Challenge the Ordinary by Linda D. Henman

Author:Linda D. Henman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Career Press
Published: 2014-06-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Falling Stars and Snakes in Suits

When exceptional people lack ethics, empathy, remorse, and loyalty to anyone but themselves, we start to think of them as tragic losses—stars that have fallen. Stars tend to over-achieve. Whatever they do, they do to the nth degree. When they fall, they plummet quickly and profoundly, and they often take the organization with them. These people often enter the organization as rising stars and corporate saviors, only to abuse the trust of colleagues and supervisors, leaving the workplace in shambles. Then we consider them snakes.

These people snake their way into an organization because initially they appear to be a dream come true—right up until they turn into nightmares. At times psychopathology explains why top performers fail—and why we start to think of them as snakes, but at other times, flawed judgment, insufficiently developed interpersonal skills, eccentricities, and a simple bad match for the job more clearly clarify the reasons for the stars’ professional demise. Leaders can help some falling stars but not others, but only when they separate falling stars from the snakes in suits.

Beware Snakes in Suits

Calm under fire, psychopaths excel during times of chaos. They embrace change and the upheaval it brings. Unfortunately, the general state of confusion that change brings can also make psychopathic personality traits—the appearance of confidence, strength, and calm—look like the answer to your problems. Attracted to fast-paced, high-risk, high-profit environments, these snakes move quickly, often ignoring rules that cause impediments to the goals they want to achieve while adhering tenaciously to protocols that don’t really matter. In short, they confuse people but simultaneously give them hope.

The ability of clever snakes to hide their true natures makes spotting them difficult. They creep into the organization and quickly burrow in undetected, often camouflaged by chaos. We admire many of their traits, taken in moderation. For instance, they have a talent for reading people and for sizing up situations quickly, abilities that help them excel in sales or negotiations.

Also, they frequently display advanced verbal agility. Con artists who can convert others with their rhetoric, they present elaborate schemes, complete with convincing arguments. They remain vigilant in the pursuit of a target, always alert to circumstances or enemies that could block their success. This tendency toward pomposity and suspicion forms the Achilles’ heel of the narcissist.1 As we remember from Greek mythology, the fortuneteller informed Thetis, Achilles’ mother, that he would die in battle. To prevent his death, his mother took Achilles to the River Styx, which offered powers of invulnerability, and dipped the baby into the water as she held him by the foot. In adulthood Achilles survived many great battles, but one day an enemy shot a poisonous arrow into his heel, and he died shortly after.

The Achilles myth holds significant truths for pathological virtuosos. Often their exceptional ability in one arena causes them and others to perceive them as invulnerable in others. However, they run the greatest risk of isolating themselves at the moment of success. Because they

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