I ran across Dr. Jeff Gardere on CNN video talk­ing about a new study which claims that there are four times as many psy­chopaths in senior man­age­ment than the rest of the work­force. He outs their behav­ior as ego­cen­tric, nar­cis­sis­tic, lack­ing empa­thy, con­science, remorse or guilt. Is some­one you work with a cun­ning, aggres­sive, manip­u­la­tive, charm­ing, liar? Appar­ently, mixed with some intel­li­gence and sub­ject mat­ter exper­tise it’s the fast track to leadership.

It’s  inter­est­ing how peo­ple fun­nel to the top. Only about one per­cent of peo­ple are esti­mated to be psychopaths. When asked why they end up so fre­quently in the board­room, Gardere says that they are super risk tak­ers who under­stand ‘no risk no reward’. While they may make work life caus­tic for those whom they man­age, he says they tend to move on after only two to three years. Once upper man­age­ment real­izes they are more inter­ested in enrich­ing them­selves than the com­pany they’re invited to leave.

Do you sus­pect you work for a psy­chopath? The red flag accord­ing to Gardere is that they don’t care what hap­pens to you as long as you’re pro­duc­ing and once you have issues they’ll get rid of you. He says you will notice them break­ing rules and to dis­tance your­self, because they will get in trou­ble and even­tu­ally be ter­mi­nated, and you will be swept away with them if you don’t. If you can sur­vive a psy­chopath boss for a few years the odds are (s)he’ll be his­tory and your next boss won’t be one.

I don’t dis­agree with any of this and in fact, reflect­ing on it since I viewed the video and read the arti­cle Bad bosses: The Psycho-path to Suc­cess? my cal­cu­lated tally for psy­cho­pathic senior man­agers in my own employ­ment his­tory is numerous.

What about you?