Review
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and
Leadership in Business Settings?
Georgios Kountouras1,†
Abstract
Psychopathic leadership is a term used to describe high-ranking individuals identified, among
others, with superficial charm, deceitfulness and manipulative behavior. However, little
is known about these corporate psychopaths mostly because there is a limited amount of
research on this field. This systematic review was the first attempt of summarizing, analyzing
and evaluating all the empirical evidence related to this area of research.
Objectives
To determine if there was an association between primary psychopathy and leadership in
high-ranking individuals working in business settings.
Search Strategy
Registers and databases:
PubMed 1996 - October 2016
Scopus 1966 - October 2016
Psyc INFO 1806 - October 2016
The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Central)
Reference lists of relevant papers, review articles and books.
Selection Criteria
Primary studies of any design that measured psychopathic leadership directly in high-ranking
individuals working in business settings.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data extraction and critical evaluation of studies were performed by the researcher. Metaanalysis was not undertaken but an estimation of the findings’ generalizability was done.
Results
Results of the studies included in this review showed that individuals with higher/highest job
positions in business settings were identified with traits of primary psychopathy.
Recommendations
Although there is an indication that the highly psychopathic corporate individuals often hold
leadership positions within an organization, these review’s findings cannot be generalized to
the corporate world due to the limited number of the included studies (n=4). Future studies
Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
1
Author for correspondence: Georgios Kountouras, Research Scholar, Department of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience,
Cardiff University, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0)29 2087 4007, Fax: +44 (0)29 2087 4679, email: KountourasG@cardiff.ac.uk
†
10.4172/Neuropsychiatry.1000284 © 2017
Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5), 640–652
p- ISSN 1758-2008
e- ISSN 1758-2016
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Review
Georgios Kountouras
on psychopathic leadership should have a longitudinal methodological design in order to
investigate if specific psychopathic traits are responsible for leadership development.
Keywords:
Psychopathy, Socio-cultural contexts, Sociopathy, Leadership in Business
Introduction
Along history and across many different sociocultural contexts, there have been described
few individuals with specific characteristics
such as callousness, irresponsibility, aggressive
and impulsive behavior, lack of empathy and
guilt combined with a pathological tendency
to deceitfulness [1]. In the modern psychiatric
practice, these individuals have been categorized
in the most widely used classification systems of
mental disorders, DSM-5 and ICD-10, under
terms that are often used interchangeably not
only by mental health professionals, but also by
media and non-specialists [2]. As both DSM’s
and ICD’s editions have changed multiple
times over the past decades, the terms used to
describe and classify these individuals with
these particular traits have changed too. From
the initial terms of psychopathy and sociopathy
included in the first editions of DSM and ICD
respectively, psychiatrists and psychologists
are using now the diagnostic categories of
either antisocial personality disorder (APD) or
dissocial personality disorder (DPD) (which has
a lesser stigmatizing effect), depending on the
classification system that they use in their clinical
practice [3].
However, the terms of psychopathy and
sociopathy continue to emerge in many contexts.
For example, in the legal context, psychopathy
characterizes an individual with a severely
criminal and ruthless behavior despite the fact
that this individual will be possibly diagnosed
with an antisocial or dissocial personality disorder
in the psychiatric context [3]. Apart from the
above-mentioned alterations in the use of terms
regarding each context that have little practical
value, psychopathy and sociopathy tend to be
mentioned more and more frequently in daily
and weekly magazines in which they are mostly
perceived as common dysfunction of some people
rather than a diagnosis that is often observed in
criminal, imprisoned populations [4]. Many
researchers have pointed out that APD is very
common among criminals and this is the reason
why most studies have been conducted in these
populations [5]. However, this popular notion
that some traits of psychopathy can be found in
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a non-institutionalized and non-criminal group
of people is gaining ground very fast. Although
this growing interest remained, until recently,
only on a theoretical level, during the last decade
many studies have been conducted in order to
investigate how often psychopathic traits can be
found among general population [3].
„„ Psychopathy in General Population
The idea that specific traits of psychopathy can
be found in the general population has begun by
some researchers who argued that psychopathy
is a dimensional construct [4]. Self-report
measures (e.g. the Psychopathy ChecklistRevised; Hare, 1991/2003) and data from
randomized population samples have provided
a first understanding of the way in which these
traits exist, distribute and characterize almost 1%
of general population [6-8]. In addition, the use
of standardized psychometric tools that yielded
reliable and valid statistics provided further
support in these large-community studies [9].
For example, Weiler and Widom [10] found
that individuals with a history of child abuse had
much higher scores in self-report measurements
of psychopathic traits than those who were not
victims of abuse. Furthermore, these researchers
observed that abused individuals had a history of
adult violence in comparison to the other group
of participants.
Farrington [11] also observed in his longitudinal
study that few people with no history of child
abuse and violence in adulthood tend to be
more irresponsible, impulsive, deceitful and
manipulative than others. In order to expand
this observation, he tried to correlate his findings
with many socio-demographic variables such as
gender, age, family status, family background,
occupation, educational level and income.
After analyzing these data, he found that a
significant proportion of single, middle-aged,
highly-educated and professionally successful
(as measured by their income) males identified
to have significantly more psychopathic traits in
comparison to other groups of participants. Based
on these interesting findings, it was concluded
that few individuals may put themselves above
others in order to achieve any professional and/
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
or academic goal and this particular behavior
may be guided by some specific personality traits
such as egocentricity, manipulation of others,
superficial charm and pathological lying [11].
However, the study of Farrington [11] may
be criticized because it was used a self-report
psychopathy scale that was only theoretically
related to psychopathy. To be more specific,
although the researcher has chosen a reliable and
valid tool in order to make measurements, this
tool was chosen only on the basis of a theoretical
model which conceptualizes the dimension of
psychopathy as a social construct and not as a
global trait. Although this study had practical
and theoretical implications, the use of clinical
rating scales combined with structural clinical
interviews would had provided further support
to these findings. Apart from that, in the study
conducted by Weiler and Widom [10] the sample
was consisted of paid volunteers who, (after a
follow-up evaluation by another research team),
almost half of them were seeing themselves as
charming, impulsive, sensation-seekers, and risktakers. Although these participants had higher
psychopathy scores and expressed more often
violent behaviors, the high percentage of those
who at baseline described themselves with the
above-mentioned traits should had be taken
under strong consideration, since it introduces
the possibility of selection bias.
All things considered, it should be kept in mind
that these studies used self-report measures
of psychopathy that in many cases their lack
of accuracy in capturing real tendencies may
be a major problem [12]. However, other
quantitative studies with more complex
methodological designs (which are not simply
observational) have been conducted in order
to help scientists coming up to more solid
conclusions. These studies went beyond the
simple investigation of psychopathy in relation
to its early indicators (such as abuse), future
outcomes (such as risk of violence) and sociodemographic characteristics. They are mainly
focused on the association between psychopathy
and various skills (that can affect significantly
various aspects of individuals’ life) such as moral
judgment, decision-making, problem-solving,
rational thinking and leadership. Some of these
studies have tried to answer the question of what
it takes for someone in order to become a leader.
Problem-solving skills, rationality and the ability
of making difficult decisions may be some of
the core features that a leader should have [2].
Therefore, these features can be viewed as sub-
Review
skills of leadership. Although there are some
important confounding factors such as IQ and
emotional intelligence [13] that may also be
related to leadership due to the fact that both of
them contribute positively on the development
of the above-mentioned sub-skills, in the case of
psychopathy-leadership relationship there is no a
definite answer yet.
„„ Leadership in Business
Before reviewing the recent research literature in
an attempt to explore if there is any relationship
between psychopathy and leadership, it is
important to define leadership first and investigate
some of the key personality characteristics that
leaders usually have.
Leaving psychopathy aside for now, many
researchers (e.g. [14,15]) have argued that a
great leader should have a vision, an ability to
inspire others, a high sense of commitment
towards organizational goals as well as a high
intellectual development. As Chemers [16] has
argued: “leadership is the process of social influence
in which one person can enlist the aid and support
of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.
At this point, it should be noted that leadership
behaviors are very difficult to be investigated in
the workplace using self-report questionnaires
because managers and chief executive officers
(CEOs) are usually very busy people and their
willingness to participate in this type of study is
always very limited [17]. Specifically, by being
interested mostly in the growth of their business,
personal success, money, and power, these people
usually care little about a study that attempts to
reveal some aspects of their personality [17]. Thus,
most theoretical attempts of defining leadership
and attributing specific characteristics on it are
only a way to explain how specific leadership
skills result in an organization’s success.
There are different types of leadership which
amongst them the most well-known are
transactional and transformational leadership
[18]. Transactional leadership refers to the
interaction between active leaders and satisfied
employees. More specifically, leaders who create
a reward system and through this reinforce their
employees (e.g. with pays, promotions, positive
feedback etc.) when objectives are met, manage
to increase the productivity of the organization
and grow their business. In this type of
leadership, successful leaders are those who have
the following characteristics: idealized influence,
inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation,
and individual consideration. The first two
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Georgios Kountouras
compose the idea of “charismatic” leader while
the last two constitute the “smart” leader [18].
On the other hand, although transformational
leaders create also a developmental environment
that encourages employees’ productivity, they
act more as role models and ideals without
trying actively to inspire or encourage them [18].
The major difference between these two basic
leadership types is that the first one is focused
more on employees’ abilities and skills while the
second one is concerned especially with personal
development issues that perhaps promote more
directly leadership success [18]. Lastly, there is
also a third type of leader which has not received
much attention, indicating that it is rarer than the
other two. Avoidant/passive leaders do not take
action until mistakes are noticed and problems
emerge on the surface. They are unwilling to
accept the responsibilities of their actions, and
they are not often present when needed [19].
„„
Psychopathy and Leadership
Some theorists (e.g. [20]), during the past
few years, have proposed a fourth leadership
style – the so-called “psychopathic leadership”.
