Not the biggest fan of your boss? Don’t worry, you’re not alone — and your negative opinion may well be justified.
According to one study published by the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, psychopathic traits could be as much as 12 times more common among corporate senior leadership than among Americans in general.
Psychopathic Traits
Psychopathy is one of the most infamous personality disorders. Hollywood’s depiction, however, is somewhat different to reality. Rather than a single stereotype, psychopaths are actually people who display some or all of 20 documented characteristics.
While there are some commonalities — such as the ability to make charming first impressions and an apparent lack of empathy — not all psychopaths will act the same.
Masking and Mimicking
Unfortunately, psychopaths are generally good at hiding. They do this in part by creating masks, also called “psychopathic fictions.” For example, the FBI has warned that psychopaths might present themselves to their coworkers and bosses as an ideal employee and leader. In fact, their ruthlessness make them appealing to troubled companies searching for help.
All this makes it hard to identify psychopaths in the corporate world. Even worse, the office context might cause workers to misinterpret some psychopathic traits and behaviors as good leadership or tough love.
One study, published in July, found that leaders who performed better were less likely to be viewed as abusers. In other words, workers who view their bosses as competent are more likely to interpret abusive behavior as mere tough love.
Covert Psychopathy
However, abuse is nothing more than abuse. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that toxic bosses have disastrous effects on their workers, and therefore their companies. Employees with a toxic boss are more likely to call off sick, actually become sick, and quit. Ambitious employees — the ones companies should be supporting the most — are most affected by toxic bosses.
The individual costs of toxic bosses are bad enough, but they also compound into organizational costs. Increased turnover and absenteeism, combined with worsened performance, means that the supposed tough love meted out by psychopathic bosses benefits nobody — except, perhaps, the boss and their favorites.
Adverse Impacts
Despite the well-documented downsides of psychopaths in the workplace, they remain common. One study by the Harris Poll from October 2023 found that a staggering 73% of US workers experienced anxiety about having to return to work on Mondays.
That’s not just people experiencing a case of the Sunday scaries, either. According to the American Psychological Association, 28% of Americans think that their work negatively impacts their mental health — but that figure rises to 76% among Americans stuck in a toxic workplace.
“The sharpest test of whether a corporate culture truly respects employees,” MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Donald Sull told Fortune Magazine, “is how senior leaders deal with managers who hit their numbers but abuse their teams.”
Many senior leaders are failing this test. While workers seek therapy to deal with their bosses and wait for the economy to give them a chance to quit, 60% of them reported seeing toxic bosses promoted.
As awareness around corporate toxicity grows, however, this might change. MIT’s Culture 500, for example, processed over one million employee reviews to evaluate the culture at hundreds of America’s largest employers.
“People often think that high performance is an excuse for abusive behavior,” Sull said. “But it’s possible to set the bar for performance high without berating or bullying people.”
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