Psychopathic leadership a case study of a corporate psychopath CEO

This longitudinal case study reports on a charity in the UK which gained a new CEO who was reported by two middle managers who worked in the charity, to embody (respectively) all or most of the ten characteristics within a measure of corporate psychopathy. The leadership of this CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score was reported to be so poor that the organisation was described as being one without leadership and as a lost organisation with no direction. This paper outlines the resultant characteristics of the ensuing aimlessness and lack of drive of the organisation involved. Comparisons are made to a previous CEO in the same organisation, who was reportedly an authentic, effective and transformational leader. Outcomes under the CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score were related to bullying, staff withdrawal and turnover as effective employees stayed away from and/or left the organisation. Outcomes also included a marked organisational decline in terms of revenue, employee commitment, creativity and organisational innovativeness. The paper makes a contribution to both leadership and to corporate psychopathy research as it appears to be the first reported study of a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score

Women convicted for violent offenses: Adverse childhood experiences, low level of education and poor mental health

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In past years, the female offender population has grown, leading to an increased interest in the characteristics of female offenders. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of female violent offending in a Swiss offender population and to compare possible socio-demographic and offense-related gender differences.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Descriptive and bivariate logistic regression analyses were performed for a representative sample of N = 203 violent offenders convicted in Zurich, Switzerland.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>7.9% (N = 16) of the sample were female. Significant gender differences were found: Female offenders were more likely to be married, less educated, to have suffered from adverse childhood experiences and to be in poor mental health. Female violent offending was less heterogeneous than male violent offending, in fact there were only three types of violent offenses females were convicted for in our sample: One third were convicted of murder, one third for arson and only one woman was convicted of a sex offense.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results of our study point toward a gender-specific theory of female offending, as well as toward the importance of developing models for explaining female criminal behavior, which need to be implemented in treatment plans and intervention strategies regarding female offenders.</p

Employee Well-Being Under Corporate Psychopath Leaders

This chapter reports on twenty-one in-depth interviews in the UK and USA with corporateemployees who were currently working or had previously worked with a toxic leader in theform of a corporate psychopath. This is thus a chapter that is concerned with the impact onwell-being of working with a corporate psychopath. Corporate psychopathy was definedusing a measure of psychopathy involving proto-typical characteristics such as lying,cheating, egocentricity, emotional unresponsiveness and grandiosity. A contribution of thechapter is that it answers the call for research which links the destructive leadership literaturewith employee well-being. Research participants in both countries reported that their wellbeing was affected by psychopathic leadership, with reports of stress-related illnesses anddepression, including suicidal thoughts. The chapter concludes that corporate psychopaths, inboth the UK and USA, appear to have a similar protocol for achieving their objectives andachieve similar results. This protocol involves using loud, regular, public bullying combinedwith threats of violence to create a fearful, cowed and compliant workforce who can the moreeasily be manipulated and controlled by the abusive corporate psychopath. Researchparticipants in both the USA and UK suffered from severely reduced well-being because ofthis common experience