What is the Dark Triad and how does it play out in leadership?
A summary of the primary personality attributes, a comparison between them, a case study example, and relations to empathy.
By Marc Niering and Alexandra Plesner
Case Study
The case study “Psychopathic Leadership A Case Study of a Corporate Psychopath CEO” by Clive R. Boddy, reports on a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score (PM-MRV2 = 10) compared to authentic transformational CEO (PM-MRV2 = 2).
Boddy (2014) writes that “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.”
Findings
Rated by two managers who worked with the CEO for two years in 2 in-depth interviews of each manager (1st 09/2013 > follow-up 03/2014 | follow-up 07/2014).
The case study revealed that the characteristics and traits of an organization’s leader affect not only the ethics of the organization but every single person working under a specific leader.
Definition of the Dark Triad Personalities (DTP) and the three main personality attributes
The dark triad is a collection of the three personality traits: a) narcissism, b) Machiavellianism, and c) psychopathy (Miller & Lynam, 2019).
They are regarded as social-aversive personality traits (Kowalski, 2001). Paulhus and Williams (2002) deemed them socially undesirable as aggressive personalities and termed them the ‘Dark Triad’ with a primarily negative personality trait.
All three types lack empathy and are manipulative and callous in various degrees (Clark & Gruber, 2017).
Key features of the DTP
Narcissism
The term “narcissism” arrives from the first-century book “Metamorphoses” by the Roman poet Ovid (Grenyer, 2013).
Key characteristics:
A sense of grandiosity, a pursuit of uniqueness, and a need for admiration (Ashton & Lee, 2008; Clark & Gruber, 2017). Narcissism has two faces: grandiosity and vulnerability (hypersensitivity):
Grandiosity: associated with extraversion, emotional stability, and high self-esteem (Jauk et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2017).
Vulnerability: associated with introversion, neuroticism, and low self-esteem (Jauk et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2017).
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism is named after Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher, and historian, and his book “The Prince”, written about 1513 (De Hoogh, 2021).
Key characteristics: A sense of entitlement, calculative, and a cynical worldview (Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Jones & Paulhus, 2009).
Psychopathy
Subclinical trait, derived from the clinical forensic concept of psychopathy (Chen & Plouffe, 2020).
Key characteristics: A lack of guilt or shame, impulsiveness, and antisocial tendencies (Clark & Gruber, 2017).
The Dark Triad — leadership styles
Generally speaking, dark leadership involves dominance, selfishness, manipulation, and disregard for others or the organization itself.
Their charming, egoistical, strong, and extraverted characteristics support the theory that the dark triad personalities rise fast in their careers.
Whilst first those leaders deem to be perfect leaders, dark leaders have been found to make decisions with destructive long-term consequences and to exhibit ineffective leadership (Baker, 2013)
Narcissistic leadership
Narcissists are great self-promoters, are adaptive, and strive for admiration from others; they appear charismatic but self-centred and are extremely sensitive to criticism (Paulhus, 2014; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006).
Narcissistic leadership is the brightest side of the dark triad. Narcissism and Machiavellianism are strongly interrelated (Clark & Gruber, 2017).
Machiavellian leadership
Machiavellians appear to have an advantage in unstructured organizations and thrive when they have more decision power and less supervision (Jones & Paulhus, 2009). Status matters to them, and they strive for control (Ziegler-Hill & Shackelford, 2020).
“Those with a Machiavellianism trait attempt to gain an advantage by any means necessary, with no consideration for ethics” (Myung & Choi,2017, para. 8).
Machiavellianism and primary psychopathy have many essentially identical constructs, however.
Psychopathic leadership
Psychopathy is the “darkest” dark triad trait in organizational leadership (Mathieu et al., 2014). They show a need for domination, lack of respect for collective moral values, and are focused on strengthening their position and reputation (Boddy, 2015; Palmen et al., 2021).
“Psychopaths have been found to be more common in some organizations rather than others including as CEOs and as lawyers” (Boddy, 2015). They have the biggest negative long-term effects on organizations, such as high turnover rates in staff (Boddy, 2015).
