Your boss could be a sociopath. No, really.

Sociopathy is one of the many personality disorders, also referred to as psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder (APD). The American Psychiatrics Association defines a sociopathy as 'A pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.' Sociopathic symptoms may exhibit from as early as the teenage years although a diagnosis can only be made after the age of 18, on presentation of documented evidence of misconduct before the individual is 15. Sociopathic symptoms can manifest in many ways, though there are certain personality traits that people with this mental disorder have a tendency to exhibit.

That’s why the premise of The Sociopath Next Door, a book by Martha Stout, gives me the major creeps. Stout claims that as many as 4% of the population are conscienceless sociopaths who have no empathy or affectionate feelings for humans or animals. Sociopaths (or the more politically correct term, someone with antisocial personality disorder) show a lack of regret in their actions, with a common trait being the violation of the rights of others.

This book was brought to my attention by a friend of mine in response to my telling her about one of my son’s friends being bullied at work by her boss. I don’t know if Stout’s 4% metric is accurate but I know that I hear an awful lot from readers of this blog who are dealing with bosses that I believe could be characterized as sociopaths.

Let’s take an absolutely unscientific poll and see how many sociopathic managers there are out there. (Note: If your boss tends to yell but then is sorry afterwards, he or she is probably not, technically, a sociopath.) I realize that I’m being very general here, but, to paraphrase Dave Barry, as is often the case when I do that, I don’t care.

Seriously, it might be interesting to get a grass-roots level view of how sociopaths are managing other people. Also, if you are yourself a sociopath (do sociopaths know they’re sociopaths?), please do chime in and make your case.

Posted By
S.Grace Paul Regan