T
TALKING HEADS
How ‘dark personalities’ affect your culture
D
Birgit Schyns
HR practices might
help to mitigate
against ‘dark-triad
behaviours’ and
destructive leadership.
60 // Future Talent
ark personalities are always
present in the workplace,
whether we realise it or not.
By ‘dark personalities’ we
tend to mean those who embody the
‘d a r k t r i a d ’ of n a rc i s s i s m ,
Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In
this context, we are referring not to
personality disorders but to traits that
are normally distributed within the
population; everyone has them to a
greater or lesser degree.
So, how can you spot a colleague with
a ‘dark personality’? While narcissism,
Machiavellianism and psychopathy differ
in many aspects, they share a common
characteristic: putting oneself first at the
expense of others. Typically, narcissists
have an excessive belief in themselves
and their skills (even in the face of
evidence to the contrary), Machiavellians
manipulate others to achieve their own
goals, and psychopaths are callous
and impulsive.
Books such as Robert Sutton’s
The No Asshole Rule, and Snakes in Suits
by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, point
to the risks organisations take when
hiring psychopaths; the same is likely
to be true of those with other dark traits.
Destructive leadership can have a big
impact on organisational culture.
Within the workplace, you may notice
that narcissists strive for leadership
positions because they enjoy the
accompanying status; psychopaths also
relish power, which they can use to harm
others. Machiavellians may be happy to
remain in the background — as long as
they are able to ‘pull the strings’.
As leaders , those wi th dark
personalities can influence the culture
of a team or an entire organisation,
causing direct harm through their
mistreatment of others, while developing
an environment of fear. In positions of
authority, they may also make unethical
behaviour appear acceptable, creating
followers and encouraging others to
imitate their ways.
When HR does not intervene to stop
this, it simply becomes the norm, which
is why NEOMA is conducting research
into HR practices that might help to
mitigate against ‘dark-triad behaviours’
and destructive leadership.
This includes taking a critical look
at HR practices that might be ‘double-
edged swords’. For example, a strong
“As leaders,
those with dark
personalities
can influence
the culture of a
team or an entire
organisation”
emphasis on individual performance
might encourage excessive rivalry
between employees, fuelling exploitation
and abuse and creating a toxic culture
of competition.
While this research is still in progress,
it’s clear that we need to gain a clearer
understanding of how destructive
leaders and their leadership influence
organisational culture — and the role of
HR in addressing it.
This is vital in today’s volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous
environment; due to a lack of checks
and balances, change seems to create
a context that is particularly conducive
to destructive leader behaviour.
Birgit Schyns is professor in organisational
behaviour at NEOMA Business School.