Babiak and Hare [2] have found that 3.5% of
the business world has specific psychopathic
traits such as grandiose sense of self-worth,
superficial charm, lack of empathy, shallow
affect, manipulation of others and pathological
lying. Added to this, three organizational
psychologists, Cangemi, Joseph and Pfohl [13]
who have worked in the HR department of
many business organizations, have questioned
the accuracy of these percentages by pointing
out that the percentage of psychopathy in the
business community is much higher. Basically,
the idea behind psychopathic leadership style is
that some people present the above-mentioned
sub-clinical traits of psychopathy, and thus
they often manage to rise rapidly through the
organizational ranks into higher managerial
positions that give them power and control over
others [21]. At this point, it should be noted that
the term “subclinical psychopathic traits” means
that these traits are not severe enough in order
to decrease individuals’ social, occupational and
cognitive functioning. Moreover, the required
criteria for the diagnosis of APD are not met
not only in quality, but also in quantity as APD
requires a diagnosis of conduct disorder before
the age of 15 years, and a past criminal record,
usually of minor offences [22].
Babiak, Neumann and Hare [22] have argued
that psychopathic leaders are benefited by the
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way in which business industry operates. More
specifically, psychopathic leaders, by being able
to satisfy their needs for excitement, and by
having the opportunity to demonstrate their
charm in this chaotic work environment, they
are able to adequately cover their unorthodox
leadership style often characterized by the
manipulation of other people, deceitfulness and
abuse of power. Added to this, the fact that they
are not compelled to obey in any structured
rule setting combined with their unlimited
authority, the strict control that they have on the
circulation of information and reward systems,
makes them able not only to survive but in most
cases to thrive in many business organizations
[23,24]. The theoretical model that supports the
association between psychopathy and leadership
had emerged from the conceptual framework
of social constructivism. In simple terms, Pech
and Slade [25] suggest that psychopathic leaders
are successful in business organizations because
of cultural and structural-based meanings that
society attributes to ideal leaders. Western
cultures that favor manipulative, egocentric,
and self-centered managerial behavior are more
likely to operate more efficiently by having
such leaders under the wheel. Furthermore,
considering the fact that these CEOs are usually
delivering to, and meeting the organization’s
goals and expectations, an extra focus on some
of their negative aspects of their personality may
be overlooked [2].
For the purpose of this current systematic review,
an analysis of any positive and/or negative impact
of psychopathic leadership style on business
industry will not be made. Instead, the author
will try to explore in depth a possible association
between psychopathy and leadership, provide a
rationale for studying this topic, and evaluate
all the known empirical evidence that support
or put in question this particular association
occurred in business settings. Therefore, this
review should be seen in the context of a possible
correlational relationship between psychopathy
and leadership that will not imply causality at
any stage of analysis.
„„ Corporate Psychopaths: Research
Literature Review
The literature contains many theoretical attempts
of justifying the psychopathy-leadership
association. In brief, theorists (e.g. [26,27])
believe that most people with sub-clinical
psychopathic traits are attracted by the glamour
of the business world because by working in this
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
setting they satisfy their need for admiration that
usually seeks from others. Moreover, working in
such settings is a good way to conceal the dark
side of their personality by being superficially
charm and look “normal” [2].
However, all these perspectives are good in
theory but they are not telling much about
corporate psychopaths. It is true that studies
which used a sample of corporate psychopaths
in order to determine how often psychopathy is
observed in this type of leaders are very limited.
One of the well-validated studies on the field of
organizational psychology was made by Board
and Fritzon [28] who analyzed the profiles of
CEOs’ personalities in order to compare them
to imprisoned and institutionalized individuals.
This studies had a sample consisted of 36 CEOs,
768 mental health patients, and 317 imprisoned
individuals with a psychiatric classification of
antisocial personality disorder. The assessment
method used to make measurements in the three
groups of participants was exactly the same.
More specifically, personality profiles data across
all groups of participants were collected using the
Morey, Blashfield, Webb, and Jewell screening
tool. This tool contains different scales that some
of them are also included in the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and they are
designed to assess features of psychopathy and
antisocial personality disorder.
Based on this study’s findings, CEOs had
significantly higher scores on the histrionic
personality disorder scale (that includes items
which measure superficial charm, manipulation
of others and deceitfulness) than both mental
health patients and imprisoned individuals.
CEOs’ scores were also higher than both
comparison groups on the narcissistic personality
disorder scale (that includes items which
measure admiration seeking, grandiose ideas
and a tendency to put you above others). The
interpretation of these findings by Board and
Fritzon [28] was that psychopathic personality
traits are much more evident in individuals that
are on the top of the organizational ranks than in
mental health patients and criminal population.
Nevertheless, this study should be criticized
for several reasons. Firstly, the assumption
that psychopathic leaders have histrionic and
narcissistic traits has not been confirmed yet.
To support that, although Torgersen, et al.
[29] have observed that there may be an overlap
between psychopathic, narcissistic and histrionic
personality, this particular overlap has not
Review
been seen empirically many times. Secondly,
researchers did not use a direct measure of
psychopathy but they measure it indirectly
through histrionic and narcissistic scales. Thus,
due to the fact that it was not used a pure
measure of psychopathy (e.g., the PCL-R; Hare,
1991/2003) across all group of participants,
the real number of individuals that would have
met the criteria of psychopathy is basically
unknown. Above all these minor criticisms, this
study’s results have been widely cited as wellsupported evidence for an increased prevalence
of sub-clinical psychopathic traits in CEOs
(e.g.,[30,31]).
Consistent with these findings, Babiak and
Hare [2] found that six of 200 high-profile chief
executives in the highest organizational ranks
(3.5%) were identified with specific psychopathic
traits. Before arguing that this percentage seems
to be quite small, it should be firstly considered
that the estimation of psychopathy in the general
population is between 1 to 3% of the adult male
and 0.5 to 1% of the adult female populations
[2]. All of the CEOs were presented with traits
of primary psychopathy such as superficial
charm, grandiose ideas, pathological lying,
impulsiveness, irresponsibility, callousness,
absence of remorse and lack of empathy [2].
Babiak and Hare [2] concluded that there may
be an overlap between leadership and primary
psychopathic traits by pointing out that “a
charming facade and a grandiose talk can easily
be mistaken for charismatic leadership and selfconfidence” [2].
However, this study was presented only in
the book “Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths
go to work” written in 2006 by these two
published experts in the fields of psychopathy
and organizational psychology, respectively. A
detailed description of the method, results and
discussion sections was not given in order for the
author to appraise the study appropriately. Thus,
it was decided not to be included in the final list
of papers for this systematic review, despite its
close relevance.
In another study conducted by Babiak, Neumann
and Hare [22], it was examined psychopathy in
a convenience sample of 203 individuals with
top managerial positions and found a higher
incidence of psychopaths in leader positions
than would be expected among the general
population. From the 203 CEOs who were
participating in this large study, nine (4.4%)
had very high psychopathy scores and six (3%)
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Georgios Kountouras
scored highly enough to qualify as psychopaths
on the psychopathy scale. This finding suggests
that these individuals may have some of the subclinical traits of psychopathy and provides further
support to the argument that these traits are
often become evident on individuals who have
leadership positions. Researchers went beyond
the psychopathy-leadership association and tried
to specify the particular subtype of psychopathy
that characterizes corporate psychopaths. They
found that from the group of psychopathic
CEOs, all of them had the primary subtype
of psychopathy characterized by arrogance,
callousness, and manipulative behavior. This
observation was consistent with Babiak and
Hart [2] argument that some of the traits found
commonly in leaders, such as persuasiveness,
charisma, risk taking, determination, and
calmness under pressure, correlated highly
with the primary type of psychopathy. In the
contrary, the secondary type of psychopathy
includes antisocial traits and impulsive traits that
are usually seen in forensic settings [32-34].
Finally, in another study conducted by Boddy,
Ladyshewsky and Galvin [35] was showed that
the number of managers with higher positions
in an organization who found to have some of
the primary subclinical psychopathic traits is
significantly larger compared to the number of
lower level employees. This evidence also showed
that not every individual that works in a business
setting can be potentially identified with these
traits. However, this may be true for the majority
of individuals with leadership positions.
All things considered, there are an extremely
limited number of studies that investigated
the association of psychopathy and leadership
using a pure sample of senior managers or
CEOs working in large organizations. For the
purpose of this review, the first two studies of
Board and Fritzon [28] and Babiak, Neumann
and Hare [22] respectively were considered to be
suitable, and thus they were included in the part
of analysis and evaluation. The study conducted
by Boddy, Ladyshewsky and Galvin [35] was
excluded since it did not use a sample of senior
managers/CEOs, but 346 employees of them
who were asked to evaluate their bosses. Overall,
for the purpose of this review, the author used
four studies that met the basic aim and inclusion
criteria that had been set before searching the
research literature. The rest two case studies
included in this review will be mentioned briefly
in the study’s rationale section.
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„„ Rationale
Although there is a growing research interest on
personality-leadership association, most of studies
that included a trait approach to leadership [3641] has focused especially on Big Five Factor
Model, and not on psychopathic traits. Added
to this, not only there is an extremely limited
number of studies on psychopathy-leadership
association that have used a sample of senior
managers/CEOs, but also since to the author’s
best knowledge there has not been conducted
any other systematic review on this topic before.
Therefore, there is not only a great need for more
research focusing on psychopathy-leadership
association, but also a much greater need for a
systematic review that summarizes, analyzes and
evaluates the existed findings in order to provide
the first conclusive evidence that either support
or refute this association. For this reason, this
systematic review is a novel piece of work as it
will provide a further insight into the factors
(which amongst them perhaps the most crucial
and not well-studied is psychopathy) that
contribute on the rise of some individuals in
leadership positions.
