A recent study has shed light on how leaders with psychopathic tendencies manage to maintain a positive image and gain the trust of their followers. The study found that these leaders often use emotion regulation strategies to influence others’ perceptions, despite their lack of empathy and manipulative nature. The research was published in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.
Psychopathy, characterized by impaired empathy, lack of remorse, and manipulative behavior, is a significant concern in leadership roles. Despite the known negative impacts of such leaders, they often climb the hierarchical ladder, receive higher bonuses, and are seen as charismatic individuals capable of making tough decisions. Understanding how these leaders use emotion regulation strategies to influence their followers could provide insights into their success and help organizations identify and mitigate the risks associated with psychopathic leaders.
“Leaders with high scores in primary psychopathy often engage in harmful behaviors like abusive leadership, sexual misconduct, and bullying,” said study author B.M. (Barbara) Wisse, a professor at the University of Groningen. “You’d think that healthy organizations would have filtered these people out, but surprisingly, they often end up in leadership roles. We’re curious about how this happens. How is this possible?”
“Our starting point was the work of Cleckley (1941), who was the first to describe people with psychopathic traits as those who can flawlessly imitate a normal, well-functioning person while hiding a range of disagreeable and self-serving behaviors. Essentially, they look normal, but they aren’t. Cleckley said they ‘hide behind a mask of sanity.’ So, we thought: ‘if these psychopathic leaders truly hide behind such a mask, they must be experts in regulating their emotions and manipulating their emotional expressions to shape how their subordinates see them.'”
The study involved 306 teams from over 140 organizations in the Netherlands, encompassing various for-profit and non-profit companies. Data were collected from both leaders and their subordinates through paper-and-pencil questionnaires.
Leaders’ psychopathic traits were assessed using Levenson’s Self-Report Primary Psychopathy scale, which includes items such as “I enjoy manipulating other people’s feelings” and “For me, what is right is whatever I can get away with.” This scale measures the extent of manipulativeness, egocentricity, and lack of empathy among leaders. Emotion regulation strategies were evaluated using a modified version of Diefendorff’s scale, which includes measures of surface acting (faking or hiding emotions), deep acting (trying to genuinely feel the emotions being displayed), and the display of naturally felt emotions.
Subordinates provided their perceptions of the leader’s authenticity through a word fragment completion task, an implicit measure designed to capture subconscious perceptions. This task involved completing the word fragment “OP___CHT” with the Dutch word for authentic (“OPRECHT”). Subordinates also rated their trust in the leader using a scale that included items like “I am able to count on my supervisor for help if I have difficulties with my job” and “I can rely on my supervisor to keep his/her word.”
The researchers found that leaders with stronger psychopathic traits were more likely to engage in surface acting. These leaders were less likely to display their naturally felt emotions, aligning with their tendency to be dishonest and manipulative. Interestingly, these leaders also engaged in deep acting, attempting to evoke the actual emotions they wanted to display, despite their lack of empathy.
The relationship between a leader’s emotion regulation strategies and follower trust varied significantly depending on the leader’s level of psychopathy. For leaders with low levels of psychopathy, surface acting was negatively related to follower trust, as it was perceived as inauthentic. However, for leaders with high levels of psychopathy, surface acting was positively related to follower trust. This suggests that psychopathic leaders are perceived as more authentic when they engage in surface acting, possibly due to their natural talent for lying and manipulation.
Deep acting, on the other hand, had a negative effect on follower trust when performed by leaders with high psychopathy. These leaders were seen as less authentic when they tried to genuinely feel the emotions they were displaying, likely because their lack of empathy made their deep acting appear forced and insincere. In contrast, when leaders with low psychopathy engaged in deep acting, it was positively related to follower trust, although this relationship was not statistically significant.
“Usually, people are advised to refrain from surface acting (faking feelings that are not really there) and to engage in deep acting (working up an emotion through empathy) when they interact with others, because these others might feel that those who surface act are not authentic while those who deep act are authentic, and this, in turn can affect the quality of relationships. This is different for leaders with higher psychopathy scores,” Wisse told PsyPost.
“We found that leaders with higher levels of psychopathy were more inclined to engage in surface acting AND are also very successful in doing so. Surface acting was associated with higher perceptions of leader authenticity among subordinates if done by leaders with stronger psychopathic tendencies, paradoxically enhancing trust.
“They also engage in more deep acting, but that does not work for them because they miss empathy. When leader psychopathy is high, deep acting is diminishing subordinate trust because subordinates feel that the leader is not authentic,” Wisse explained. “‘Fake it till you make it,’ seems good advice for those who score high on primary psychopathy that want to make a career!”
Surprisingly, the display of naturally felt emotions by leaders with high psychopathy generally had a positive impact on follower trust.
“We also found that followers tended to trust leaders with higher psychopathic tendencies more when these leaders displayed their naturally felt emotions to a larger extent,” Wisse explained. “We did not expect this beforehand, because those with higher psychopathic tendencies tend not to have very pleasant and positive emotions (they mainly feel things like anger, hate and contempt).”
“But perhaps the clarity and predictability offered by such honest displays of (undesirable) emotions help subordinates to better understand and anticipate the leader’s actions (and that is extra important if the leader is dangerous).”
However, the study, like all research, includes some caveats. Firstly, it focused only on primary psychopathy, which includes manipulative and egocentric traits, but not secondary psychopathy, which involves impulsivity and lack of behavioral control. Future research should consider both aspects of psychopathy to provide a more comprehensive understanding.
Additionally, the study did not explore the long-term effects of emotion regulation strategies. It is possible that the effectiveness of surface acting by psychopathic leaders diminishes over time as followers become more aware of their true nature. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine how these dynamics evolve.
“We want to look at other explanations for why these people are sometimes so successful,” Wisse said. “Our next step is to focus on if and how they include ‘henchmen.'”
The study, “The Mask of Sanity? Leader Primary Psychopathy and the Effects of Leader Emotion Regulation Strategies on Followers,” was authored by Barbara Wisse, Ed Sleebos, and Anita Keller.
