“Organizations have become more psychopath friendly in recent years,” (Babiak & Hare, 164). “The fact is that many organizations are prime feeding grounds for psychopaths with an entrepreneurial bent and the requisite of personal attributes and social skills to fool many people. Like all predators, psychopaths go where the action is, which to them means positions, occupations, professions and organizations that afford them the opportunity to obtain power, control, status and possessions and to engage in exploitative interpersonal relationships,” (Babiak & Hare, 97).
“Leaders who are corporate psychopaths often create the illusion of being successful people. They present themselves as smooth, charming, polished extroverts who are in control of themselves and their environment,” (Boddy, 64). “These ‘entrepreneurial pretenders’ find change personally stimulating. Their thrill-seeking nature draws them to situations where a lot is happening and happening quickly,” (Babiak & Hare, 164).
“When large corporations are destroyed by the actions of their senior directors, employees lose their jobs and sometimes their livelihoods, shareholders lose their investments and sometimes their life savings, and societies lose key parts of their economic infrastructure. Capitalism also loses some of its credibility. These corporate collapses have gathered pace in recent years, especially in the western world, and have culminated in the global financial crisis that we are now in. When we watch these events unfold, it often appears that the senior directors involved walk away with a clear conscience and huge amounts of money. They seem to be unaffected by the corporate collapses they have created. They present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very persuasive in blaming others for what has happened and have no doubts about their own continued worth and value. They are happy to walk away from the economic disaster that they have managed to bring about, with huge payoffs with new roles advising governments how to prevent such economic disasters. Many of these people display several of the characteristics of psychopaths, and some of them are undoubtedly true psychopaths. Psychopaths are the 1% of the people who have no conscience or empathy and who do not care for anyone other than themselves. Some psychopaths are violent and end up in jail; others forge careers in corporations.” (Boddy, 1).
“As corporate psychopathy increases, perceptions of corporate social responsibility decrease…As levels of corporate psychopathy increase, levels of the company reportedly behaving in an environmentally friendly manner decrease. As corporate psychopathy increases, the perception that the company does business in a way that benefits the local community goes down…As levels of corporate psychopathy increase, levels of the company reportedly displaying commitment to its employees decrease,” (69). “Corporate psychopaths are interested in self-gratification, not in the longer-term success of the corporations in which they work (Clarke 2007). They are interested in running corporations for the power, money and prestige that they crave, self-interested to the exclusion of their fellow employees (Babiak & Hare 2006; Boddy 2005a; Clarke 2005; Cleckley 1988),” (75).
• Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Dr Paul Babiak & Dr Robert Hare (2006)
• Corporate Psychopaths: Organizational Destroyers by Clive Boddy (2011)
• Working with Monsters: How to Identify and Protect Yourself from the Workplace Psychopath by Dr. John Clarke (2005)