Prior research literature (e.g.[10,11] ) that has
tried to link psychopathy to general population
suggested that this relationship may be by far
clearer than the association between psychopathy
and various skills such as leadership [2]. This may
be true considering the fact that it is much easier
to choose a population sample by following the
basic randomization techniques and then study
the prevalence of psychopathy on it in relation
to some socio-demographic variables. However,
the case is completely different when the sample
is high executive managers with heavy workload,
high-prioritized responsibilities and a possible
unwillingness to participate in this type of
study. This difficulty in approaching them has
urged most of researchers to study psychopathic
leadership through employees’ attitudes toward
their bosses.
Other studies have used a sample of corporate
employees and/or business students with some
management experience in an employment
setting in order to investigate either their
evaluations on their managers’/CEOs leadership
style or how many of them expressed leadership
behavior and could be also identified with
psychopathic traits, respectively. However,
these studies (e.g. [18,35,42-45]) might not
able to capture the true psychopathy-leadership
association since they relied either on third party
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
information provided by employees that did not
work closely with their senior managers/CEOs
or on non-representative samples of business
undergraduates. For example, employees’
evaluations on senior managers’ leadership style
(that know little about them) may be guided by
their personal prejudices, subjective opinions
and hostile feelings towards their bosses. Also,
undergraduate students are usually not longterm and well-proven leaders with many years of
experience in business settings, and therefore the
psychopathic leadership style that characterized
them may be circumstantial. Considering all
these issues, it is easy to understand why there is a
further need to conduct a systematic review that
will include the rarest and most well-validated
studies with data obtained (via observational and
interview procedures) either by middle managers
working alongside their bosses (e.g.[46,47]), or
directly from difficult-to-approach samples of
senior mangers/CEOs (e.g.[22,28]).
In this systematic review, the author included four
original studies [22,28,46,47] that investigated
if individuals working in big organizations
and having leadership positions could be
identified with the sub-clinical traits of primary
psychopathy. In Babiak’s [46] longitudinal
case study, it was found that a newly-hired
employee named Dave who was identified with
psychopathic traits, managed to get a promotion
in his department and finally gain a higher
position despite his constant conflicts with the
senior manager of the department. Boddy [47]
in his longitudinal case study, examined the
case of a corporate psychopath CEO based on
an interview taken from one senior manager
and one middle manager who were working
alongside him. Psychopathic CEO was found to
be superficially charming, fearless, untruthful,
deceitful, egocentric, remorseless, callous,
interpersonally unresponsive, irresponsible and
lacking in self-blame. In the first case study, it was
concluded that psychopathic traits perhaps help
an individual to reach a higher organizational
rank. Based on the findings of Boddy’s [47] case
study, it was hypothesized that an individual
in a leadership position is quite possible to be
identified with subclinical psychopathy.
„„ Aims and Objectives
The basic aim of this systematic review was to
find out if there was any association between the
core primary psychopathic traits and leadership
positions in business settings. For that reason,
the author collected, summarized, analyzed
Review
and critically appraised all the quantitative and
qualitative data obtained by the above-mentioned
four studies. Thus, the main objectives of this
systematic review were:
To identify all studies that investigated the
subclinical traits of primary psychopathy in
individuals with leadership positions in business
settings.
•
To assess the quality of these studies.
•
To determine if primary psychopathy is
related to leadership in business settings.
•
To identify gaps in knowledge where new
studies in this area are needed.
Systematic Review Methods
„„ Search Strategy
Literature Search: In order to search for existing
reviews and primary studies consistent with
the review’s objectives, a search of electronic
databases (PsychINFO, PubMed, Scopus and
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews) was
carried out on 23.07.16 using the following
terms: “psychopathy” AND “leadership” AND
“business settings”.
Search Engines: Studies were systematically
identified by searching electronic medical and
psychological literature databases. The following
databases were searched from inception/1966
to October 2016: PubMed (1996 to October
2016), PsychINFO, Proquest (for unpublished
dissertations), Dissertations and Abstracts,
Academic Search Premier, Cochrane Database
of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), and Scopus
(1966 to October 2016). These searches were
made between July 2016 and October 2016.
For the purpose of this project, the author
started looking for documents published ten
years before the current project plus any classic
document related to this particular topic which
it is usually standard in systematic reviews. No
limit was placed on date of publication due to
scarcity of relevant studies. Additional databases
were searched, including Index to Theses, and
Google Scholar.
Personal Contacts :Leading experts in the
fields of leadership, organizational behavior and
psychopathy such as Professor Clive Boddy,
Professor Robert Hare and Dr Paul Babiak
were contacted via e-mail and were asked to
provide further information for published
and unpublished work in this particular area
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Georgios Kountouras
of interest as well as for assistance in locating
possible studies conducted internationally.
Hand Searching : The Journal of Applied Psychology
(publication dates 1998-2016), the International
Journal of Law and Psychiatry (publication
dates 2009-2016), The European Journal of
Personality (publication dates 1995-2016), and
the British Journal of Psychiatry (publication
dates 1998-2016) were hand-searched as they
were likely to contain information relevant to the
population under investigation (non-criminal,
successful psychopaths), were known to contain
information relevant to the phenomenon under
investigation (psychopathic leadership), and
in an attempt to locate an international crosssection of studies. No relevant papers were
retrieved during this search.
Reference lists: Reference lists of studies found
relevant for this review as well as related studies
were examined for sources of further relevant data.
This investigation resulted on the retrieval of one
case study [46] that was included in this review.
Search Terms and Results: The author
conducted the main search on the psychopathyleadership relationship in two stages. In the
first place, the keywords “psychopathy” AND
“leadership” were entered in the Scopus
database. The search resulted in 60 documents.
Accordingly, the author searched the PubMed,
PsychINFO, and Google Scholar databases using
the terms of “leadership”, AND “psychopathy”
OR “psychopathic traits”. This search in these
databases did not result in any relevant papers
for this review.
To be more specific, business and psychiatric
subject headings and text-word terms were
combined in the main search strategy that it
was developed by the author. Business terms
used for search purposes were “leadership”,
OR “leadership positions”, OR “managerial
positions” AND “CEOs”, OR “senior
managers”. Psychiatric terms were the following:
“psychopathy”, OR “sub-clinical psychopathy”
OR “primary psychopathic traits”, OR
“psychopathic leadership”. This search strategy
was modified and both business and psychiatric
terms were combined appropriately for use in
each of the above-mentioned databases. In order
to maximize sensitivity the author did not add
any additional terms for study design. However,
there was a restriction for searching papers only
on the English language. All references were
downloaded into Mendeley Desktop, version
1.16.3 developed by Elsevier in 2008.
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
„„ Selection of Papers
Abstract Appraisal: Titles and abstracts of
published articles identified by the searches
were assessed for potential inclusion by the
author of this review. Primary studies in the
field of business and organizational psychology
that included both psychopathy and leadership
were considered potentially eligible. Full, peerreviewed articles that investigated if there was any
association between primary sub-clinical traits of
psychopathy and leadership in business settings
were included. Non-peer reviewed articles (e.g.
conference abstracts and dissertations) were
not found by the author because the topic of
this review is completely new. Studies available
only as abstracts were not included because all
of them did not contain sufficient information
about studies design, population samples, data
collection and detailed descriptions of results.
Any reference that was considered for inclusion
by the author was retrieved for full paper
inclusion assessment.
Inclusion Criteria: Full-completed studies that
met the following criteria (Table 1 for a brief
summary) were decided by the author to be
included in this review. More specifically, the
author decided to include:
Primary studies of any design, although the
appropriate study designs for this type of research
are observational, longitudinal, cross-sectional
and case series, not ecological, case-control or
randomized-controlled trials.
Primary studies that included as a sample middle/
senior managers or CEOS.
Primary studies that collected data either directly
from middle/senior managers or CEOs or
indirectly by a high-ranking individual worked
alongside them.
Primary studies that one of their main objectives
was to investigate psychopathic leadership
in business settings and no other leadership
positions and styles or personality types (e.g.
Machiavellians).
Primary studies in which researchers assessed
psychopathy through standardized clinical
construct raring scales (e.g. PCL-R; [8]), widely
used standardized and well-validated self-report
questionnaires (MMPI) as well as through
observational - interview methods.
Primary studies wherein the psychopathy
measure was a combination of more than one
trait or multiple sub-dimensions (e.g.[28]).
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
Primary studies that perceived leadership as the
result of a successful career movement in the top
organizational ranks of a company.
Table 1: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.
Exclusion Criteria: In the current review, the
author decided to exclude studies in which
psychopathy and leadership were not in reference
to the same person (i.e., several studies reported
a correlation between employees’ attitudes, job
satisfaction or well-being and psychopathic
leadership behaviors), studies of leadership
that were specific to a particularistic criterion
(e.g., political leadership), studies without data
(e.g., literature reviews or theoretical works),
and studies that have not been fully completed
yet. Finally, the author excluded studies that
operationalized leadership as elected positions
held in other work environments such as high
schools or Universities, military job positions, or
persons most liked by peers (which they are often
perceived as “leaders”).
Collection of data
Therefore, from the initial number of 60 papers
(Figure 1 for the PRISMA flow diagram)
identified in the main database and after
excluding 27 papers that investigated both
Machiavellians, Narcissists and Psychopaths
(the so-called “Dark Triad”) that held leadership
positions in various settings, 14 papers that were
focused only on the destructive leadership style
of corporate psychopaths, 10 papers that were
only theoretical and literature reviews, and 6
papers that obtained data from large samples of
employees and not from middle/senior managers
or CEOs, the author came up to the final
number of 4 original studies (including Babiak’s
case study published in 1995 that was retrieved
through a reference list searching). These
four papers either investigated some specific
traits of corporate psychopathy in relation to
business leadership or they were focused on the
psychopathy-leadership association in general.
