Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work by Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity

There are many great TED Talks on bullying in the workplace, here is one by English Professor Clive Boddy, based on his research findings looking at the link between Corporate Psychopaths and bullying, in Australian and the UK workplace.
 

 
Characteristics of Bullies:
Enjoy hurting others, cruel, selfish, parasitic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, callous, disrespectful, abusive, lacking in empathy remorse or guilt, and good at political networking skills.

'Corporate Psychopaths are those people who go into organisational and corporate positions rather than a criminal career.'

'Psychologists have slowly come to realised that those from better socio-economic background, perhaps with a good education and good family backgrounds, have worked out early that it's far easier to get the power, prestige and money that they want from a Corporate career, than from a criminal career.'

'Psychopaths have absolutely no conscious'
 
2008 Study revealed:

AUSTRALIA
* 1% of people (Corporate Psychopaths) accounted for the presence of at least 26% of all bullying by Australian mangers (from study sample of 346)
* Under normal managers, employees encountered bullying 9x per year
* Under Corporate Psychopaths, employees encountered bullying 64x per year

UK
* Found more bullying and more Psychopaths in the UK.* 1% of people (Corporate Psychopaths) accounted for the presence of at least 36% of all bullying by Australian mangers
* Under normal managers, employees encountered bullying 13x per year
* Under Corporate Psychopaths, employees encountered bullying 84x per year
 
Link between Corporate Psychopaths and Bullying

WHY DOES BULLYING OCCUR IN THE FIRST PLACE?

* Psychopaths bully as it's predatory, they enjoy doing it, they like to hurt people and damage their careers.
* 'Instrumental Bullying' -  to create confusion and chaos around them, enables them to form their own agenda to promote themselves, creating a smoke screen so they can get on with their agenda. This explains why Psychopaths get promoted over others, as they are manipulators.
*Linking at an organisational level eg: Enron, was reported to have a culture of bullying, of staff, agencies, suppliers, to keep them all in check to perpetuate the fraud. The same culture was found in banking institutions during the Global Financial Crisis, don't ask questions or you'll get into trouble' which covers up fraud.


Further reading: The Implications of Corporate Psychopaths for Business And Society: An  Initial Examination And A Call To Arms

Prof Clive Boddy is a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Middlesex University in England. For the past seven years, he has studied the evidence and effects of toxic leadership, and in particular the influence of the presence of corporate psychopaths on various workplace outcomes, including on levels of conflict and bullying at work.