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Let’s paint with some nuance up top, which I am sure some would argue is rare for me: “most” would need to mathematically imply “51 percent.” Do I think 51 percent of CEOs are sociopaths? In my own career, yes. Absolutely. In the broader world? No. The 2016 study/research that gets quoted a lot is about 21 percent are apparently sociopaths, which feels right overall. Funny, though: when The Washington Post covered that study in 2016, they added “Only 21 percent?” to the headline. I guffawed. I think, overall, 1 in about 5 feels accurate for “senior leader is a sociopath at some basic level.”
First question: Why?
Well, think about being a CEO in enterprise. You make some nice coin but I mean like, what is Jeff Bezos’ life really like? He theoretically is the top of a pyramid with 600,000 people in it. That’s insane. They probably have about 35 business units. If you wanted to, you could never sleep. It’s the same as being President of a country, honestly. You need to be a little bit different psychologically to even want to scale or inherit something like that.
Also, if we’re being semi-clinical about what a sociopath is, they often do have good social skills — which executives need, because they gotta broker deals and sell stuff. But additionally:
- They crave validation