This association was specified in these studies in
terms of how often psychopathy was presented
on individuals that either held top managerial
positions in big companies or managed to rise
rapidly through the organizational ranks into
higher managerial positions.
Data Collection and Analysis
„„ Data Extraction Methods
A data extraction sheet was specifically designed
and employed to systematically extract data
from the four studies included in this review.
Parameters
Sample
Transcript
Predictor Variable
Outcome Variable
Psychopathic Leadership
Inclusion
CEOs, senior/middle managers
Clinical Rating Scales, MMPI,
Interviews
Full transcript with data
Sub-clinical psychopathic
traits
Leadership in business
settings
With reference to the same
person
Review
Exclusion
Low-level Employees
Self-report measures only
No transcript available
Other personality types
Leadership in various settings
Attitudes towards CEOs/
managers only
More specifically, data extracted included
the following main aspects of each study: a)
sample size, b) target group (CEOs or senior/
middle managers), b) scores on the clinical
rating and MMPI scales of psychopathy, c)
interview outcomes, d) duration of observing
participant/s in their workplace (if applicable),
socio-demographic outcomes measurements
(gender, age, family status, educational level,
years of work experience, job position etc.) and
results. The author was not blinded to the names
of study authors, organizations or publications.
„„ Assessment of risk of bias in included
studies
Quality assessment of the two quantitative crosssectional studies ([22,28]) was performed by
the “Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative
Studies” (QATQS) developed by the Effective
Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) in 1998.
This standardized and well-validated assessment
tool (kappa=.71; [48]) was developed in order
to provide high quality systematic reviews that
include studies of many methodological designs,
including the cross-sectional one. Results of
the QATQS lead to an overall methodological
rating of strong, moderate or weak study in eight
sections including 1) selection bias, 2) study
design, 3) confounders, 4) blinding 5) data
collection methods, 6) withdrawals and dropouts
7) intervention integrity and 8) analysis. QATQS
has been used widely for the evaluation of crosssectional, longitudinal, observational and cohort
analytic, case-control and RCTs study designs
([49]), and thus the author decided to use it in
this review (Appendix 1 for the QATQS quality
assessment form).
Risk of bias for the rest two case studies [46,47]
was assessed by the JBI Critical Appraisal
Checklist for Case Series (Appendix 1) quality
assessment tool developed by the Joanna Briggs
Institute in 2016. The purpose of this tool is to
assess the methodological quality of a study and
648
Review
Georgios Kountouras
Figure 1: PRISMA Flow diagram.
to determine the extent to which a case study
has addressed the possibility of bias in its design,
conduct and analysis. The rating scale is a fourLikert type one including answers of “yes”, “no”,
“unclear” and not “applicable” to questions
related to the design, conduct and analysis of a
case study. The results of this assessment can be
used to inform synthesis and interpretation of
the overall study results. Although this recently
developed tool has not been widely used, it
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
is approved by the JBI Scientific Committee
following extensive peer review.
To eliminate the risk of the reviewer’s bias [49],
the above-mentioned tools were both completed
by two raters. One of them was obviously the
author of this review while the second one was
an experienced research psychologist that holds
an MBA Global. The kappa coefficient which
indicated the strength of agreement between
these two raters was calculated for both QATQS
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
and JBI used to assess the methodological quality
of the four studies. To calculate the kappa statistic
(Appendix 2 for the SPSS output), the author used
the SPSS statistical software version 17.0.
„„ Methods of analysis
A meta-analysis was not undertaken due to
the diverse samples, measured outcomes, and
methods of assessing corporate psychopathy.
Based on the Cochrane Handbook of systematic
reviews, an analysis of data that were obtained
through different methods often leads to
unrealistic results [50]. Thus, the diversity
in samples, methods, and outcome measures
should be firstly considered by each author when
a decision of conducting a meta-analysis is going
to be made [50].
Results
„„ Characteristics of included studies
Of the four studies included in this review,
two were case studies ([46,47]) and two had a
cross-sectional study design [22,28]. PCL-SV
[51] and PCL-R [8] were the rating scales used
for assessing psychopathy in two of the four
studies. MPPI for Personality Disorders was
the only self-report tool that was used to assess
psychopathy in the study of Board and Fritzon
[28]. The “Psychopathy Measure-Management
Research Version 2” (PM-MRV2) was used
in the case study of Boddy [47] as a checklist
tool that contains 10 different characteristics of
psychopathy. All 4 studies included as a sample
individuals with higher/highest managerial
positions or presidents, vice presidents and
CEOs. Exception is the case study conducted
by Babiak [46] in which a newly hired employee
managed to get in a relatively short period of
time a managerial position. All studies found
that individuals who held (or managed to get)
these leadership positions had also high scores on
psychopathy scales. One study [28] included also
comparison groups (mental health patients and
prisoners). In the study of Babiak, Neumann
and Hare [22] there were made inner group
comparisons on individuals’ psychopathic scores
with regards to the job position that they held
(middle/senior managers vs. CEOs). Finally, in
the case study conducted by Boddy [47], the
current CEO of a company was found to have
a much higher score on psychopathy compared
to the former one. The above-mentioned
characteristics are summarized and presented in
Table 2.
Review
For clarification purposes, the four studies
included in this review were categorized into
two main groups based on their study design.
The first group consists of Cross-sectional Studies
while the second group consists of Case Studies.
„„ Cross-sectional Studies
There were two cross-sectional studies identified
for the purpose of this review and originated
from United States and United Kingdom,
respectively. A cross-sectional study design is a
type of observational study that analyses data
taken from a population or a representative
subgroup of it at a specific period of time [52].
Cross-sectional studies are descriptive studies
that are often useful for researchers who want
to describe a feature of the population such
as the prevalence of a disorder [52]. The two
cross-sectional studies [22,28] included in
this review had both of them a target group of
business managers and chief executives that held
leadership positions within their organizations
and attempted to estimate the percentage of
psychopathy in it.
In the study of Board and Fritzon [28], the
original sample size was consisted of 39 males
business managers and chief executives (who had
leadership roles for at least 20 months) working
in leading British companies. The comparison
groups were 475 randomly selected psychiatric
patients and 1085 mentally disordered offenders
from Broadmoor Special Hospital that
Table 2: Summary of characteristics for each study separately.
Country
United Sates
United Kingdom
Characteristics
Design
Cross-sectional
Case study
Sample
Managers
CEOs
Presidents
Vice Presidents
MI Patients
MI Offenders
Tools
PCL-SV
PCL-R
MMPI-PD
PM-MRV2
Outcome
Psychopathic leaders
√
Babiak (1995)
√
√
Board & Fritzon
(2005)
Babiak, et al (2010)
√
√
Boddy
(2015)
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
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Georgios Kountouras
subdivided in two subgroups; 768 offenders
with any type of mental illness and 317 offenders
with a diagnosis of psychopathic personality
disorder. Data from these comparison groups
were selected retrospectively. These groups were
matched for sex and thus comparisons were
made only between males. The authors used
the MMPI for Personality Disorders which has
11 scales with 38 items and it is a true/false
self-report questionnaire that was developed by
extracting 162 items from the item pool of the
MMPI. Each “true” item is rated with 1 point
while each “false” item is rated with 0 point.
Thus, the higher the score on any scale the more
indicative it is of the PD criterion it represents.
Results showed that the group of senior
managers and CEOs had a significantly
higher MMPI-PD score on histrionic scale
(that includes psychopathic traits such as
superficial charm, manipulation of others and
egocentricity) compared to the other three
groups. This difference was even larger between
the corporate sample and the two sub-groups
of mentally disordered offenders. The corporate
sample scored higher also in the narcissistic
and compulsive scales, but the results were
not statistically significant. However, in the
other scales which are generally associated with
criminality and delinquent behavior (antisocial,
passive-aggressive, paranoid and borderline
scale), senior managers and CEOs had
significantly lower scores compared to other 3
groups. The authors concluded that primary subclinical psychopathic traits (such as superficial
charm, egocentricity, manipulation of others,
grandiosity, lack of empathy, pathological lying,
independence, perfectionism, excessive devotion
to work, rigidity, stubbornness, and dictatorial
tendencies) may be presented in a sample
of business managers and CEOs (that have
leadership roles) significantly more often than in
the psychiatric and/or imprisoned population.
In addition, they concluded that the absence
of secondary psychopathy characterized by a
social deviant lifestyle (e.g. impulsivity, hostility,
physical aggression) may be one of the reasons
behind the successful career movement of
corporate psychopaths into leadership positions.
The study of Babiak, Neumann and Hare
[22] had the largest sample size of all of the
included studies as it was consisted of 203
managers and executives working in the largest
US organizations. This large sample was
selected from management development (MD)
programs that were designed for each of the
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
respective companies. Individuals were chosen
to participate in these programs based on their
companies’ belief that they had managerial and
leadership potential. Measurements were made
with the PCL-R [8] which is a 20-item clinical
construct rating scale that uses a semi-structured
interview, case-history information, and specific
scoring criteria to rate each item on a three-point
scale (0, 1, 2) according to the extent to which it
applies to a given person. Total scores of PCL-R
are ranged from 0 to 40. PCL-R identifies many
psychopathic traits such as superficial charm,
grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological
lying, lack of remorse and guilt, shallow affect,
manipulation of others, impulsivity and parasitic
lifestyle. Scores on these sub-scales for each
participant were calculated after face-to-face
meetings, observations of social and work-teams
interactions as well as meetings with participants’
supervisors and colleagues. An overall assessment
of individuals’ performance who participated
in these management programs including
communication skills, leadership skills, strategic
thinking, management style, creativity and being
team player were made and the outcome was
correlated to the PCL-R scores.
