If your boss is a psychopath, how are you flourishing?

The term “psychopath” is often associated with serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. However, according to psychologists, a psychopath is just a personality trait. Each one of us falls along a scale between low to high levels of psychopathy.

In the workplace, most of us cannot stand the pressure of a rude, psychopathic boss. Researchers believed that our tolerance of varying abusive management styles largely correlates to our degree of psychopathy.

There are two types of psychopathy: primary and secondary. A person that has a high level of primary psychopathy is believed to lack empathy but is cool-headed and fearless. In contrast, a high level of secondary psychopathy is hot-headed and impulsive.

Studies showed that primary psychopaths enjoy an abusive boss. They felt less anger and showed more positive emotions under abusive management, compared to their colleagues. They also feel happier when imagining working under an abusive boss.

Secondary psychopaths, on the other hand, did not enjoy working under abusive management as much as the primary psychopaths. Though both psychopaths exhibit similar antisocial behaviour, secondary psychopaths are easily triggered. They cannot contain their anger when faced with an abusive boss.

In the end, abusive management will position psychopaths ahead compared to the rest of their colleagues. Abuse such as gossiping, not giving credit for work, invasion of privacy, and breaking promises can lead to a high turnover rate of employees but a high retention rate of primary psychopaths.

In the extremes, an abusive organization will ultimately reward and retain employees that perpetuate abusive cultures themselves, namely the primary psychopaths. Hence, without intervention from an early stage, the workforce could end up with just flourishing psychopaths.