Dr Jonathan Iliff is a British neuroscientist, psychiatrist, mental health researcher and medical doctor based at University College London. He is also a public speaker, and he gave one of his popular talks, “The Psychology of Psychopaths” all over the UK this autumn. In this talk, Dr Iliff shared his views about the nature of psychopaths based on his experience and knowledge of treating patients with psychopathic traits.
Doctor Iliff agreed to speak to “Kommersant UK” about this topic more widely. He explained the connection between business and psychopathy, how to understand that your supervisor or colleague may be a potential psychopath, and what would be the optimal way to behave with them.
Dr Iliff, what really is a psychopath – I mean, what is the main difference between a psychopath and just being mean and nasty? Some people have a tendency to call people with uncontrollable anger psychopaths but is it only about this?
It is not. Psychopathy is very different to being prone to anger or meanness, it is a much broader set of behaviours, particularly impulsiveness, lack of compassion and narcissism. Anger may or may not be a feature. However, psychopaths appear more prone to instrumental aggression; that is using aggression to deliberately gain what they want.
How many psychopaths are living in our world?
People with psychopathy in general are about 1% of our population, and out of every two psychopaths are males. What it means in concrete terms is that, for example, in the UK there are around 600,000 psychopaths (given the fact that we have a population of 68 million people here). And it is quite understandable why more of them are men; they have a higher level of testosterone and other androgens which drive specific sorts of behaviours such as aggression, dominance and leadership positions. But there is also another reason; it is normal for women to be less aggressive and less violent, therefore fewer of them are identified as psychopaths.
What kind of profession is a psychopath likely to choose, if it is possible to say?
There are a number of professions which are estimated to have a relatively higher number of psychopaths; CEOs, journalists, surgeons and policemen. Equally, there are many psychopathic therapists and doctors as well. There is a direct association between business success and psychopathy, and, in particular, the emergence of a psychopath’s wish to become a leader...
What exactly does this mean? Can we say, for instance, that a lot of psychopaths are in leading positions in business?
In general in management and leadership roles there are a high number of people with psychopathic tendencies because they benefit from aspects of psychopathy such as resilience, willingness to take risks, social dominance and charisma. These traits, in the right settings, let them do things effectively, so leadership and management roles appeal to the grandiosity and narcissism of psychopaths.
In your opinion, would a psychopath in the role of CEO bring their company benefits or be harmful?
Oh, this is a tricky question. It’s not just black and white. I can certainly say that people in top management, including CEOs, often have many psychopathic traits.
In some ways we want leaders with psychopathic traits such as charisma, strength, having power over people, being able to move, organise and instruct staff as a true transformational leader. We want CEOs to be persuasive and resilient when markets go up and down. They need to take the right risks, and they mustn’t be shy. But we also want our managers to be effective with people. And the risk is that such characteristics are dangerous and they can do damage to companies rather than benefiting them. So, on the one hand, we want leaders to have these traits, and on the other, we don't. Psychopaths can bring both benefits and harm at the same time.
So it seems like having a psychopath as a boss is quite problematic...
The bad thing is that if you struggle with empathy, you struggle to cooperate with people and manage teams. The higher you go as a boss, the more you need to manage people and understand their needs. A psychopath can dominate people excessively and may demoralise them, pushing them to leave the company. So we need to find a balance and understand what might be a challenge for someone with strong psychopathic traits.
There are plenty of examples of psychopaths who have done great harm to companies, for example, Kenneth Lay, CEO of the American company Enron. 20 years ago it was one of the largest companies in the world. He behaved very badly as a CEO, falsified documents and led the company to catastrophic financial loss, just to enrich himself.
Even when he ended up in jail, after being released he started a new company in the energy sector, the same sector in which he had recently failed so comprehensively. So it seems he had not learned anything at all from being in jail and from being one of the main reasons for the financial bankruptcy of Enron. As a person he was very charismatic, he was a fan of extreme sports, and he was in constant need of stimulation and high adrenaline.
If a lot of psychopaths can be found among CEOs, so does this mean that people with psychopathic personalities like to lead others? Does this bring them a form of pleasure?
It is worth saying that enjoying leading other people is not an actual feature of psychopathy. It is important to understand that there are plenty of psychopaths who are terrible leaders and don't really want to lead anyone. They take advantage of people in different ways, so enjoying leadership is not a fundamental element of psychopathy. But narcissism and grandiosity are. And when people are in leadership positions, it means they are in positions where they are seen to be bigger and more important than others, and all of this definitely appeals to those with psychopathic traits. An excellent example of a famous psychopath who clearly tremendously enjoyed being in a leadership role is the Italian dictator Mussolini. He was incredibly narcissistic, and, by the way, he was the first person to take a selfie. He travelled all around Italy with a cameraman, taking pictures of him and generally showing off. But again, it is important to say that not all psychopaths want to lead and lots of them never even get close to leadership roles.
I'd also like to mention one interesting study which searched for psychopathy in the business/CEO community, which used a checklist to calculate an average ‘psychopathy score’ among CEOs. And this score was higher than for the inmates of maximum security prisons! Think about that for a second.
If you bring 100 chief executives and 100 of the most violent criminals, including murderers and rapists, often repeat offenders, the CEOs' PCL (Psychopathy Check List) rating was higher, and this is terrifying and alarming...