Results showed that although there was not a
significant association between the management
position (and the level of it) that an individual
held within the organization and scores on
psychopathy, nine participants who had a PCL-R
score of 25 or above (which is considered very
high; Hare, 1991/2003), were also in the highest
organizational positions (e.g. presidents, vice
presidents, CEOs). Moreover, high scores on
PCL-R psychopathic scales were positively related
to communication skills, strategic thinking,
and creativity, but negatively related to being a
team player, having leadership skills and being
a good manager. The authors concluded (after
comparing the PCL-R scores of this corporate
sample to those taken from a community
sample of a past study) that psychopathy was
not associated with participants’ age, gender and
education as well as that business managers and
CEOs had a significantly higher PCL-R score
compared to the community sample. It was
also stated that although these managers and
CEOs were presented with a lack of leadership
and management skills after their performance
assessment in MD programs, the fact that they
were perceived as having leadership potential by
their companies (despite that this was found to
be unrelated to PCL-R scores) and being rated
with good communication skills, creativity and
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
strategic thinking by their subordinates gave
them the opportunity to promote their careers
through high ranking leadership positions.
Socio-demographic information about these two
cross-sectional studies sample size, mean of age,
job position, educational level and marital status
are summarized in Table 3 below. Detailed
numerical results consistent are presented in
Table 4 and 5, respectively.
Information about participants’ marital status
in Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s [22] study
was not collected due to the fact that the sociodemographic forms were designed specifically
for the MD programs which had some particular
restrictions on their content. Similarly, the
Board and Fritzon’s [28] study did not include
further information about participants’ race and
therefore it can be assumed that all of them were
Caucasian males.
„„ Case Studies
There were two case studies identified for the
purpose of this review and originated from United
States and United Kingdom, respectively. A case
study is a type of study that analyzes holistically a
person, an event, a group or a situation by using
one or more methods over a sustained period
of time [52]. According to the most commonly
agreed approach among researchers, a case
study can be defined as a research strategy that
investigates empirically a phenomenon within its
real-life context [52]. The case study research can
include single and multiple cases, can include
quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources
of evidence, and often derives from an existed
theoretical perspective that tries to explain a
particular phenomenon or behavior [52]. Thus,
a case study research can be based on any mix of
quantitative and qualitative data and it should
not be confused with quantitative studies [52].
Each one case study [46,47] included in this
review focused on one individual working in a
big business organization and assessed him using
a holistic approach for a sustained period of time
in an attempt to explain his behavior and draw
some relevant conclusions about it.
In Babiak’s [46] case study, the participant
named Dave was a newly-hired employee that
after a short period of time managed to rise
rapidly into a higher managerial position despite
the conflicts with his supervisor. Although
Dave was described as an ambitious, creative
and bright employee, he also described as rude,
selfish, immature, self-centered, unreliable,
Review
Table 3: Socio-demographic Variables: Cross-Sectional Studies.
Variables
Sample size
Males
Females
Race
Caucasian
Asian
African-American
Hispanic
Mean of Age
Marital Status
Married
Single
In a relationship
Divorced/Widowed
Job Position
Middle/senior managers/
directors
CEOs/Presidents
Vice presidents
Other key staff/managers
Education
Basic only
Higher
Highest
Comparison Groups
Psychiatric Patients
MI & PD Offenders
Board & Fritzon (2005)
39
39
Babiak, et al (2010)
203
158
45
181
2
4
6
45.8
35.92
20
10
3
6
30
86
9
0
0
21
51
45
8
31
0
158
45
475
1085
Table 4: MMPI-PD Scores on the four Psychopathy Scales across all groups.
MMPI-PD
Histrionic Scale*
Narcissistic Scale**
Compulsive Scale**
Antisocial Scale*
Borderline Scale
Dependent Scale
Passive-Aggressive
Scale
Paranoid Scale
Schizotypal Scale
Schizoid Scale
Avoidant Scale
p<.0045*, NS**
Corporate
Sample
13.33
15.58
7.35
8.64
9.23
5.92
Psychiatric
Patients
11.29
15.85
8.59
10.65
15.77
12.06
8.46
14.34
7.07
13.08
16.38
12.41
3.67
14.54
3.38
12.43
9.66
7.96
5.56
7.87
8.04
6.25
5.82
9.17
6.61
12.79
13.79
22.85
12.82
21.93
13.70
22.70
13.09
8.70
8.61
14.13
7.96
17.59
MI Offenders
MI Offenders
and irresponsible individual by his colleagues.
The case of Dave’s problematic behavior was
analyzed by the author due to the fact that he
was working as an organizational psychologist
in this company at the same time as Dave was
working there. To assess Dave’s behavior, the
author used the PCL-SV (Hare, 1994) which is
a 12-item clinical rating tool which rates items
in a 3-point scale (2=match, 1=partial match
and 0=no match). This screening tool includes
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Georgios Kountouras
12 different characteristics of psychopathy and
the higher the score the more indicative is the
presence of psychopathy in individuals under
evaluation.
Results showed that Dave had a high score
on psychopathy which was calculated at 19
points when the mean PCL-SV total scores are
ranged from 13 to 16 points in forensic nonpsychiatric imprisoned populations. The author
concluded that Dave’s ability to manipulate
others and deceive them combined with his
good communication skills and persuasiveness
gave him the opportunity to get a promotion
and achieve a successful career movement
in a higher managerial position. Finally, the
author reported also PCL-SV scores for other
two participants that displayed a problematic
behavior similar to Dave’s one. According to the
author, these analyses were made for comparison
and behavioral pattern identification purposes.
Numerical results for each individual separately
are given in Table 6 below.
The case study of Boddy [47] was based on
third-party information provided mainly by a
respondent who was the middle manager of a
department and worked alongside the CEO of
a charitable company in the UK. The researcher
interviewed the respondent multiple times in
order to be able to complete the “Psychopathy
Measure-Management Research Version 2” (PMMRV2) which was the basic tool of psychopathy
in this study. This 10-item tool asks a colleague of
the participant (where the respondent is typically
a current manager) to rate some aspects of the
participant’s behavior related to psychopathy.
To be more specific, the respondent is asked
Table 5: Correlations of the PCL-R scores with overall assessments and
performance appraisals.
Performance
Interpersonal
Assessment
Communication Skills .34***
Creative/Innovative
.28***
Strategic Thinking
.31***
Management Style
-.48***
Team Player
-.71***
Leadership Skills
.06
Performance appraisal -.40***
p<.05*, p<.01**, p<.001***
Affective
Lifestyle Antisocial
Total
.27**
.24**
.20*
-.48
-.66***
-.06
-.40***
.20*
.21*
.15
-.46***
-.58***
-.15
-.40***
.33***
.27**
.30***
-.49***
-.71***
.04
.41***
.23**
.21*
.10
-.36***
-.52***
-.22*
- .42***
Table 6: PCL-SV scores for the three participants in Babiak’s (1995) case
study.
PCL-SV
Dave
Participant 2
Participant 3
Score
19
19
20.7
Range of the mean total PCL-SV scores is generally between 13-16 points.
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
whether the individual under investigation is
initially charming, poised and calm, untruthful,
deceitful, egocentric, remorseless, flat in affect,
interpersonally unresponsive, irresponsible and
lacking in self-blame.
Results showed that the current CEO displayed
all the 10 characteristics of psychopathy as well as
that his leadership style was destructive and had
a negative effect on employees’ attitudes towards
him and on the company’s future in general. In
addition, these findings also revealed that some
psychopathic traits may contribute on having
a leader role in the business industry through
a top job position despite the possible lack of
actual leadership skills (e.g. inspire, direct and
motivate others, have a vision for the company,
be supportive, etc.) needed for this particular
position.
„„ Study Quality and Potential Sources of
Bias
As it was mentioned earlier in the Methods
section, the author and a research psychologist
with MBA Global, evaluated these studies on
several quality criteria including selection bias,
design, conduct, confounders, blinding, data
collection methods, withdrawals and dropouts,
intervention integrity and analysis. Besides some
minor differences on the points given to the
above sections, there was a mutual agreement
during the rating process and the final outcome
was not altered for both cross-sectional and case
studies.
Board and Fritzon’s (2005) study: The QATQS
result regarding Board and Fritzon’s [28] study
revealed that this particular study was weak for a
number of reasons. First of all, the total number
of participants (n=39) agreed to participate in
this study was small. Although 51 participants
were approached and gave their consent to
participate, only 39 actually took part and the
researchers did not provide any reason that could
potentially explain these dropouts. As a result
of this, the representativeness of the sample
can be questioned. Moreover, the study design
is a limitation of its own due to the fact that a
cross-sectional study’s findings can be attributed
to reverse causality. Added to this, there were
important differences between the three groups
prior to the measurement procedure. Psychiatric
patients and mentally disordered offenders are
not comparable samples due to the fact that
they might have received a specific kind of
treatment at some point of their life (e.g. during
their hospitalization). Thus, the reader does
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
not know if they were in a full remission phase
or in a stage of recovery when their data were
collected. Moreover, all groups were matched
only for sex and not for other socio-demographic
variables such as education. Blinding is a process
that eliminates the risk of bias usually in RCTs.
Due to the type of research in this area of interest
and considering the design of this study, both
the assessors and participants were aware of the
purpose of it. Finally, a significant advantage of
this cross-sectional study was the fact that the
researchers used a valid and reliable tool to make
measurements as well as that they investigated
the internal consistency of MMPI-PD in a
completely new sample of business managers and
executives in which it was shown to yield good
statistics.
Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s (2010) study:
In Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s (2010)
study 203 business managers and CEOs were
selected through MD programs by different US
companies. They were not randomly selected due
to the fact that they were chosen as candidates
with high managerial and leadership potential
for the study aims. However, the sample size
was the largest of all studies conducted in this
field. From the sample of business managers
and CEOs who agreed to participate in the
study, all of them completed without drop-outs.
