Organizational Behavior: Psychopaths - Essay Example

? Organizational behavior Organizational Behavior: Psychopaths Organizational behavior is the scientific study and evaluation of the various social, cultural, and psychological aspects of the human population within a given social setting. It is an emerging discipline in the field of management sciences. Organizational behavior is a multi-discipline academic subject, which draws its principles and concepts from other various and requisite management subjects. These other subjects include sociology, anthropology, and psychology. All the three major independent disciplines that make up organization behavior contribute to the aspects of OB in one way or another. Ronson (2011,p.150) says that organizational behavior is instrumental to any individual or group of individuals whose responsibilities include dealing with the human resources of any firm of organization. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the underlying principles is essential to any manager, leader, or employee within an integrated social setting. Having developed a graphical understanding of organizational behavior, we can define it from the technical point of view. In this regard, organizational behavior can be termed as the systematic evaluation of people and the application of the ideal knowledge concerning individuals to describe the actual conducts of individuals within a work place. Since employees’ makeup in terms of social, psychological, and philosophical aspects has, a direct impact to the environment he/she operates in, it would be rational to understand the factors that determine the different situational mode of conducts observed in humans. Therefore, organizational behavior provides an in-depth understanding of this concept of production. In our context, we are going to articulate our understanding on organizational behavior into evaluating a management case associated with individual personality within a working environment. It is undeniable that an individual’s has a direct impact on his/her economic and professional characters and behaviors. Therefore, in trying to understand the influence presented by personality and social issues to an individual’s conduct at the work place, we will place this matter into the context of organizational behavior. Before we start discussing this subject, it is requisite that we start by acknowledging that people within the same social setting differs from each other in one way or another. This difference defines the prevalent behavioral conduct observed of an individual during the performance of his/her social and economical obligations. Cookie and Adelle (2010 P.271) asserts that these differences usually come because of variation in personality traits and cultural values of the individuals. Different employees display different levels of duty performance at their workplaces. Some are more competent while other affects an organization’s production in a negative manner. Boddy (2011p.97) argues that these differences in employees’ output can be attributed to aspect like personality content of an individual. Some employees are competent because their personality structure allows them to articulate their technical skills with the other factors of production. On the other hand, other employees display incompetence and unprofessionalism because they lack coherent ability to merge harmoniously their personality makeup with the other essential factors of production. Now, it is pre-requisite that we recognize the influence posed by personality traits on an individual’s behavioral style. This will help us in tackling the underlying issue in this assignment, which deals with psychopaths at workplaces. Hare (1993 p.230) says that a psychopath is an individual with a personality trait characterized by a non-remorseful, passive, selfish, deceptiveness and an emotionless state of behavioral conduct. Psychopaths sometimes depict some elements of impulsiveness, fearlessness, and aggression among other weird personality traits. In depth, psychopaths have been categorized into four distinct sub groups based on the degree of the typical personality traits. According to Arlette and Hugues (2009 P.238), the first group is the primary psychopaths. Primary psychopaths are usually unresponsive to disapprovals. Primary psychopaths mostly inhibit their antisocial impulses in their bid to conceal their inability to experience genuine emotions. The second group comprises of secondary psychopaths who are typically known to be risk-takers. They are known to experiment on different situations with the aim of fulfilling their personal interests. They are described as daring and adventurers individuals who like playing by their own rules. The third category is the distempered psychopaths, who are characterized by a desires-craving nature. They are usually ready to take risks in an effort of striving to fulfill their desires. Lastly are the charismatic psychopaths who possess a great deal of pretence in a charming and attractive nature. They are talented in talking a have a virtue in persuading and manipulating others. They are usually known to employ their persuasive and manipulating abilities to gain self-advantages. Having developed a thorough understanding of these kinds of individuals, we can figure out their potential behavior patter within a business setting. Ronson (2011,p.120) supports that the fact that psychopaths are individuals within the society and make a substantial percentage of the population within any given social