What to Do If You Think You Are Working With a Psychopath
We’ve all had our share of naughty colleagues, but what if you suspect the person you’re working with is actually a psychopath? What do you do then?
First, let’s look at what a psychopath is. We have a detailed post on how to identify a psychopath using Robert Hare’s 20-point checklist , but if you need a one-sentence resume, Dr. Art Markman, author and professor of psychology and marketing at UT-Austin, provides a concise definition :
Simply put, psychopathy is a spectrum of behaviors that can motivate people to do what is good for themselves and bad for others.
If you think one of your coworkers is a psychopath (or, if you don’t want to diagnose in a chair, someone whose behavior is invariably insensitive or self-serving), Markman offers some tips. First things first: don’t tell this person more than they need to know, especially about your personal life:
Psychopaths can be manipulative, and the more this person knows about you, the more leverage they will find over your actions. This can take the form of using reasons or motivations that are important to you to get you to help. It may even come in the form of a threat if they learn a secret about you and threaten to reveal it to other people. Therefore, if you feel like you are dealing with a psychopath, keep your personal information to yourself.
Markman also suggests keeping track of your contributions to projects so that psychopaths do not credit your work – and maintain positive relationships with your other colleagues and team members so that if the psychopath starts spreading rumors about you behind your back, “they will have other interactions. which they can use to determine whether they should believe what they hear. “
In all fairness, this advice applies to working with all kinds of difficult colleagues, not just those you suspect of psychopathic tendencies. Whether you’re working on a team with someone who regularly takes other people’s work into account, views everything through the lens of “what it means to me,” or is quick to gossip and spread rumors about people, Markman’s advice can help you avoid giving that person fuel. necessary to make your work life miserable – whether you are a real psychopath or just an ordinary moron.