Corporate Pyschopath - or just a very naughty boss?

I frequently hear stories about bosses and managers yelling at their team, their advisers and probably at their loved ones too.

This stuns me.

It’s not just that this kind of behaviour is inappropriate in so many situations, it’s that it is downright ineffective. It’s dumb because it’s only in a tiny fraction of circumstances that team members or associates will respond to an invective filled diatribe.

In extreme cases, these people are often termed corporate psychopaths. But it's likely that the first seed of their extreme management behaviour was watered and even fertilised by the types of organisations in which we now find them.

There's been a lot written in recent years about corporate psychopaths. (See anything by Professor Emeritus Robert Hare from the University of British Columbia). These sociopaths are often manipulative, arrogant, callous, impatient, impulsive, unreliable and prone to fly into rages. They break promises, and take credit for the work of others and blame everyone else when things go wrong.

Does this sound like anyone you know? Someone you work with?

For organisations, this is dangerously infantile behaviour, so why are these corporate psychos drawn to the business world?

Well, perhaps not surprisingly but certainly a little perversely, business does value some of the traits that the corporate psycho brings. Some businesses want that mercenary attitude, the domineering approach, the ambition and the drive.

But what's the real cost?

The leadership style of these corporate psychopaths is really undeveloped and immature. In terms of emotional intelligence, they are neither self or socially aware. And this means that they are really constrained in their modes of operation. They switch rapidly from being overtly charming - even seductive, to bullying, ranting and threatening.

How do we deal with these people?

Here’s a useful measure of maturity. The Australian author, literary critic and social commentator Clive James suggests that “reality is the conquest of the self, not of the world”.

I think that this is a useful place to start. Sure, the emotions of certain situations are enough to push all of us over the edge ... occasionally. But if this is a standard way of leading or managing a team, something is drastically wrong. The manager has clearly lost control - certainly of themselves, probably of their team, and most likely the situation as well.

Self-control is a characteristic that is marked out as one of the key attributes of leaders with strong emotional intelligence. Flying into a rage when things don’t go your way, demeaning those around you or withdrawing into a near catatonic uncommunicative state are behaviours that we probably expect from small children - not our business and organisational leaders.

The corporate psycho or boss may get results for the firm in the short term, but it won't last. For the really intractable cases only professional psychological counselling will help, but perhaps the bigger issue is how all of us in our organisations respond to these sort of people. If we choose to do nothing, or just avoid or tolerate them, what kind of message does that send to the rest of our team? It's likely that we will get more of the same ...

Directive Leadership

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a PhD researcher doing some work comparing the leadership styles of Australians and Americans. She asked me if I had ever given a direct order while I was in the military.

I had to think pretty hard about that question. I had certainly given a number of direct orders on the parade ground, and in contexts similar to that - ie when controlling large groups of people in synchronised activities. But otherwise I have never had to use that phrase so beloved in the movies " ... that's a direct order".

The researcher told me that my recollections were pretty similar to many other Australian military leaders, but very different to those from an American military leader background. Why was this the case?

At the risk of over-simplification, let me try and explain it through the use of situational leadership.

Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard popularised the model of situational leadership in the 1960s. Even if you don't like the One Minute Manager series of books, you have to admire the skill of Blanchard and others in distilling some pretty complex skills down into readily understood - and therefore used - models.

One of the four basic leadership styles defined in situational leadership is the "Directive" style. This type of leadership style sees the leader providing specific instructions and then closely supervising the accomplishment of any task. It is the classic case of providing a direct order.

Of course this kind of leadership style is entirely appropriate ... in some situations, and with some teams. Unfortunately, in my experience, it is also frequently over-used. If your team are highly competent professionals, then constantly directing them is likely to get right up their noses pretty quickly. Similarly if they are highly committed and enthusiastic about their tasks, then the directive style is likely to quickly diminish that commitment.

Situational Leadership suggests that the leadership style must be relevant to the specific circumstance in which the leader is working. In other words, your leadership style must relate directly to the level of competence and commitment your team members exhibit. Directive leadership is only appropriate when the team has both low competence and low commitment, otherwise the coaching, supporting or delegating leadership styles will be much more effective.

From my experience, most of the teams in Australia that I have worked with are both competent and committed. Some of the military teams I have worked with have been exceptional in both areas. In these instances it's been much more important to engage the team members to take advantage of their experience, their professional skills, their initiative and their drive so that we could develop a collaborative plan. This quickly became "our" plan, not "my" plan, one where success and responsibility were shared.

That's part of the reason I have never had to emphasise a task by stating ... that's a direct order.