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

Douglas Adams knew why

[Dark Paladin]

Why do so many bosses suck?

Because those who desire the power should be the least likely to have it. I've had some good bosses, and 90% of the time they didn't really want the job, they just kind of grew into it over time.

Other times - whew. There was the one boss who, coming in the first day, told everybody that he wasn't there to be a friend, and he could fire the whole department at a moment's notice if he wanted.

5 minutes later I was dusting off my resume. When he found me dressing nice (so I could go on lunch breaks, which were really interviews), he told me he'd fired me if he caught me interviewing somewhere else. And he'd know, because he had "contacts" all over town who would tell him. "Contacts" who would call him and ask if I was applying somewhere. Private eyes - were watching me - they'd see my every move.

Oddly enough, I guess his contacts forgot to call him three days later when I quit and went to my new, higher paying, better hours job.

So if nothing else, I'm thankful for bad bosses, since they seem to be the greatest force in people finding new and better jobs. (Even though they suck.)

Re:The question is why do they exist?

[AKAImBatman]

If Psycopathy has a genetic component, then has it survived natural selection.

Putting aside the arguments over "natural selection", it remains in the gene pool because it works. There are often situations that require someone to push through the bullcrap and make something happen. These sociopaths are far more suited to this task because they care nothing for the consequences, or who's opinion they ignore, or who's feelings they hurt. They may not even care about who lives or dies. (Which in some situations, someone will die no matter what course is taken.) The problem has always been that they are a tough fit for any society they create. As the article says, they want the next thrill immediately. Yet emergency situations requiring their brashness tend to be very rare.

I'm not sure you have to be either

[elucido]

Googles founders are not narcisists or psychopaths and they are doing just fine in competition with Microsoft.

A psychopath definately should not be boss, not because they run the company bad fiscally, but because they run the country into the ground to make the company successful. Having a narcisist is not much better if you want a clean environment and good health.

Do you think food companies give a damn about our health? They want us to have cancer and heart disease because its profitable. Do you think the government cares about our health? They want healthcare prices to rise above our limits and they dont want you getting drugs from Canada. DO you think doctors care about our health? They want to just sell the drugs the drug companies bribe them to sell.

Psychopaths are EVERYWHERE and unless we create some ethical standards for certain positions or even for getting certain degrees in college its not going to stop. If everyone who wants a masters degree or who wants to be a boss has to pass a psychological screening in the same way we have to pass a drug test I don't think there would be a problem. If we don't do this, then expect our bosses to destroy the world for profit because psychopaths do not care about the world, you do.

Re:easy

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I would say that remorse is not the key. A sense of duty is a far more powerful motivator.

I'm an ENTx on the Meyer's brigs personality survey. They puts me dead smack in between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I find that I almost never regret an action I took, even if things went badly. There are times though when my motives weren't all that pure, and those are the types of things that nag my conciounce. And I feel bad about the actions even if things went right in the end.

Folks like the person in your example lack a moral compass. They live only for themselves, and you are right, they are absolutely destructive in a position of authority. However, it you aren't careful about the adjectives you use to describe them your filter will net self-motivated individuals who ARE constructive in authority.

I have no idea how to measure one's moral compass. I take it for granted that I have one. Some of the things that are good and evil don't make sense logically. That's probably why I'm more comfortable saying I'm a Taoist than a Christian. Christ himself was probabably a Taoist, but nobody studies what he actually said. Most sermons I've heard focus on the writing of Paul (a moralist) and/or the old Testiment where God literally spelled out what was good and bad for you.