Although in cross-sectional designs a possible
relationship between exposure and outcome is
usually correlational and not causal, considering
the nature of this study it can be argued that
its methodology was an appropriate one. All
participants did not differ significantly across
many socio-demographic variables (such as
education, health status, race and marital status),
and thus there were not important differences
between them prior to the assessment. A singleblind procedure (participants were not aware of
the study’s research question) was used. In this
study, the authors used also a valid and reliable
clinical rating scale (PCL-R) and thus the
data collection procedure seems to be reliable.
However, the rater was only one and thus this
might have introduced the potential of the
assessor’s bias. The assessment procedure was
consistent across all participants as the data were
collected with the same way. Overall, the agreed
result of this study’s quality assessment was at the
moderate level.
Summarized results of the QATQS for both
Board and Fritzon’s [28] and Babiak’s, et al. [22]
studies are presented in Table 7.
Review
Babiak’s (1995) case study: This case study was
included in the current review with a good overall
appraisal score for a number of reasons. Firstly,
psychopathy was measured in a standard and
reliable way for the three participants included in
this study with the use of PCL-SV tool (although
the main focus was on Dave’s case). Secondly,
follow-up results obtained from observations in
participant’s workplace, face-to-face meetings
with the participant and working groups, and
personal interviews were clearly reported for
all participants with their overall PCL-SV.
However, sub-scores in each of the 12 items of
Table 7: QATQS result for the two cross-sectional studies.
QATQS
Selection bias
Very likely
Somewhat likely
Not likely
Can’t tell
Percentage of participation
agreement
80-100% agreement
60-79% agreement
Less that 60% agreement
Not applicable
Can’t tell
Confounders (yes/no)
Race
Sex
Marital status
Age
Socio-economic class
Education
Health status
Pre-intervention score
Blinding (yes/no)
Single
Double
Data collection tools
Reliable
Valid
Drop-outs (yes/no)
80-100%
60-79%
Less than 60%
Can’t tell
MI & PD Offenders
Intervention Integrity
Consistency of the measurement (yes/
no)
Contamination/Co-intervention
Statistical Analysis
Appropriate
Not appropriate
Weak*, Moderate**, Strong***
Board & Fritzon (2005)*
Babiak, et al. (2010)**
√
√
√
√
Yes
No
√
√
No
Yes
√
√
√
√
√
√
No
Yes
√
√
√
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Review
Georgios Kountouras
PCL-SV rating scale were not reported neither
for Dave nor for the other two participants.
Thus, the reader is not aware of the items in
which participants scored higher and lower.
Added to this, socio-demographic information
were not fully reported for all participants-only
Dave was presented as a mid-thirties, married
employee with four kids and a degree from a large
University. Any other demographic information
about his company was not reported due to the
nature of this study. According to Babiak [46]
it was “a rapidly growing, highly profitable
mid-western United States electronic products
company”. Overall, the total score of the JBI
Critical Appraisal Checklist for the Babiak’ [46]
case study was consisted of five “yes”, one “no”
and four “not applicable” ratings.
Boddy’s (2015) case study: Boddy’s [47] case
study used the PM-MRV2 checklist tool for
the identification of CEO’s psychopathic traits,
but the author did not report any information
about its reliability and validity neither in
business settings nor in other settings. However,
the author asked from a second respondent
(another middle manager who was working
alongside the current CEO for two years) to
rate again the psychopathic CEO and the result
was exactly the same. Thus, it can be assumed
that the findings are valid. Participant’s sociodemographic information and his company’s
information were not mentioned in order to
be secured the anonymity and confidentiality
of both respondents’ personal information.
However, the results of the PM-MRV2 were
clearly reported. Overall, this study included in
the present review with a good appraisal score
consisted of four “yes”, one “no”, one “unclear”
and four “not applicable” ratings.
Summarized results of the JBI Critical Appraisal
checklist tool for both Babiak’s [46] and Boddy’s
[47] case studies are presented in Table 8.
Discussion
„„ Summary of the main findings
This systematic review summarizes the results
of 4 studies that investigated the association of
psychopathy and leadership in business settings.
Results of the studies included in this review
showed that individuals with higher/highest job
positions in business settings were identified with
traits of primary psychopathy. More specifically,
the two cross-sectional studies [22,28] revealed
that most of those with psychopathic traits
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
were high-ranking executives as well as that the
corporate sample had a significantly higher score
on psychopathy scales not only in comparison
to imprisoned and mentally disordered samples
[28], but also compared to a community sample
too [22]. The study of Babiak, Neumann and
Hare [22] also showed that those identified as
psychopathic high-ranking individuals were
perceived by their companies as creative, good
strategic thinkers, and good communicators. In
the contrary, negative appraisals on psychopathic
individuals with leadership positions included
poor management and leadership skills and
failure to act as a team player did not seem to
have a negative impact on their successful career
movement into the highest organizational
ranks. This finding is supported also by the fact
that in spite of these poor reviews especially
with regards to the lack of leadership skills, all
companies participated in MD programs seemed
to view these “corporate psychopaths” as having
leadership potential.
Consistent with this finding, the case study
conducted by Babiak [46] was focused on a
psychopathic individual named Dave that
managed to get a manager position in a short
period of time. Dave was a newly-hired employee
characterized by good communication skills, an
ability to manipulate others and a pathological
tendency to lying. Dave was able to formulate
social relationships with his co-workers, be
nice and charming with them and eventually
take advantage on them in order to achieve his
personal goals and climb the corporate ladder.
Most of his co-workers had contradictive
opinions about him. Specifically, while they
were describing him as ambitious, smart and
creative employee, they also characterized him
as aggressive, rude, selfish, immature, selfcentered, unreliable, and irresponsible person.
Combining these two findings from the
studies of Babiak [46] and Babiak, Neumann
and Hare [22], it can be concluded that these
charismatic and manipulative traits usually
allow corporate psychopaths to have a “normal”
social and professional functioning as well as
that their manipulation skills, persuasiveness,
aggressive self-promotion, and single-minded
determination may help them rise quickly
into the highest leadership positions within an
organization [2].
Added to this, in the study of Boddy [47] it was
found that the current CEO of a large company
was highly psychopathic as well as that despite the
lack of leadership skills (e.g. guide, inspire and
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
motivate others, have a vision for the company,
be responsible etc.), this CEO had a leadership
position by supervising a large number of
employees who they perceived him as “bad leader”
and as a certain threat of the company’s future.
Although one of the aims of this review was not
to investigate the leadership style of corporate
psychopaths, there is a pattern on this review’s
findings that cannot be overlooked. Considering
that the corporate sample of Babiak, Neumann
and Hare’s [22] study included high-ranking
psychopathic executives with lack of leadership
skills and by analyzing the cases of Dave and
psychopathic CEO in the two case studies of
Babiak [46] and Boddy [47] respectively, it can
be assumed that having a leadership position
does not necessarily mean that the skills needed
for someone in order to be a good leader are also
present. Although good communication skills,
charm, persuasiveness, and the ability to make
rational, emotionless decisions would appear
to benefit a company, it seems that corporate
psychopaths are mainly self-serving opportunists.
Therefore, these psychopathic traits seem to
help these individuals get more easily what
they want including money, personal success
and power against their company’s interest.
However, a further discussion on this destructive
psychopathic leadership style would be beyond
the scope of the current review.
In addition, there is a common ground between
the findings reported by Board and Fritzon [28]
and those published by Babiak, Neumann and
Hare [22] in terms of how often psychopathy
is presented in senior managers/CEOs rather
than in middle managers and other key staff of
an organization. Specifically, these two studies
showed that individuals who were at the top
of their organizations’ hierarchy (presidents,
vice presidents, CEOs) had significantly higher
scores on psychopathy scales compared to those
who were middle managers or supervisors of a
department. This finding was more evident in
the study of Babiak, Neumann and Hare [22] in
which participants held either higher or highest
job positions (e.g. middle managers, supervisors,
senior managers, presidents, vice presidents,
CEOs) within their organization rather than in
Board and Fritzon’s [28] study which included
only a small sample of 39 senior managers and
CEOs.
These findings are consistent with the current
theoretical perspectives about psychopathy
suggesting that the highly psychopathic
individuals were more likely to be found at
Review
Table 8: The JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist result for the two case studies.
JBI
Babiak (1995)*
Clear inclusion Criteria
Yes
No
Unclear
Not applicable
√
Consistency of Measurement
Yes
√
No
Unclear
Not applicable
Valid methods of data
collection
Yes
√
No
Unclear
Not applicable
Consecutive Inclusion
Yes
No
Unclear
Not applicable
√
Complete Inclusion
Yes
No
Unclear
Not applicable
√
Participants’ demographics
Yes
√
No
Unclear
Not applicable
Participants’ clinical
information
Yes
No
Unclear
Not applicable
√
Clear follow-up results
Yes
√
No
Unclear
Not applicable
Organizations’ demographics
Yes
No
√
Unclear
Not applicable
Appropriate statistical
analysis
Yes
√
No
Unclear
Not applicable
Include*, Exclude**, Seek further info***
Boddy (2015)*
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
656
Review
Georgios Kountouras
the highest job positions in a business setting
in which they have better chances for gaining
power, prestige and financial rewards [17].
This theory also suggests that these individuals
are more motivated and determined in order
to get this senior managerial positions that
bring professional success because they mainly
want to feel above others [2,17]. Therefore,
it can be assumed that corporate psychopaths
who held these specific positions in order
to feel above others are sharing a common
characteristic with criminal psychopaths who
usually crave for power and control over their
victims. However, as Board and Fritzon [28]
have shown, corporate psychopaths share
more differences than similarities with the
criminal psychopaths with the latter ones being
compulsive, irrational, antisocial, unplanned and
emotionally unstable. It should be noted that the
distinction between “successful” high-ranking
psychopathic executives and “unsuccessful”
criminal psychopaths is difficult to be made
by simply arguing that there are two different
types of psychopathy (primary psychopathy vs.
secondary psychopathy). In brief, other sociodemographic (e.g. family background, economic
class, socio-cultural context), biological and
individualistic factors (e.g. IQ, pre-morbid
personality, psychiatric history) that interact
with each other may finally determine who will
be in the boardroom and who will be in the
prison.
