Do Psychopaths Make Good Managers?

[Chen Cao]

Responding to the article published previously:

Posted on February 4, 2018

Unspoken truths of top-tier consulting: things every consultant knows, but no one says 

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Mental health issues are common

Consulting is a fast-paced, high-pressure environment and often you may find yourself running on little sleep. This can manifest in anything from imposter syndrome, to stress and anxiety, exhaustion, and depression. It’s rare to find a culture of speaking openly about mental health pressures, and people are unlikely to admit if they are personally struggling or have taken stress leave. To their credit, consulting firms openly advertise workplace counselling and support services – and ensure use of such services doesn’t impact career prospects and promotion decisions. However: a well-kept secret is that many people use accrued sick leave for taking a day off here and there for ‘personal’ or ‘mental health’ reasons: a day at a library or around the house days to recuperate or recharge. (A single day doesn’t require a doctor’s certificate!)

Here raises an interesting question that: do psychopaths make good managers? In the high finance dominant such as hedge fund, Vault recently posts a relevant study to state the NO answer , which synthesizes a research from academic professors that psychopathic traits (lack of empathy, lack of a conscience, enjoying the pain of others) and investing prowess have a negative correlation. What about in the consulting sector? What are the traits that could be concluded in the mental health issues? Do they vary across top-tier consulting firms? and how do they affect the client satisfaction experience over a project period? It is understood and very true that it is not to the general interest to openly discuss about personal struggling, but there is now a global campaign  by WHO recently to advocate the awareness on being of such disease in the workforce.

 

[Tom Spencer]

Hi Chen, 

Thanks for this post!

So, I understand your basic questions to be: are psychopathic traits and consulting success positively correlated?

Two sub-questions might be:

1. what traits do we consider to be "psychopathic"?
2. what do we mean by "consulting success"?

Here are some initial thoughts.  I hope others with more knowledge can correct or expand on these ideas.

Psychopathic traits

My impression is that "psychopathy" is an extreme form of what psychiatrists call anti-social personality disorder. 

Hervey Cleckley, who was an American psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of psychopathy, seems to have suggested psychopathy entails three main traits: 

1. Boldness. This trait would include high stress-tolerance, toleration of uncertainty, as well as high self-confidence and social assertiveness.
2. Disinhibition. This trait would include impulsive behaviour, and problems with planning and foresight.
3. Meanness. This trait would include lack of empathy for others, and defiance of authority.

Consulting Success

"Consulting success" we might broadly define as consistently satisfying supervisors and clients so that you get promoted towards partner level, and offered repeat business by clients.

Is there a correlation?

The Vault article you linked to suggested that corporate psychopaths tend to get promoted more often than their peers. If that's accurate, would the same correlation be likely to hold in consulting?

Well, looking at the three psychopathic traits identified above, my uninformed guess would be that trait #1 and #3 positively contribute towards success in consulting.  

Consulting projects involve solving problems that are too big, new, unstructured, or time sensitive for the client to deal with internally. Hence tolerance of uncertainty (trait #1) would seem to be useful in this environment. Consulting projects also involve working on a team where you have to present yourself in the best possible light, and make sure you don't get exploited or worked to the bone by your manager or colleagues. Some amount of disagreeableness (trait #3) would therefore seem useful in protecting your own position relative to the group.

Having said that, I doubt that impulsivity (trait #2) is a predictor of consulting success.  The consultants I know tend to have a planned, methodical, and structured approach to their work.

I would love to hear other people's ideas on this topic.