Yes, this is quite a surprising result. But how can we be sure it’s accurate?
These results are really extreme, but it is worth saying that this was an isolated study and these results have not been replicated. So we are not sure if they are really meaningful and valid, as we haven't seen the same effect again, which we scientists all like to do to be sure that the findings are real. Therefore, we should be careful not to make too much out of just one study, especially one where the methodology has many limitations. But it does remind us that psychopaths are part of our world, and we should always remember that...
Do you think that psychopathy is a danger for the psychopaths themselves, or is the danger of harm predominantly for others?
This is a very good question. Most of my patients with psychopathy do not benefit from this condition at all. Primarily, these people struggle with relationships, they don't have anyone to support them, they find it hard or impossible to form relationships. What’s more, they are more likely to end up in jail for violent crimes or other offences.
Another thing is that as they are narcissistic, they are likely to end up with bad debts. They can be over-optimistic about their capabilities, for example when they are doing extreme sports, this can push them to take excessive risks and have accidents, (as did Kenneth Lay, who I've mentioned before). This is because sometimes they think they can do things but they actually can't. Also, they can take risks in financial markets and fail, losing huge amounts of money without being able to pay it off.
Another good example of a ‘bad psychopathic CEO’ is the American financier and fraudster Bernie Madoff. He invested people's money, it didn't go well and rather than admit the losses, he just found more investors to fill the financial gaps with more money. It became the largest Ponzi scheme (a form of fraud) in history. His psychopathic narcissism led him to this.
Can we say that most psychopaths are used to being risk-takers, for example, in business and management activities? And, perhaps, this strong desire to take big risks leads them (as it did for Bernie Madoff), to commit fraud?
They definitely are risk-takers. And there are two things I'd like to clarify. The first is that narcissists are led by an unrealistic belief in their own capabilities. Whatever they’re doing, they think ‘I can do this’. They take risks and think everything will turn out well. And secondly, the part of a psychopath's brain which regulates dopamine is wired differently, (the reward circuitry, including the striatum) making them more prone to wanting and desiring things. So they think they are likely to win when they play, and they are also more prone going after things they want, so they are willing to take a risk.
There was one study in 2019, where around 100 narcissistic and psychopathic CEOs were examined, and in the end, results showed that basically these people just take bigger risky bets, and while they don't benefit much from doing so, and, on balance, they don’t lose very much either. Because they take bigger risks, they sometimes make bigger wins, but also, sometimes they make much bigger failures as well.
What kind of ‘reg flags’ in someone’s behaviour can help us to realise that they are most likely a psychopath? For example, if your own boss behaves like this...
We diagnose people as psychopaths after spending a lot of time with them. This decision should be made by not just one specialist because it is necessary to have a look at the person from many different angles. In clinical conditions, we devote considerable time to this and the main method we use is the PCL.
So we should be very careful about accusing people (our bosses or whoever it may be) of being a psychopath, without sufficient evidence, because this is a serious accusation to make. Of course, there are certain things we can watch out for. Some signs may be; if they are very-very cold-hearted, unempathetic to the needs of people around them, impulsive, to take bigger risks than others, or they have a superficial charm that others find appealing.
Is it right that a lack of empathy also allows a psychopath CEO to fire people more easily? For example, when a boss with psychopathic traits is dealing with a situation where it is necessary to fire a single mother with two kids, they may be able to do this easily, without any thinking or reflection, could this also be a clear sign of psychopathic behaviour?
Alone, it is not a clear sign that the boss is a psychopath. But as part of a pattern of behaviour and other signs and symptoms, it may well be.
Actually, if people want to understand if their bosses are psychopaths, the key thing is to observe them over a period of time, for months and years. To understand how their bosses behave, both with them and with everyone else (friends, colleagues, people from other departments etc). If they behave roughly the same with everyone, that's a really strong sign that the person is very likely to have psychopathic traits.
Well, let's say I've found all the alarming red flags which you've mentioned in my supervisor's behaviour, so it’s very likely they are a psychopath. What should I do in this case? Run away?
Is your boss a psychopath? Well, then go to LinkedIn and find a new job!
To be serious, I'd recommend some general things you can do in this situation which are applicable to all settings, no matter where you are based, in an office, clinic or anywhere else.
The first thing is to create a distance between yourself and them. This is really important because proximity is fuel for the fire. Sometimes, when distancing is not possible to do, then it may even make sense to separate yourself from them completely by searching for another job elsewhere, for example.
Another thing to do is cross-examine the person you suspect of being a psychopath. We've already talked about this before; just ask the opinions of the other people around you. This may be really helpful and useful, as when others think the same as you do, then you might be able to make some changes. Maybe a decision can be made on whether this person should stay in your team. It is often a very small minority of individuals, around 1% of the office population, who perpetrate aggression and make all the trouble. Similarly, a few bad apples cause a great many issues in corporate environments, and when they are removed this has great benefits for business.
What if it is not possible for me to leave work, or my efforts of cross-examining the person have failed, so that, sadly, I have no other option but to work closely with them. What would be a good behavioural tactic with a psychopathic person (for instance, when it is your boss or colleague)?
In that case, I would recommend using highly boundaried behaviour. It would be helpful to minimise intimacy and avoid making things personal.