Finally, an interesting pattern of these findings
is that in three [22,46,47] of the four studies
included in this review, it was shown that despite
corporate psychopaths’ poor performance at
their workplace, they continued either to rise
quickly at higher managerial positions [46] or
maintained their top leadership positions for a
long period of time [22,47]. In Babiak’s [46]
study, Dave was found to be underproductive
and often unreliable as he was often absent from
group meetings. He was accused for using a
plagiarized material and presented it as his own
piece of work. However, Dave’s manipulation
skills, persuasiveness and charisma helped him
to establish strong social relationships with the
president and vice president of the company,
earn their sympathy, and finally become the
manager of his ex-supervisor’s department. The
psychopathic CEO in Boddy’s [47] study was
also negatively appraised by his employees, but
he continued to run his company despite the
complaints, counter-productive work behavior
and under-performance. This was also evident in
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
the large study of Babiak, Neumann and Hare
[22] in which managers with high psychopathic
scores were rated with poor management style,
lack of teamwork, and low performance ratings.
One explanation of these common findings
may be that psychopathic traits such as
superficial charm, manipulation techniques and
interpersonally charismatic skills that assisted
these individuals in the first place in order to
get employed may also help them to manage
others’ feelings and maintain their leadership
position despite their poor performance [2].
Another theoretical explanation derived from
the field of social constructivism suggests that
the current research in psychopathic leadership
should perceive the whole corporation as a
“psychopathic organism”. Specifically, according
to Boddy [53], a corporation may operate as
a psychopathic organism as it often engages
in illegal activities and seeks out loopholes in
the law to avoid taxes and regulations. If these
corporations “behave” as the psychopathic
individual does (without caring about the safety
of others and with an inability to conform to
social norms and laws), it may be logical to
assume that a business setting is an environment
in which a psychopathic leader can evolve, rise
and finally thrive without restrictions. However,
there are not empirical evidence that support this
hypothesis and although few studies (e.g.[21])
have shown that some organizations (especially
banks and other financial institutions) operate in
this way, research on how corporate psychopaths
choose a specific type of organization (or chosen by
it) did not have come to solid conclusions yet [53].
In the following sections, a detailed description
of the included studies’ and systematic review’s
limitations followed by the strengths and
weaknesses of the review’s methods is presented.
Studies Limitations
The main limitation of the studies included in
this review was their methodological design.
Although a randomized design was not feasible
in this type of research, a cross-sectional study
design used in Board and Fritzon’s [28] and
Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s [22] studies has
its weakness as it did not allow the author to
establish a causal relationship between specific
psychopathic traits and leadership in business
settings.
Moreover, the way in which the results of these
two cross-sectional studies were presented may
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
be criticized due to the fact that the possibility
of reverse causality cannot be overlooked.
The hypothesis that specific psychopathic
traits may assist an individual to occupy a
leadership position is not in one-way direction.
Considering the way in which most corporations
operate in western societies, it can be assumed
that high-ranking executives develop specific
psychopathic traits in order to cope with the
challenges of the business world. Therefore,
in simple terms as Clarke [17] points out “the
more successful businessman you are the more
psychopathic person you need to be”. Although
many personality theorists such as Gordon
Allport, Raymond Cattell, and Hans Eysenck
have commonly argued that a trait is a stable
and unchangeable element of one’s personality
that become evident usually before adulthood,
they have also pointed out that there is not
a limited number of traits that dominate the
whole personality as well as that specific traits
are often appear only in certain situations or
under specific circumstances [54]. Therefore,
these sub-clinical psychopathic traits may
be a learned response of some individuals to
the business environment and not simply a
group of characteristics that dominates their
personality in every context. This may be
another explanation of the finding in Babiak,
Neumann and Hare’s [22] study. Although
the overall association of psychopathy and
leadership was not statistically significant in
this study, findings indicated that presidents,
vice presidents and CEOs were significantly
more psychopathic than the middle and senior
managers.
Apart from that, due to the fact that the studies
of Babiak [46] and Boddy [44] had a case study
design, the generalizability of their results was
limited as it was not possible for the author
to draw general conclusions from just a small
number of cases. However, a case study in this
area of interest offers the possibility to explore in
more depth the psychopathic personality of an
individual as well as to gain a better understanding
of the way in which these individuals function
within an organization. For example, the case
of Dave in Babiak’s [46] study has shown how
a psychopathic individual interacts with his
colleagues and bosses at the workplace for a
sustained period of time. In addition, it provides
further support to the dominant theoretical claim
of the current research literature which suggests
that primary psychopathy is directly related to
a successful career movement into the highest
Review
organizational ranks [2]. Thus, these case studies
provided further advancement on this particular
field’s knowledge base and enhance reader’s
understanding of the real-life phenomenon
under investigation.
A third limitation of the two case studies was
associated with one of the methods used to assess
participants’ psychopathic traits. Beyond the
use of the reliable and valid clinical rating scale
(PCL-SV) in Babiak’s [46] study, it was also
implemented a method based on the observation,
by co-workers [46], and respondents [47], of
psychopathic behavior in others. Thus, the use of
this method for data collection purposes might
have introduced the potential of assessment
bias. However, many studies have shown that
psychopathic traits may be identified by ordinary,
untrained individuals who work alongside and
know well the participants under investigation
[55,56].
A fourth limitation of all studies included in this
review was the fact that they did not ask from
independent evaluators to complete the clinical
rating scales used to assess psychopathy, and thus
the lack of a blind assessment method might have
introduced the possibility of the assessor’s bias.
Added to this, each case study included only one
assessor. In Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s [22]
study the main assessor was Paul Babiak who was
working as an organizational psychologist in the
HR Department of some companies. In Board
and Fritzon’s study, the MMPI-PD was used
which is a self-report tool designed to identify
the presence of personality disorders. Although,
the reliability of the collected data cannot be
putted in question due to the fact that this
specific tool has a very high internal consistency
in a number of different settings and within
different population samples [57], the authors
decided to measure psychopathy indirectly with
the use of 11 sub-scales that include certain
behaviors closely related to psychopathy. They
did not mention any other pure measurement
of psychopathy that could have potentially
found to be correlated with the MMPI-PD and
therefore the reader is not completely aware of
how many participants actually met the criteria
of psychopathy as the empirical evidence for
a possible overlap between psychopathic,
histrionic and narcissistic personalities seem
to be inconsistent [29]. Finally, this study had
12 drop outs (51 were initially recruited, but
only 39 finally participated) from the corporate
sample without providing any reason for that.
658
Review
Georgios Kountouras
Limitation of this Review
The main limitation of this systematic review was
the number of studies identified for inclusion.
The author decided that only four studies met
the inclusion criteria and thus the external
validity of this review may be criticized. On
the other hand, considering that the empirical
evidence related to the topic of this review is
very limited, the current dissertation was the first
scientific attempt of summarizing, analyzing and
critically evaluating all the available evidence on
the psychopathy-leadership relationship.
One solution to this problem for the author
might be to broaden the inclusion criteria in order
to identify more studies during the screening
process. For this purpose, the author contacted
a leading expert in the field of psychopathic
leadership, Professor Clive Boddy, asking for his
knowledge of other relevant studies, published or
unpublished. Professor Boddy admitted that this
topic is completely new and thus the number of
studies is very limited. However, he suggested
the author to expand his criteria and include
also other personality types such as Narcissists
and Machiavellians. The author decided not to
include the so-called “Dark Triad” (Psychopaths,
Narcissists, and Machiavellians) because after a
thorough investigation in the current research
literature, it was found that there are some
inconsistencies regarding this construct. More
specifically, it is not yet clear if these personalities
differ with each other or if they only share some
common traits indicating simply an overlap
between them [58].
According to the recent research literature (e.g.
[59-61]) Machiavellian personality include
traits such as low empathy, flat affect, unethical
decision making, a tendency to manipulate
others, pathological lying and an egocentricity
related to a focus exclusively on individualistic
goals and not those of others. Narcissistic
personality includes traits such as grandiosity,
superiority, lacking trust and care for others, and
superficial charm. These personalities including
the psychopathic one include only sub-clinical
traits and therefore they do not reflect the
standardized diagnostic criteria of a personality
disorder in any case. However, psychopathic
personality is a wider term and thus it includes
both narcissistic and Machiavellian traits [57].
Moreover, “Dark personality” is a constructed
term that usually helps theorists to identify the
group of traits that are more dominant in some
individuals than in others [62]. As Psychopaths
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
can be presented with traits found to both
Machiavellians and Narcissists and considering
that the main aim of this study was not to
investigate which group of traits are present at
most in the business world, the author decided
to include only the dimension of psychopathy
which seems to have also a wider acceptance
from the psychiatric community.
Limitations of this Review’s Methods
First of all, although the author searched only
English-language journals, the possibility of
finding other relevant studies in this area of
interest is very limited. Therefore, the potential
of language bias still exists, but it is very low.
Secondly, publication bias was not able to be
examined in this review because the use of a
funnel plot is significant when the number of
studies is at least 30 or above [49]. Thirdly, due
to the fact that this project was for a Master’s
purpose, only one individual, the author, was
able to search for studies following a specific
search strategy. In general, at least two reviewers
should take part in the searching process in order
to check and ensure that the inclusion criteria
have been met.
