Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

Dogers writes "Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, has recently been applying his test 'Is your boss a psychopath' to businessmen and has found some disturbing results. From the article: 'Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?'. Citing Enron and Worldcom management as an example, it seems a reasonable argument. The same source also has a quiz (magazine produced it seems) which allows you to test your own boss, too!"

Comments

15 points

[protomala]

My last boss was the demon itself! There was a week when every single day someone departed from the job, you know 5 people in a week! If you someday find a colombian called Mauricio Roman that says he studied in MIT... run!

or the company you work for

[gregulrajani]

The Corporation
This documentary looks at a corporations from a psychologists perspective and finds that corporations are sociopaths
-best
-greg

Re:The question is why do they exist?

[kin_korn_karn]

Nitpick: Capitalism is not a type of government, it's an economic system. But, you're right, look at all the homocidal monarchs of years past, Saddam, etc.

However, capitalism gives mild psychopaths a legal outlet for their manipulative urges. It's understood today, and even encouraged, that to be successful in business you must screw people over. I majored in business administration and that's more or less what management classes are - they teach you how to manipulate people for the good of the Company. As with anything else, a natural aptitude for it will make you more successful.

Re:The question is why do they exist?

[TomSawyer]

And why, pray tell, did you include Guevarra in your little list [of psychopaths]?

I know, it's tough to come to terms that Hot Topic lead you astray. Guevara ran Cuba's gulags -- the real kind, not the three meals a day Git'mo kind that Amnesty International calls gulags. He also oversaw the temporary forced work camps. This is where the regular citizens were sent to broaden their horizons through sugar cane farming. Then there are the people that were murdered while he tried to sow insurrection in South America.

Sure, compared to Castro who eventually left Guevara to die, he's a pussy cat. Then there's a certain level of romanticizing from The Motorcycle Diaries. However, I wouldn't cut Hitler any slack because he killed many millions less than Stalin. Although I'm sure there's a romantic story lying somewhere in Hitler In Vienna.

Narcissist not Psychopath

[xero314]

The 8 traits that supposedly make up the "Corporate Psychopath" are actuallly very close inline with Pathological Narcissism. As a mater of fact . Grandiosity, Manipulation, Lack of Empathy and Affect are major keypoints in Narcissism. Psychopaths do not make good leaders, Narcissits do. If you want to know more about this then check out The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership by Michael Maccoby.

Part of the problem is that, atleast in the US, there is no recognized single disorder that covers psychopathic personalities. The most closely aligned, according to the DSM(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is Antisocial Personality Disorder, which does share some traits with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but neither APD or NDP alone would qualify someone as a Psychopath. In the ICD (international equivalent to the DSM) there is a personality disorder covering psychopaths, as well as a couple other disorders that are closesly inline with psychopathic personailty, but most likely neither of those would apply to your boss. There is a reason there as so many different diagnostics and that they some time share traits, because each different combination of traits should be treated differently.

So please don't everyone go of thinking there boss is a psychopath because they are manipulative, grandiose or don't show any feeling or affect. It's a job, and it is those particular traits that most likely allowed them to get where they are.

Re:If you support CAFTA/FREE TRADE

[mollymoo]

When the rich pay for things, who are they paying? The middle class. When they pay for things, who do they pay? The poor. So where does the money of the rich go? To the poor. Eventually.

Trickledown econonomics was discredited years ago. The money doesn't make it to the poor. Ever. It circulates among the middle and upper classes, driving up prices for the things they desire (property, say) and increasing the gap between rich and poor. Making the middle-class richer makes it harder for the poor to become middle-class; it makes it harder for them to move to a nice area, harder for them to get their kids into a good school, harder to get good health-care. Making the rich richer does not make the poor richer. Relativley, it makes them poorer. And they don't catch up.