In the case study example, employees were reported to have lost their love for their jobs and to have become aimless and directionless. Where possible, they quit as quickly as they could (Boddy & Ethics, 2015).
Leadership styles — in comparison
Each trait entails unique emotional deficiencies.
- Narcissism was positively associated with trait emotional intelligence. Concerning empathy, only primary psychopathy was linked to an overall deficit, while a positive relationship was found between Machiavellianism and the perspective-taking facet of cognitive empathy. (Szabó & Bereczkei, 2017).
- Psychopaths are known for being impulsive and bullies, responding aggressively after physical threats (Jones & Paulhus, 2011).
- On the other hand, Narcissists respond to significant ego-threat with anger and hostility (Jones & Paulhus, 2010; Miller 2004).
- Although as malicious as psychopaths, Machiavellians are more cautious and deliberate in their behaviour and actions; and less impulsive than psychopaths (Williams et al., 2010).
Sex differences in the Dark Triad
“To date, tests for sex differences in observed DD scores typically found that men score higher than women on all scales (values of Cohen’s d ranged from .09 to .79), although this finding seems most robust with respect to psychopathy” (Chiorri et al., 2017, para. 6).
In their study “Does the Dark Triad Manifest Similarly in men and Women? Measurement Invariance of the Dirty Dozen across sex.”, Chiorri, Garofalo, and Velotti (2017) concluded that the Dark Triad seems to manifest in the same way in women and men, although women scored with lower levels.
Discussion Empathy & DTP Leadership
The Importance of empathy in leadership
Empathic response (empathetic distress, empathic concern, and perspective-taking) is necessary for prosocial behaviour and leadership in organizations (Zak, 2018).
Low empathy leads to negative individual and organizational outcomes and low psychological well-being of the employees (Nowack & Zak, 2020). Only an empathic leader can fully understand his customers and business partners (Holt et al., 2017).
The use of empathy by narcissistic leaders
Narcissists show little empathy in negotiations and argue only from their interests (Spain et al., 2014). Narcissistic leaders are capable of cognitive empathy and can even improve it through the trainable skill of perspective-taking (Ong et al., 2016).
The use of empathy by machiavellian leaders
Machiavellian leaders negatively affect the emotional exhaustion of their employees through high organizational cynicism (Gkorezis et al., 2015), which also harms corporate pride (Durrah et al., 2019). A positive relationship between Machiavellianism and the perspective-taking facet of cognitive empathy was proven (Szabo & Bereczkei, 2017).
The use of empathy by psychopathic leaders
Psychopathy is linked to an overall empathy deficit, while a positive relationship between Machiavellianism and the perspective-taking facet of cognitive empathy was proven (Szabo & Bereczkei, 2017). Psychopathic leaders are often described as being cold and fearless, which allows them to fake empathy in a calculated way to achieve their goals (Holt et al., 2017).
Sex differences
Sex differences in empathy rates between men and women. Low empathy -> narcissism in women and psychopathy in men (Jonason et al., 2013).
Novel constructs
The novel construct of the Dark Empath by Heym et al.(2020) showed individuals with high dark triad traits and high empathy, who were also higher in aggression and lower in agreeableness than controls. However, Dark Empaths showed higher extraversion, agreeableness and well-being, and lower aggression than typical dark triad personalities.
Conclusion
- High dark traits in leaders show a negative correlation with employee satisfaction and long-term productivity.
- Sex differences in the impact of dark traits on empathy are present but not yet conclusive.
- Even with high dark traits, cognitive empathy can be trained and positively affect leadership quality.
- Recent constructs suggest that dark traits and high empathy are not mutually exclusive and that these leaders can achieve high leadership quality and employee satisfaction.
> My name is Alexandra. I am a creative strategist and currently studying to earn my second Masters, this time around, in Applied Psychology because I believe understanding human nature will help me be a better designer. Let’s connect on LinkedIn and have a chat!
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