Are CEOs psychopaths?

Showtime

It's become very fashionable lately to explain the last five years' economic chaos with so-called science purporting to argue that many CEOs are psychopaths. The inability of business leaders to take responsibility, empathize with the suffering of others and to reflect any understanding of the havoc their poor decisions have caused is, apparently, ample evidence that these are fundamentally anti-social individuals who shouldn't be allowed out -- never mind given authority over the lives and finances of others. I've even been told lately that many firms go out of their way to hire executives with psychopathic profiles.

Really?

First of all, let's look at the science. Psychopathy is not the easiest of personality disorders to diagnose and depends, crucially, on extensive interviews conducted by trained psychologists following a rigorous methodology. It's hard to imagine any CEO agreeing to take part in such an exercise. That means that the diagnoses we're being treated to are based on anecdote and not systematic, rigorous observation.

The notion that headhunters specifically seeks out psychopaths implies that boards of directors want to hand over billion-dollar businesses to those they know they can neither control nor manage. It's an interesting idea that doesn't ring true.

In fact, the CEO-as-psychopath argument is just another version of the "bad apple" theory. Both are complacent ways of passing the buck. Let's not bother analyzing systemic flaws in the business environment. Let's ignore the role that thousands of people had to play in order for financial failure to have reached such a scale. Let's not even consider the armies of sales people, marketing executives, regulators, lawyers and accountants who turned a blind eye while earning healthy salaries. If we embrace the idea that a few crazed psychos wrecked the global economy, then everyone else gets off scott free.

The more challenging reality is that it took thousands of people to peddle unsound mortgages, file fraudulent paperwork, deliver deeply flawed ratings, package up and sell bad debt. You simply can't get the scale of disaster we've lived through without the active and passive collusion of a vast number of witting, or unwitting, individuals. 

I don't say this because I have been a CEO and feel honor-bound to defend the club. I don't. And of course, statistically, there are going to be a few psychopaths in any profession. But the dangerous promise of the psychopath argument is this: Get rid of the madmen and everything will be fine. I very much doubt that. We won't have come to terms with the disparities of pay and of power. We won't have considered alternative business models, ownership structures and the role of regulators. We won't be any closer to understanding the kinds of culture that make ethical behavior more likely. In other words, we won't actually have fixed anything.

So beware this seductive theory. Its allure lies in the rage we all feel that those most responsible for havoc have suffered least. That's wrong. But it need not make us stupid.

[amoranthus10]

Hi Margaret,

You mention systemic issues in your article. Dr Bacevich is describing one aspect of those systemic issues. As I pointed out, these behaviors don't have to be genetic. They can be and are learned.

The psychopath simply doesn't feel any reason not to lie, steal, cheat, embezzle, or hurt others. They may find considerable empowerment, and even obsessive pleasure, in these actions.

[margaretheffernan]

What a wonderful contribution. While I agree with Professor Bacevich that there is much in the model of leadership that is celebrated that is narcissistic, that does not mean the individuals are narcissists and it is a very long way from meaning they're psychopaths. I have had senior executives tell me, quite seriously, that executive search firms specifically seek out psychopaths. To have smart people believe this is dangerous and intellectually lazy.

I believe the problem inherent in this debate is a real confusion about using the term 'psychopath' as a metaphor as opposed to its clinical meaning. I'm familiar of course with the argument in 'The Corporation' that, legally companies are people and, as people, might be termed psychopathic but it really does matter to separate the metaphor from the clinical reality. It is very fashionable right now to explain all management problems as people problems - and many are. But many also are structural and, as such, subject to structural solutions. We miss too much when we insist that it must be one or the other.

[amoranthus10]

Hi Margaret,

You're right about the term 'psychopath' having a somewhat vague meaning. The confusion is not just in the popular culture, where psychopaths are represented as the bad guys (male or female) in the movies and plays, but also in the professional community. The term has been used so much it's become a buzzword and nearly meaningless.
I try to use psychopath as a more general term, with narcissist and sociopath describing more specific expressions of the condition.

In season 4 of House (I think.) a woman is given an fMRI - a functional MRI - and while discussing what should have been an intensely emotional subject showed no activity in the empathy center of her mind, or deeper emotional centers. The only activity was in the forebrain. She was confronted with her condition, and at first denied it, then challenged the doctors to do anything about it.
She realized the doctors were bound by medical ethics from revealing her condition.

