The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Author:Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic [Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349412498
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2017-02-01T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

The dark side of talent

This chapter examines the dark side of talent, those undesirable or counterproductive tendencies that coexist with positive qualities, explaining why so many capable and technically impressive individuals often go off the rails. As the chapter shows, counterproductive work behaviours, such as acts of bullying, theft and dishonesty, are frequently predicted by dark side personality qualities. In particular, the dark triad – narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy – has been extensively researched and found to be fairly common in normal work settings. Individuals with these (and other problem) characteristics are especially toxic when they occupy positions of leadership. This is not unusual, since dark side traits often help individuals to climb up the hierarchy of an organisation, though as much as these qualities can be adaptive and make people successful, their success comes at the expense of other employees.

* * *

Although few qualities are more desirable than talent, and the overwhelming majority of discussions on talent focus on its bright side, talent has a dark side, too. In fact, no model of talent is complete if it omits individuals’ dysfunctional qualities. These dark side tendencies are ubiquitous, with most individuals displaying at least two or three potential career derailers, and as many as 15 per cent of the population meeting clinical criteria for personality related problems.1 Furthermore, one may expect pathological manifestations of the dark side to be present in more or less every organisation, including at the top of the management structure.

In this respect, there are two noteworthy points. First, the fact that even the most talented individuals will have some problem characteristics. These dark side features are often the consequence – a side effect – of their actual talents. In other words, virtues and faults tend to coexist in the same people, and certain faults are just undesirable manifestations of virtues, particularly extreme strengths. For example, highly confident people will tend to undermine others and have deluded self-views; very creative people may have poor attention to detail and jump from one idea to the next without being able to focus on anything for too long; and people with extreme social skills may end up manipulating others. Second, the same quality may be a virtue for certain things, but a handicap for others. For instance, risk-taking may be an asset for nascent entrepreneurs but a liability for health-and-safety officers; creativity may be a virtue in advertising copywriters, but a considerable problem in accountants; and extraversion may be a source of talent in salespeople but a tedious distraction in librarians. While these may seem like somewhat trivial and oversimplified examples, it is hard to imagine any talent attribute that is universally useful or free of any negative consequence, particularly when manifested to excess.

At times, the dark side of talent may confer an advantage to the individual, but at the expense of others (e.g., colleagues, subordinates, or the organisation). For example, deception may help dishonest employees advance their careers, and greed may propel selfish individuals to positions of

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