No psychopaths need apply

I was intrigued to see a recent blog post in Huffington Post headlined Which Professions Have The Most Psychopaths?

Now who among us could resist that?

The post, in turn, was drawing on a new book by Kevin Dutton entitled  The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success.

Yet another simply irresistible title (which I will definitely be putting on my library request list).

In case you’re wondering just what defines psychopathy, we are provided with the Wikipedia definition:

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions,(in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, cold-heartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality.

Which, of course, sounds like plenty of folks you run across in life, even if you don’t spend a lot of time chilling with them.

And they’re not all Charles Manson’s or Dexter’s, either. In fact, many of them are, in fact, people we deal with on a day to day basis. They’re in control, and productively channeling their psychopathic attributes into their work.

So where do they work? Asthe Dutton book informs, psychopaths tend to be found more so in certain professions and less so in others.

Where to begin with the list?

Why with CEO, of course.

I’ve known/worked directly for a number of CEO’s or individuals who went on to become CEO’s, and in my experience, they’re a mixed bag, psychopathy-wise.

A couple were very nice – decent, caring, good-humored, self-reflective. A couple were, well, not so very nice. In fact, before we knew that there were so many inner psychopaths among us, we would have just called them a-holes. Other than parasitic lifestyle – unless you count mooching off investors – and criminality – unless you count mooching off investors – there are a couple I have in mind who definitely meet the psychopath definition dead-on, although one of them may just have been nuts. (Is that a term that’s in use anymore?)

Lawyers? Well, the ones I know up close and personal don’t strike me as especially psychopathic. But then I think of all those ambulance chasers, and the creeps with the $2,000 suits and bespoke shirts who defend Bad Guys…

Media (TV/Radio)? I suppose I shouldn’t be diagnosing Rush Limbaugh based on the snippets I’ve seen of him on occasion, but if the psychopathic shoe fits. As they say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and the same holds for psychopaths.

But I refuse to believe that Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow are psychopaths. No way!

As for salespersons, I’ve known plenty who were absolutely ghastly: slick, aggressive, chronic liars – slime personified. In fact, before we knew that there were so many inner psychopaths among us, we would have just called them a-holes. I was always amazed that some of these guys ever managed to sell anything. Didn’t their prospects have any slime-dar? Or were these salespeople just such arch manipulators and connivers that they could dupe folks into thinking that they were on their side? Or was it a matter of it not really mattering whether your salesperson was a P.O.S., as long as you were getting your money’s worth out of the product they were selling you? Which in some – but not all – cases, the customers actually were.

Or maybe the prime salesperson psychopathy was visited on us schnooks from home office who had to put up all that “cold-heartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity… manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity…” while the customers just had to deal with the “superficial charm?”

On the other hand, as with “my” CEO’s, “my” salespeople tend to be really nice people who actually wanted to do right by their customers. (And yes, V, I’m talkin’ you here. Kev, too.)

As for the rest of the list, I actually prefer that my surgeon has high stress tolerance. I want him/her to be cock-of-the-walk arrogant and have reduced fear. But the surgeon I’m most familiar with – and with whom my husband has a follow up visit this very morning – is someone I really like. He’s calm, funny, and straightforward.  Hey, he saved my husband’s life. Do I care if he’s egocentric or whether he’s given to “shallow emotions” in his personal life? Do I need to know one way or another?

And chef?

Hey, I’ve watched Gordon Ramsay in action on Kitchen Nightmares. Say no more.

As for the low-psychopath professions in the right hand list, no surprise that it’s dominated by the caring-creative types.

But I do have to say that anyone who doesn’t think a teacher can be a psychopath didn’t log much time in my grammar school.