One of the aspects of these conditions is the person is unable to feel emotional attachments to others and is unable to form legitimate relationships. They have to learn to fake any emotion, and - from the evidence - learn very well.

One of the popular terms these days is 'empathy.' It's thrown around that a psychopath doesn't feel empathy, but that's not true.
Psychopaths use empathy to know what someone is feeling, thinking, or interested in; but don't share the pain or emotion. Psychopaths learn to abuse the 'human-ness', or humanity, of others. - And they use this skill without the discouraging issue of a conscience.
That aspect alone is enough for executive search firms to seek out psychopaths as senior executives.

If you consider that all corporate legal structures are designed to externalize risk and responsibility, it's not hard to understand why corporations are considered sociopaths. In fact, this goal is legally-mandated of in (our present form of) corporations: to maximize shareholder profits.

In essence, all of these designations indicate someone who acts as if they had no conscience. This sort of person literally couldn't care less about the Reformation (your salvation is between God and your conscience) or the Enlightenment (which led to the liberal democratic republic in the new United States - because without a conscience, neither movement means anything.

Lacking a conscience doesn't mean the psychopath (or sociopath or narcissist) doesn't know what they're doing is wrong. They do. In fact they can explain why something is wrong often better than anyone else.
They just don't feel any sense of guilt about it.

In fact, many psychopaths feel empowered and specially gifted because they feel no guilt. That's been a theme in a lot of movies.
Those who find themselves especially empowered and take unto themselves attitudes of special powers are narcissists.

My own interpretations are sociopaths are those who act as if they were always outside the socially acceptable box; narcissists are an especially self focused form of sociopath - but each designation, in effect, builds on the characteristics of the other.
So someone can be a psychopath but never act out any rejection of social mores except in their emotional life.

One hopeful element from the neurological research comes from a researcher who found he himself had the 'bad' gene. He found that because of the support of his family and friends, despite the tendency to 'evil' he had not become 'evil.'
Evil in this sense is relative. If you're looking for someone to guide your company through a minefield of social, legal and ethical risks by avoiding - externalizing - all of them, then a sociopath or narcissist is not evil.

[amoranthus10]

Margaret,

I think you're taking this far too personally, and subjectively. It's not just CEOs that are psychopaths. The issue is far broader.
Recent neuroscience has confirmed intuition and put science on the side of the social and business model critics.

The visionary leadership model that we are taught to literally adore is psychopathic. Dogmatic leadership, following a vision, becomes an ideology that is self-reinforcing and self-excusing.
If corporations were human beings, and there is a growing effort to define them legally and socially as humans, they would be sociopaths - a special form of psychopath.

Prof Andrew M. Lobaczewski in "Political Ponerology" and "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley, M.D. track the process of social influence by sociopathic individuals and organizations since the 1940s, when these issues were much clearer because of the world war.

About 4% of us carry a gene which tends to make us psychopathic. In addition, almost anyone can learn psychopathic behavior and it becomes a habit or even functions like an addiction. As both habit and addiction, the behavior requires enablers - sycophants or active apologists - surrounding the person.
What the research indicates is up to 20% of those working with psychopaths and sociopaths learn to take on the same unhealthy behavior patterns. More commonly in smaller groups, the percentage is on average 10% of the other members of the group.

What that means is what we consider 'professional behavior' is better termed 'learned psychopathy'. And yes, that does require a much broader perspective than you take in your article.

Prof Andrew Bacevich of Boston Univ has said the current model for leadership in business and politics makes people - trains, rewards and reinforces - people acting like 'self-serving narcissists.' The model for Narcisstic Personality Disorder describes sociopathic behavior, professionalism, and psychopathic behavior in an organization precisely.

(from wikipedia)
<blockquote>Cleckley describes the psychopathic person as outwardly a perfect mimic of a normally functioning person, able to mask or disguise the fundamental lack of internal personality structure, an internal chaos that results in repeatedly purposeful destructive behavior, often more self-destructive than destructive to others.

Despite the seemingly sincere, intelligent, even charming external presentation, internally the psychopathic person does not have the ability to experience genuine emotions. Cleckley questions whether this mask of sanity is voluntarily assumed intentionally to hide the lack of internal structure, or if the mask hides a serious, but yet unidentified, psychiatric defect.</blockquote>

With all due respect, I wish you would look more closely into this issue.