setting. They are not sidelined persons but are integrates into social structures among the non-psychopathic members of the society. It is their behavioral conduct, which highlights the difference between them and other people in reference to personality traits. In the business arena, psychopaths occupy varying levels of business structure hierarchy. They are found in subordinate positions as well as senior management positions within a company. With consideration to their personality make up, these individuals are more likely to influence the position they hold in a business entity in one way or another. In this regard, recent research findings would like to associate psychopathic personality with global recession. The research results substantiate the role played by psychopath personality in causing global recession. According to Cookie and Adelle (2010 P.89), in the business context, the most commonly encountered category of psychopaths is the charismatic psychopaths. These psychopaths are usually applying their exclusive personality traits in manipulating others and structuring an organizations business policies and practices to suit their personal interests. In the case where these individuals are placed in decision making positions within business organizations, the impact of their personality will be visible. Given the fact that psychopaths are desire-craving individuals with the inability to show remorse and to display emotions, they are more likely to restructure a company’s operating principles for their own selfish interests. Since these individuals are characterized by personality traits like lack of empathy, deceitfulness, manipulative and egocentric behavior, their position in the boardrooms is usually felt. They are known to lack the ability to display genuine emotions but on the other hand, they are emotionally intelligent in developing situations that fulfill their self-interests. In addition, psychopaths in boardrooms will depict their typical nature of poor behavior control and impulsiveness, especially during decision-making processes. In this regard, psychopaths are not professionally suitable to hold senior positions within the major economic pillars of society. In case they are awarded an opportunity to act as the major stakeholders in economic decisions, they are a threat since they will take advantage of opportunity in pursuing their selfish personal interests. In the Clive Bobby, the researchers in social sciences highlights the potential threats and corporate aspects associated with the psychopaths in the society. Bobby asserts that there are roughly 1% of psychopathic individuals within any given social setting. These individuals posses talent in their social skills, and will pursue their interests in any manner. Therefore, they are more likely to be spotted in affluent positions in the society. Ronson (2011,p.39) acknowledge the fact that these individuals are known to make disastrous managers of community resources at the local level. In case these characters gets an opportunity to conduct their businesses at national levels of economic structures, they will cause more harm that never before. Among the numerous researches conducted on the roles of psychopaths in social and economic aspects, results shows that psychopaths presents a recipe for social and corporate disaster. These individuals will manipulate situations for their own benefit, hence subjecting the society to unprecedented economic predicaments. The findings highlights that the underlying economic problems currently experienced in western nations like Greece and Italy resulted from psychopathic practices. The sad thing is that the same psychopaths who engineered the financial crisis are the one trusted by the ruling authorities to provide direction regarding the appropriate course of action to these situations. Arlette and Hugues (2009 P.46), highlights that in the recent history of corporate governance, societies have been deceived by the looks of these emotionally intelligent individuals who prey for economic opportunities to enrich themselves. These psychopathic individuals are charmingly progressive in their efforts of striving to attain higher management positions in the major economic pillars. Therefore, the corporate sector has been filled by these vices of personality traits who are only interested in selfish interests. In management decision making, these people will degrade the financial strength of institutions under their leadership. As a result, the resources meant to improve the welfare of stakeholders will end up in pockets of these un-empathic individuals. Therefore, corporate psychopaths are actively looking for chances to fulfill their desires from financially successful social and national resource centers. If these individuals are integrated into the major economic positions at the social or national levels, they will cause more harm than repairs to economic cracks in the global societies. As a result, more cases of economic recessions will be the trend in the global economic platform. In our context, corporate psychopaths have been understood as psychopaths operating within the economic and finance pillars of society. Hare & Babiak (2007 p.55) asserts that due to their charming nature, these individuals hold varying positions from subordinates to the chief executive managers. Therefore, their behavioral conduct has to be evaluated and their degree of influence appraised to determine the role they play in the corporate ladders. Firstly, we will account for the technical