
or supporters, such as someone in HR they can have in their wheelhouse,” said
Woodworth.
Because they are
the founders and leaders they tend to get protected by HR. This reinforces the
behaviour
Jeff Hancock,
Stanford social scientist
However, when a psychopath isn’t getting his or her way,
they lose their veneer of charm. “When things aren’t happening the way they
thought they were going to happen, they tend to completely flip and resort to
bullying,” said Stolle.
At that point, according to Hancock, their “mask of
sanity falls off”.
“Because they are the founders and leaders they tend to
get protected by HR,” added Strolle. “This reinforces the behaviour.”
He cited Uber and the allegations of sexual harassment
made by former employee Susan Fowler as an example of a company with an HR
department that’s “gone in the wrong direction”.
It’s not just HR departments that enable psychopaths, but
investors.
“When you’ve made an investment in an entrepreneur, you
protect them. Everything is riding on that person. You are tied to them and now
you have to keep ignoring the behaviour unless it gets so terrible you can’t,”
said Stolle.
Having a psychopath within a company can lead to poor
employee retention, said Hancock, referencing FBI research that found that
departments managed by psychopaths decreases productivity and morale in the
team.
“Eight to 14 people could be lost because of one
psychopath. That’s the real cost of having something like that in your
organization, especially if there’s an HR coverup,” he added.
Hancock has developed software to analyse the social
media posts of public figures to see how they rate on the psychopathy scale
thanks to identifiers in written language. “There tends to be an emotion
deficit, they tend to use few words related to anxiety but a lot of hostile
language,” he said, adding that they write in a way that’s disfluent and
difficult to understand.
Psychopaths also find it difficult to modulate their
language for different settings for example a private message versus a public
post. Because they are more interested in themselves than others, they tend to
refer to other people a lot less than non psychopaths.
This means that text-based communication is a much better
way to communicate with someone you suspect is a psychopath, since it strips
away their non-verbal distractors, such as charm and confidence.
“Text based communications improve your chances of not
being manipulated as they are verbally not very skilled,” said Hancock. “You
can smoke them out in an online context.”
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