Unscrupulous, cold, calculating people, capable of committing the worst misdeeds if they benefit their interests … The profile of the psychopath is usually associated with the world of crime, but it also abounds in certain liberal professions, as has been verified by the Oxford University psychologist Kevin Dutton after interviewing 5,400 individuals with the most diverse trades. The ranking, according to Dutton, would be as follows: the first place is occupied by CEOs or top managers of companies, followed by lawyers, media workers, commercials and surgeons.
Another researcher, Robert Hare, estimates that the typical lack of empathy of psychopaths is manifested in 1% of the general population, while the percentage is quadruple among the guild of the “bosses” . For his part, the Australian psychologist Nathan Brooks indicates that between 3% and 21% of senior executives have psychopathic traits, a prevalence similar to that of the population serving time in prisons .
Faced with the forcefulness of statistics and clinical studies, the psychologist Philip Zimbardo, from Stanford University, has developed an emergency guide to identify if a psychopath boss has (bad) luck and is infecting you with his immoral methods:
1) Dehumanization of others : as recent history shows, considering others as subhuman has terrible consequences. Slogans such as “we have to crush them” or “are they or us” should set off the alarms.
2) Deindividualization (anonymity) . People who hide behind a mask are not to be trusted, as they encourage antisocial and irresponsible behavior.
3) Diffusion of individual responsibility . It is the mentality of lynching, when we accept the philosophy of “the end justifies the means.” We are all and none of us responsible for the outrage, because it is what others do.
4) Blind obedience. The difficulty of breaking orders, no matter how far-fetched, indicates that you are being the victim of a psychopathic boss.
5) Uncritical compliance with the rules. This evolutionary impulse is hard to resist, as social exclusion was a death sentence in the past. But sometimes we have to say “no.”
