I think we’d all agree that entrepreneurialism is good for economic dynamism. Now a kiddie at the UNSW has taken that one step further. From the Herald Sun:
…new research from the Australian School of Business shows despite their bad reputation, psychopaths can make good bosses, particularly if it’s their own company they’re running.
PhD student Benjamin Walker and Business Psychology professor Chris Jackson conducted three experiments using more than 600 people from the general population. They found that people with psychopathic traits can make great entrepreneurs because they are not afraid to fail or make bold and risky decisions.
“We found that people that had a high risk-taking score had high psychopathic tendency and also entrepreneurial tendencies,” Mr Walker said.
“The underlying qualities are not negative per se, they are neutral and can lead to positive or negative things.”
The researchers predicted that just as psychopaths in prison have a higher chance of reoffending because they aren’t put off by punishment, entrepreneurs with the same tendencies can bounce back from failures.
With due regard to this fine young gent, just because a witch burns and so does wood which also floats in water like a duck leading to the conclusion that any woman heavier than a duck is a witch, is no real basis for an argument.
In short, correlation is not causation and anyone familiar with the work of Paul Babiak, author of the must read work “Snakes in Suits”, can tell you that psychopaths are not good for a business or an economy, not at all:
Let’s say you’re about to hire somebody for a position in your company. Your corporation wants someone who’s fearless, charismatic, and full of new ideas. Candidate X is charming, smart, and has all the right answers to your questions. Problem solved, right? Maybe not.
We’d like to think that if we met someone who was completely without conscience — someone who was capable of doing anything at all if it served his or her purposes — we would recognize it. In popular culture, the image of the psychopath is of someone like Hannibal Lecter or the BTK Killer. But in reality, many psychopaths just want money, or power, or fame, or simply a nice car. Where do these psychopaths go? Often, it’s to the corporate world.
Researchers Paul Babiak and Robert Hare have long studied psychopaths. Hare, the author of Without Conscience, is a world-renowned expert on psychopathy, and Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist. Recently the two came together to study how psychopaths operate in corporations, and the results were surprising. They found that it’s exactly the modern, open, more flexible corporate world, in which high risks can equal high profits, that attracts psychopaths. They may enter as rising stars and corporate saviors, but all too soon they’re abusing the trust of colleagues, manipulating supervisors, and leaving the workplace in shambles.
Snakes in Suits is a compelling, frightening, and scientifically sound look at exactly how psychopaths work in the corporate environment: what kind of companies attract them, how they negotiate the hiring process, and how they function day by day. You’ll learn how they apply their “instinctive” manipulation techniques — assessing potential targets, controlling influential victims, and abandoning those no longer useful — to business processes such as hiring, political command and control, and executive succession, all while hiding within the corporate culture. It’s a must read for anyone in the business world, because whatever level you’re at, you’ll learn the subtle warning signs of psychopathic behavior and be able to protect yourself and your company — before it’s too late.
If you think you need a psychopath to boost your business then can I suggest a psychiatrist might be a better option?
