Corporate Wars: psychopaths vs. pedants

Recently an anonymous survey of NHS Chief Executives was published in the Health Service Journal reporting that 43% of them plan to leave their jobs because of the bullying epidemic in the NHS. Even at these dizzy managerial heights, this survey had to be anonymous because talking about bullying looks from a distance just like career suicide, particularly when you're having a pop at other managers.  In this age of institutional collapse, leadership on the issue of bullying, probably the most important management issue of our time, has gone AWOL. One possible explanation is the presence of Corporate Psychopaths in our workplaces, leaders who call themselves Leaders with a straight face and no irony. Psychopathy involves a whole range of unwholesome characteristics such as superficial charm, lying, manipulation and narcissism oooooh, and taking credit for other peoples' ideas and work. Stop hiding behind your hands, they can still see you and they still don't give a bugger what you think, they're psychopaths silly. The reason why we need to care deeply about the mental health of our managers is that when a corporate psychopath is in charge, workplaces develop a culture of bullying like a Petri dish on a radiator. Although only 1% of the population lives with psychopathy, research now indicates about 30% of workplace bullying is attributed to the presence of corporate psychopaths. A sick manager will have a disastrous impact on teams, working conditions and people’s sense of trust and safety at work. Admittedly this still leaves a fair spattering of managers who aren’t actually psychopaths, just ordinary faulty individuals who face choices about which management church they go to. Given the high risk of bullying taking over work in a recession, I’d like to offer some advice to managers who don’t want to develop a degenerative form of mental illness, arguing against psychopathy, in favour of pedantry. Firstly, wake the hell up.You don’t have to be a psychopath to be a bad manager. Busy managers are bad at noticing things, caught up in the oohlala of meetingsmeetingsmeetings, a real management failing which allows bullying to become established. If you’re faced with a wall of silence at staff meetings there’s something wrong. You can guarantee that the people you manage will not volunteer their nasty bullying ways. Nobody will ever come up to you and say "I’ve got a terrible habit of humiliating my team and making them want to give up and die. Yup, really enjoy it, feel like a king amongst men. Living. The. Dream." So open your eyes, spend a few hours a week just observing your teams and making your own mind up what is not being said in those Monday morning catch ups.    Secondly, take the blameWe live in an age where even teenagers know that the current crisis wasn’t their fault. It went wrong at the top. One of the biggest failings of corporate leaders is not to take the blame for the haemorrhaging of jobs and careers that has only just got started. Psychopaths never take the blame because they never ever make mistakes (omnipotence, duh). Redundancy involves the shame of things having gone wrong. In the current crisis we can't avoid a date with reality of job loss, but we can deal with the violence of the shame being projected onto the victims of it. So suck it up and take the blame for the mistakes that have been made, both individually and collectively. It's what leadership actually means in a recession and bluntly speaking its why you're paid more than the people that work for you. It really did happen on your watch. Thirdly, feel badlyPsychopaths don’t feel bad. They feel quite good actually because other people don’t even touch the sides. No self doubt, guilt or private sobs in the works loos. This is the distinguishing characteristic, feeling vulnerable and badly about yourself so I suggest you spend more time feeling it. Feel the pain of having to pull out a power point rather than having a conversation, feel the discomfort of a shareholders meeting ending with blood on the walls, allow yourself to stutter and blush telling your team that there will be cuts after Xmas. And don’t, whatever you do send those letters out at 4pm on a Friday. Send them out at 9.30am on a Monday and leave your door wide open for people to tell you exactly what they think of you. Finally, become a pedantDealing with bullying means setting a bottom line below which we’re not prepared to go. Pedants have the annoying habit of pointing out facts. Facts like:

• You can't say the words "get a grip loon ball" to someone with depression that also works for you
• Just because the law says someone going through chemotherapy is fit for work doesn’t mean you have to make them turn up every day
• Joining a trade union is a human right enshrined in international law

 Last week I did a gig about resilience with a bunch of Health and Safety reps from the NUT. Teachers and health and safety, helloooooooooooooo planet pedantry. We might have been talking about stress indicators and the solid stuff of basic health at work but the psychic experience was like being hugged by Ghandi. Pedantry chips away at the catastrophising parts of us that gives up in the face of bullying, or demands a final solution. Just because things have got a bit rough at work, doesn't mean we have to jump off the cliff. Instead, take a brisk walk in the other direction using the law, common sense and a firm parental hand. It really will be better in the morning after a good night’s sleep. Download the PDF here