application of psychopathic traits in social relations. Psychopaths, especially those belonging to the charismatic category are known to be emotionally smart, are capable of reading other people’s weaknesses, and use it to their own advantage. Therefore, it is conceptual to place position ourselves into a psychopath’s shoes and evaluate the perception psychopaths have on other people within the same business society. This evaluative exercise of psychopaths in their occupational contexts will enable us to develop a more coherent comprehension of psychopathic trick, hence we can account for the impact of psychopaths in the social corporate environment. Arlette and Hugues (2009P.65) say that in a business setting, psychopaths are continually looking for avenues to pursue their interests. The most typical effort used by psychopaths is manipulation and pursuance. Therefore, psychopaths will always look out for vulnerable personnel to use as links to achieving their desires. If these psychopathic individuals are placed at the lower ranks of an organization, they will still want to respond to their personality needs, which are mostly made up of personal interests. In this regard, these individuals may not target the high-ranking officials, but may manipulate unsuspecting subordinates who might help them get to the top managers. For example, in a business organization administrative structure, middle level managers have quite a great access to company’s information and materials. This information held by the managers may prove useful to a psychopath in the course of executing his/her fantasies. As a result, they will find a way of influencing these personnel to acquaint them with some requisite materials and information in his personal duty path. Therefore, psychopaths within a business setting will be looking for personnel whom he/she perceives to have some utility resources at their disposal. Having developed gist on the suitable targets for psychopaths, we might want to ask ourselves, how do psychopaths manipulate people within an organization? The answer is illustrated explicitly in the succeeding paragraph. Within their work places, psychopaths perceive an organization though it is a theater stage, upon which they are playing scenes. They would view themselves as both the directors, actors and producers of the scenes they act in their lives. Therefore, this perception makes them belief in the notion that they are the designers and implementers of the roles they play in the organizations. In this case, they tend to view other personnel as just scene subordinates supporting them in the production of their theatric acts. Therefore, psychopaths will begin by establishing fake bonds with the targeted members of an organization. The psychopaths will employ their emotional intelligence in gaining trust from those targeted individuals who they perceive as having the resources and information they need to execute their interests. According to Hare & Babiak (2007 p.130) these individuals always dispense or even sacrifice the targets after they have fulfilled their intentions. According to Arlette and Hugues (2009P.53), the other way that the psychopath may use to gain information through manipulation is by approaching the other personnel who are subordinate to his/her, and manipulate or even coerce them to look for information concerning the subject interest of their pursuit. The psychopath may also develop a close relationship with other members of an organization like the security, the secretaries, and other subordinates who normally lack substantial attention from the member of the management structure. The psychopath will then systematically execute his/her desires trough the established bonds. Given the fact that the formal leaders are usually trusted with leading an organization, these subordinate leaders are the ones carrying out day-to-day technical and professional duties within the organization. Therefore, manipulation of these individuals by the psychopaths will facilitate the realization of the psychopaths’ goals effectively. Cookie and Adelle (2010P.49) says that through their emotional intelligence, these psychopathic individuals within an organization can sometimes gang up to for a strong group of goals driven monsters. Operating as a group can lead to adverse economical impacts. In addition, psychopaths will combine the desire-craving nature with other personality traits like the lack of empathy and emotionless in furthering their cannibal practices. This will affect an organization even more. This comprehensive evaluation of psychopathic personality at work helps us to account for the claims that psychopaths are responsible for any economic predicament and even the global recession. Having understood the skills and techniques employed by psychopaths in striving to achieve their selfish objectives, it can be logically concluded that corporate psychopaths pose a great danger to the economic systems of a society or even of the nation in general. References Arlette, I. & Hugues H 2009, The Psychopath: Theory, Research, and Practice, Routledge: London. Boddy,C 2011, Corporate Psychopaths: Organizational Destroyers. Palgrave Macmillan. Cooke, D.J. & Adelle, E. F 2010, Psychopathy: theory, research, and implications for society, Springer: New York. Hare.R 1993, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Simon & Schuster. Hare.R., &Babiak.P 2007, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. Harper Collins. Ronson. J 2011, The Psychopath Test. Picador. Read More