„„ Strengths of this Review’s Methods
In order to find relevant papers, published and
unpublished in this area of interest the author
contacted many leading experts including
Dr Paul Babiak who has been working as an
organizational psychologist in many large
companies of the United States, Professor Robert
Hare who is one of the most eminent researchers
in the field of psychopathy, and Professor
Clive Boddy who teaches now Leadership and
Organization Behavior at Middlesex University
Business School in London. Therefore, the
possibility of missing any relevant paper in this
particular area of interest or other international
studies is very limited.
In addition, the methodological quality of the
included studies was assessed by two raters, the
author and one research psychologist that hold
an MBA Global. The kappa coefficient was
calculated in order to test the inter-rater reliability
(Appendix 2) and it was found that the level of
agreement between the two raters for the QATQS
regarding Babiak, Neumann and Hare’s [22]
study was perfect, (κ=1, p<.005). Cohen’s κ was
also run to determine if there was an agreement
between the two raters’ judgment on the quality
assessment of Board and Fritzon’s [28] study.
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
Although there was a good agreement, with κ
= .74, the result was not statistically significant,
(p>.005), meaning that the difference between
the observed and expected agreement could also
be zero. Therefore, this strong agreement might
be occurred simply by chance. However, this
non-significant result might be explained by the
fact that QATQS overall methodological rating
leads to only eight sections and thus an inter-rater
agreement by chance is likely. Finally, a kappa
statistic was also calculated to estimate the level
of agreement between the two raters’ judgment
on assessing the quality of the two case studies
with the use of JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist.
For the study of Babiak [46], a good agreement,
(κ=.69, p<.005), on JBI quality assessment tool
was found. A statistically significant Cohen’s κ
of 0.71 indicating also a strong agreement was
found for the JBI quality assessment tool with
regards to Boddy’s [47] study.
Last but not least, by designing a search strategy
that included not only electronic searches, but
also hand searching and searching of reference
lists of included papers, the author is confident
that all relevant studies were included in this
systematic review. Thus, any conclusion arising
from this review is based on synthesis of all
available evidence in this area of interest which
was one of the basic aims of this review.
Generalizability of the Review’s Results
The studies included in this review were limited
in number and due to their diversity across their
design, sample size, participants’ characteristics,
and methods of assessing psychopathy; it is
difficult to synthesize the evidence in order
to draw generalized conclusions with strong
confidence about the corporate world by using
only a summary of data reported in these four
studies.
Theoretical and Practical Implications
This review’s findings support the idea that
personality disorders should be perceived
as a continuum dimension of traits being
distributed even in a completely functional
and successful population sample rather than
a categorical concept that defines only some
mentally disordered individuals. Thus, an
important theoretical implication of these
findings is related to the psycho-social approach
of personality disorders rather than to a “pure”
psychiatric one that supports mainly the medical
Review
model of disease. However, it is important to
be noted that the presence of these sub-clinical
psychopathic traits in the corporate world should
not be considered as “equal” with the presence
of an antisocial personality disorder diagnosis.
As it was found, corporate psychopaths display
only in some degree some specific psychopathic
behaviors (e.g. manipulation, pathological lying,
superficial charm), without being identified
with other features such as impulsivity, physical
aggression, compulsiveness and criminality.
In addition, not only corporate psychopaths
do not meet all the diagnostic criteria for such
a diagnosis, but also the expression of their
psychopathic behavior is mainly restricted on
the business setting [53]. Therefore, the quality,
quantity and frequency of their “symptoms”
are completely different compared to those
observed in imprisoned population and mentally
disordered individuals [28].
Another theoretical implication of this review’s
findings is related to the concept of social
constructivism and specifically to the way in
which western culture constructs the idea of
a “leader”. Some of the findings presented in
this review suggested that despite their low
productivity, poor management and leadership
skills, and inability to inspire and motivate
others, corporate psychopaths with leadership
positions were seen as smart, ambitious, good
strategic thinkers and good communicators.
This conflicting idea about psychopathic leaders
may reflect western societies’ expectation of
possessing a specific group of traits that should
characterize leaders. In this sense, a particular
construct such as psychopathic leadership may
be attributed with features (e.g. good strategic
thinking and good communication skills) which
in some way “counteract” the presence of the
negative ones. In this way, corporate psychopaths
may adopt a specific leadership role characterized
mainly by manipulative skills, persuasiveness and
pathological lying which are often perceived as
charisma, and this role may be a form of the
society’s self-fulfilling prophecy about how
leaders should be in general [53].
Added to this, all studies included in this review
had as samples only male participants and thus the
association between how gender is constructed
by western culture in relation to the psychopathic
traits being present in high-ranking executives
has also an important theoretical implication
for qualitative research. Specifically, in many
qualitative studies (e.g.[63]) it was shown that
the main elements of the male identity are
660
Review
Georgios Kountouras
strength, ambition, and command, which are
usually perceived with a positive meaning by
the male population. Although dominance and
aggression have found to be of less importance
with regards to masculinity, they are often
described by males as “desirable” traits because
they reflect a sense of power and control rather
than weakness [63]. Considering this evidence,
it can be argued that psychopathic leadership
may be a socially constructed dimension that
reflects the “true male” that should be bold,
ambitious, dominant and competitive, without
radical emotional changes that could affect
his mood. Thus, a suitable profession for this
“true male” may be found within the corporate
world. In this way, the sub-clinical psychopathic
behavior of some individuals with leadership
positions may be only a socially acceptable way
of being professionally successful as “true males”
in western and individualistically oriented
corporations.
Apart from that, many economists and financial
experts have tried to identify the causes of the
global financial crisis started few years ago.
The findings of this review may have a limited
power, but they may be an integral part of the
full answer that these experts are trying to find.
Due to the fact that corporate psychopaths
manage to rise quickly at the highest positions
of an organization and considering that their
willingness for power, money and prestige is
above company’s interests, an organization
that has psychopathic individuals in leadership
positions is likely to suffer a collapse from within
[53]. An organizational toxic environment being
mainly controlled by psychopathic high-ranking
executives who’s their personal greed and
egocentric personality often leads to corporate
frauds and unethical business practices may be
the reason of how many big companies finally
collapsed despite their long lasting history and
reputation [53]. However, the theory which
supports that there is an association between
the global financial crisis and psychopathic
leadership is far more complicated than this
simple description provided above as it takes into
considering some other factors too (e.g. political
decisions, government plans, unorthodox
operation of financial organizations and
misbehavior of the stock market). Thus, a further
discussion would be a whole paper of its own.
Finally, the most important practical implication
of this review’s findings has to do with
professionals such as organizational psychologists
working in the Human Resources Department of
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Neuropsychiatry (London) (2017) 7(5)
most companies. These professionals should have
a greater role within the company they work for by
screening all the potential leadership candidates
for psychopathy in order to contribute actively
on the development of a better organizational
environment. In conclusion, this review’s
findings create awareness among organizational
managers and mental health professionals that
psychopathic high-ranking individuals exist in
the business world and thus an extra caution
should be taken during the selection of potential
employees.
Suggestions for Future Research
First of all, further research in this area of
interest would have great benefits from the use
of an instrument specifically designed to measure
psychopathy in business settings. Although
the traditional reliable and valid measures of
psychopathy such as the PCL-R and PCL-SV
are able to identify the full range of psychopathic
behaviors, they are not business-friendly and
thus many companies do not include them
in the overall assessment of their personnel.
Therefore, an instrument that would be easy
on its administration and written in a simple,
non-clinical business-friendly language would
be necessary for future studies conducted on this
field [64]. In addition, it should not include items
with stigmatizing effect for the business world,
have good face validity, and most importantly it
should be capable of collecting data not only for
measuring psychopathy, but also for evaluating
the specific leadership style associated with it.
Secondly, future studies on psychopathic
leadership should have ideally a longitudinal
methodological design in order to investigate if
specific psychopathic traits are responsible for
leadership development. A longitudinal design
eliminates the possibility of reverse causality and
it is suitable for establishing a causal relationship
between two factors. However, it would be
difficult for future researchers to recruit a large
number of participants before their adulthood
in order to observe through multiple assessments
of their personality how some specific traits that
remain stable over a long period of time may be
also responsible for the selection of a particular
career pathway that involves leadership roles. For
this future research project, an interdisciplinary
team consisted of developmental and work
psychologists, personality experts, independent
statisticians, educators, and career advisors would
be necessary in order to overcome successfully
the above-mentioned difficulties.
Is there any Association between Psychopathy and Leadership in Business Settings?
Thirdly, future researchers should focus not only
on the “dark” impact of psychopathic leadership
on organizations, but also on the “bright” side
of it. An unbiased and objective look into the
aspects of psychopathic leadership would help
them understand how psychopathic highranking executives think, make decisions, act
and run an organization. Assessments of their
cognitive functioning and EQ skills would be
beneficial for comparisons purposes with other
high-ranking executives without psychopathic
traits. By gaining a further insight into the “nature”
of psychopathic leaders, future researchers would
be able to detect them more easily and prevent any
destructive consequence of their leadership style.
Added to this, future neuro-imaging studies
will be able to provide further evidence
regarding the neurobiology of psychopathy. By
studying the brains of a fully functional and
“successful” group of individuals identified with
psychopathic traits and comparing them with
those of imprisoned and mentally disordered
populations, researchers will be able to observe
not only the neuro-physiological differences
and/or similarities between them, but also
to conclude if there are distinct sub-types of
psychopathy being responsible for a particular
pattern of behavior. In addition, comparisons
with a control group consisted of “healthy”
individuals would be necessary in this type of
research in order to be investigated if there is any
abnormality in specific brain regions (e.g. limbic
system, prefrontal cortex) that are activated
during cognitive and emotional processes.
These inter-group comparisons would also help
scientists understand if psychopathic leadership
is a socially constructed term that reflects a
culturally-based idea of how leaders should be or
if it has neurobiological origins too.
Lastly, future studies that will investigate some
other sub-clinical traits of different personality
disorders including the narcissist and the
obsessive-compulsive one would be certainly
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