Failing Leaders
It’s not uncommon for people in “high-up” positions to show traits of sociopathy. This is dangerous because we need our politicians, investors, and the companies we buy from to have a conscience. Otherwise, they will inevitably put their own short-term profit, self-interest, and perpetuation of capitalist ideals before protecting people and planet.
They will harm the environment, burn fossil fuels, and pollute without regard for the dangerous trajectory humanity is on. Since these types of people don’t change, we need to be careful who we vote for, where we shop, and where/how we invest our money so we don’t support the destruction of a livable planet. We need leaders and CEOs who will listen to us and take action to protect us.
Since politicians in the federal government are under the control of leadership in the fossil fuel industry, leaders who clearly lack empathy, morality, and refuse accountability, and therefore won’t make the changes we need to secure a habitable earth, we can go around them by transitioning to renewables at the town, city, and state level.
Read a round-up of the headlines:
“If by law, a corporation can be considered a person, then that person would be a psychopath. Corporations exhibit all the classic signs of psychopathy: repeated lying for the purpose of profit, a lack of empathy, inability to experience guilt, and a consistent failure to follow the law. But corporations are not actually people. Behind a corporation, there is often a small group of individuals, or a single individual, that determines the course of the company. Since a corporation is not, in fact, a sentient being and is incapable of developing a personality on its own, someone must be responsible for giving the corporation the persona of a psychopath. The immediate answer is the Chief Executive Officer or CEO.
The CEO of a corporation is almost always the most influential decision maker and often relies on their own personal beliefs and experiences to inform their decisions. Additionally, most CEOs can be described as charismatic, persuasive, and creative, all characteristics associated with effective leadership. Yet, these characteristics are also often associated with high-functioning, intelligent psychopaths, used to mask their underlying lack of empathy and morality, aggressiveness, and narcissism. With psychopaths being mistaken for effective leaders, recent research[2] has found that the frequency of psychopathic CEOs is anywhere between 4% to 12%, similar to rates found in prisons and significantly higher than the prevalence of 1% in the general population. Experts suggest that this high rate is because psychopaths are willing to use their lack of morality and willingness to lie and cheat to help them climb the “executive ladder”, making them more successful than their non-psychopathic counterparts.
Why should we be concerned about this incredibly high number of psychopathic CEOs? Because research has shown that a CEOs psychopathic characteristics affect their company’s participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, including environmental programs.”
Manchester, The Corporate Psychopath and Their Implications for Climate Change
“Corporate psychopathy, particularly in high-level leaders, causes much suffering and is therefore an ethical issue. But there’s another issue as well: It potentially costs businesses billions of dollars every year. We need to become more aware of corporate psychopathy as an economic problem if we’re going to do something about it.
My colleagues and I found in our research that 12% of corporate senior leadership displays a range of psychopathic traits, which means psychopathy is up to 12 times more common among senior management than among the general population.”
Fortune, 12% of corporate leaders are psychopaths. It’s time to take this problem seriously
“We are in a moment of deep institutional breakdown. Climate change, environmental degradation, marked increases in inequality, the rise of populism, rising geo-political tensions, and ongoing religious and ethnic conflicts provide clear evidence that current social institutions are not optimal, either for human flourishing or for addressing global challenges. Over recent decades, the culture within many organizations – in politics, economics, business, media, education and so on – has changed to fit the sociopathic profile of narcissists and psychopaths, granting them enormous influence over our societies and making sociopathic values the norm. Our current moment of deep transition, as well as being a time of danger, presents an opportunity for positive renewal. For such positive renewal to occur, however, existing social institutions must be critiqued and re-imagined based on a shift from values of hierarchy, inequality, coercion and private gain, toward values of equity, cooperation, and public good. This new paper explores what this might mean in practice.”
Disordered World, We urgently need to reimagine society if we are to contain sociopathic leaders
“A long time ago, in our own galaxy, ExxonMobil knew that their product would destroy our planet. But instead of warning the public, they lied about the climate crisis so they could make trillions in profits.
That’s mad evil. The type of evil that someone like Darth Vader respects.
Exxon knew about climate change decades ago. But instead of warning the public, they deceived lawmakers, misled their shareholders, and robbed humanity of a generation’s worth of time to reverse climate change.”
More Reading
Huffington Post, Which of Our Leaders Are Psychopaths? A Voter and Shareholder Guide
Common Dreams, As World Burns, Climate Campaigners Denounce Manchin as 'Fossil-Fueled Sociopath'
Book, Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States: Derber, Charles
Book: Why we elect narcissists and sociopaths-and how we can stop, by Bill Eddy