Rob Kall: Yes, it
certainly is. So, can you tell me a bit more about, did you do interviews with
the people who had psychopaths as supervisors at all? Did you find out about
what it was like working for them? I know you have some stats on bullying, but
individually, did you get reports about what it felt like, or any of those
kinds of things?
Clive Boddy: No
but we've looked at, in the UK research, which is largely unreported as of yet,
we looked at employee emotional well being, and all the measures of that go
down in the presence of corporate psychopaths. So people don't think they
belong, they don't think they're properly rewarded for what they do, they don't
think the company has any meaning for them, they don't feel satisfied with what
they're doing and how they're doing it. So, at the more personal and emotional
level, we're doing this quality research among HR directors that I talked about
before, and that's where we're aiming to get a much more qualitative, in depth
and meaty if you like, understanding of what happens, and how it happens. And
that's, we've only done a couple of interviews so far, but one of the HR
directors identified somebody he thought might be a psychopath, and who ticked
all the boxes in our measure, and this
person wanted to fire people, but they specifically wanted to fire them on Christmas
Eve. It's that kind of finding which I think throws light on the different
personalities of these people.
Rob Kall: Now in
your book, I'm looking at the chapter titled..you've got one organizational
seniority of corporate psychopaths. What's that about?
Clive Boddy: This
is about the idea that they are better at getting to the top levels than other
people are, because of their willingness, as I've said, to claim the work of
others as their own, and self promotion activities basically. There's
relatively little evidence to show that is the case, but the evidence that does
exist, as I've said, seems to show a distribution between one percent, at the
bottom, and three and a half or maybe four percent at the top. So they do seem
to be better at getting to the top than other people are, but of course we're still
only talking a minority of managers, but the effect of that minority is
significant because they are so extreme in their behavior, and they influence
other people to be ethically negative as well.
Rob Kall: It
creates a culture.
Clive Boddy:
Yeah, that's right.
Rob Kall: Can you
talk a bit more about that?
Clive Boddy: Well
followers learn how to behave by observing
their leaders. So if they observe leaders who are self interested, self
satisfied, egotistical, grandiose, willing to lie, willing to manipulate, then
of course that spreads down the organization. And the whole organization
becomes sociopathic, rather than normal, so they have a malign influence on
everybody around them. So of course that influence at senior levels is
magnified because of the nature of their leadership position. And we know from
the psychological experience in the fifties, that Millgram experiment for
example, that people tend to obey authorities. So these people when they get to
the top aren't questioned, and aren't challenged because people don't have the
moral autonomy to question them, and don't have the bravery, the moral bravery
to question them or to go up against them. And when they do, of course, if you
go up against someone whose higher up than you in an organization, then it's
you who tends to be the victim rather than the person you're whistle blowing
on, or reporting on.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
