How Psychopaths Become CEO’s (Pt 1) – Introduction

The short answer to this post’s title is that we let them. To understand this, we need to examine this outcome as we would any other event. That means exploring the:

1. Situation, the conditions under which this could occur
2. Flow, the timing and trends of events preceding this outcome
3. People, what personalities and culture make fertile ground for this occurrence
4. Individuals, how our interactions with psychopaths permit their advancement

Of course, not all CEO’s are psychopaths but as an introduction, we can tentatively describe the situations, trends, people and relationships that benefit psychopaths:

Situations

• Formal hierarchies, organizations, processes and rules
• Incrementally growing or declining companies
• High growth departments within incremental growing or declining companies

Trends

• Adding more organization, processes and rules
• Establishing or enforcing fiscal discipline and cost containment
• Tackling difficult political decisions regarding businesses, staff and other relationships
• Fast-growing companies in need of organization and processes to scale

People

• Personalities and cultures that desire, respect and promote authority, rules, discipline and processes
• Low tolerance for negativity, dissent and conflict
• Highly competitive, incentivized and self-interested
• Bottom-line orientation, outcomes justify processes

Relationships

• Permitting psychopaths to break the rules
• Being seduced by confidence
• Misinterpreting success for talent
• Allowing charisma to overshadow truth

Unfortunately, it’s human nature to examine each point segregated from the others. As a composer would with all the instruments in an orchestra, we need to integrate all points into a composition of how psychopaths can become CEO’s. However, let’s not delude ourselves; it’s not about psychopaths. It’s about greater self-awareness for how we feel, think and behave in little events everyday so they can culminate in desirable outcomes . . . rather than undesirable ones.