Babiak, P., & Hare, R. (2006) | References

What This Research Found

Psychopaths are significantly overrepresented in corporate leadership. Babiak and Hare's research reveals that while psychopathy affects approximately 1% of the general population, it appears in 3-4% of senior executives—a three to four-fold overrepresentation. This finding challenges the assumption that psychopaths are primarily found in prisons or on society's margins. Instead, many are in corner offices, directing strategy and controlling the careers of thousands. The corporate world, with its emphasis on confidence, risk-taking, and "tough decisions," provides an ideal hunting ground for individuals who lack conscience but excel at impression management.

Corporate psychopaths exploit organisational chaos and transition. The research documents how psychopaths thrive during mergers, restructurings, and periods of rapid growth—precisely when normal accountability structures break down. When organisations are in flux, performance metrics become ambiguous, reporting structures shift, and the usual checks on behaviour weaken. Psychopaths recognise these windows of opportunity and exploit them ruthlessly. They attach themselves to rising leaders, distance themselves from falling ones, and navigate political uncertainty with a clarity that more emotionally invested colleagues lack. While others are paralysed by uncertainty, psychopaths advance.

The charm-manipulation cycle with 'patrons' and 'pawns.' Babiak and Hare identify a distinctive pattern in how corporate psychopaths operate. They divide their colleagues into two categories: 'patrons' are powerful individuals who can advance the psychopath's career—these receive charm, flattery, and apparent loyalty. 'Pawns' are useful but expendable—colleagues whose work can be appropriated, whose reputations can be sacrificed, and whose complaints carry little weight. The psychopath builds a false self designed to impress patrons while systematically exploiting pawns. When pawns complain, the psychopath's carefully cultivated reputation with patrons insulates them from consequences. This creates a bewildering experience for targets: how can someone so admired by senior leadership be so destructive to those below?

The central insight: corporate environments may select for dangerous traits. Perhaps the most disturbing finding is that corporate psychopathy is not merely an infiltration of pathological individuals into healthy systems. Rather, modern corporate structures may actively select for psychopathic traits. The qualities that predict advancement—supreme confidence, comfort with risk, willingness to make "tough calls" that harm others, and skilled self-presentation—overlap significantly with psychopathic characteristics. Organisations that reward these traits without examining the destruction left in their wake create environments where psychopaths thrive while more empathetic, collaborative individuals are sidelined. The problem is not merely "bad apples" but orchards designed to produce them.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

This research is cited in Chapter 14: Corporate Narcissus to explain how individuals with psychopathic traits advance through corporate environments:

"The research built on earlier work by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, whose 'Snakes in Suits' documented how individuals with psychopathic traits move through corporate environments by excelling at the impression management essential to advancement."

The chapter uses Babiak and Hare's framework to explain why HR complaint patterns often reflect narcissistic personality disorder traits rather than random workplace conflicts, why certain organisations become systematically toxic regardless of turnover, and why survivors of workplace abuse often feel gaslit by institutional responses that protect their abusers. The research connects workplace dynamics to the broader patterns of narcissistic abuse explored throughout the book—the same triangulation, scapegoating, and reality distortion that occur in narcissistic families appear at organisational scale.

Why This Matters for Survivors

Your workplace abuser was not an anomaly—the system selected them. If you experienced abuse from a manager or executive who seemed untouchable, who charmed senior leadership while tormenting subordinates, this research explains why. The problem was not a single bad actor who slipped through screening. The problem was a system that rewards the very traits that enable abuse: confidence without competence, charm without character, decisiveness without empathy. Understanding this shifts the frame from "Why couldn't I stop this?" to "Why did the system create and protect this?" Your individual efforts to expose or resist the abuse faced structural obstacles designed—intentionally or not—to protect your abuser.

Your perception was accurate when others dismissed you. One of the most painful aspects of workplace abuse by psychopathic leaders is the gaslighting that follows. You report abuse; HR is sympathetic but inactive. You describe patterns; colleagues who haven't been targeted don't believe you. You watch your abuser receive promotions and accolades while your career stalls or ends. Babiak and Hare's research validates what you knew but couldn't prove: these individuals are skilled at presenting different faces to different audiences. The person who terrorised you in private genuinely did appear competent and charming to those who controlled promotions. Your confusion was rational. Your perception was accurate. The system was designed to disbelieve you.

You were not paranoid—you were targeted. Corporate psychopaths, like narcissists, select targets deliberately. They identify who is useful (patrons to cultivate, pawns to exploit) and who is dangerous (those who might see through them and have the power to act). If you were targeted, it may be precisely because you perceived what others missed. Psychopaths target those who threaten their facade: the colleague who asks too many questions, the subordinate who notices discrepancies, the peer who inspires the loyalty the psychopath cannot earn. Being targeted may indicate that you possessed exactly the qualities—authenticity, perception, integrity—that the psychopath lacked and feared.

You can learn to recognise the pattern. While you cannot change the systems that enabled your abuse, you can develop the ability to recognise these patterns earlier in future situations. Babiak and Hare provide a framework for identifying warning signs: the dramatic disparity between how someone treats those with power versus those without; the trail of departed colleagues and sidelined rivals; the gap between reputation and reality. This knowledge is protective. It allows you to conduct due diligence before accepting positions, to recognise warning signs during interviews, and to trust your instincts when something feels wrong despite what others say.

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed healthcare providers, this research has significant implications for treating workplace trauma.

Workplace trauma from psychopathic abuse requires specific clinical approaches. Patients who have experienced prolonged exposure to corporate psychopaths often present with symptoms resembling complex PTSD: hypervigilance, distorted self-perception, difficulty trusting, and emotional flashbacks triggered by workplace contexts. These symptoms may be misdiagnosed as generalised anxiety or depression if the clinician does not explore workplace history specifically. The abuse was not incidental stress but systematic targeting by an individual without conscience—this distinction matters for treatment planning.

Validation is therapeutically essential. Many survivors of workplace psychopathic abuse have experienced extensive gaslighting, both from the abuser and from institutional responses. They have been told their perception was wrong, their complaints were exaggerated, their distress was disproportionate. Clinicians should explicitly validate that psychopathic manipulation in workplaces is well-documented, that the patient's experience reflects recognised patterns, and that their difficulty "getting over it" reflects the genuine severity of what occurred rather than personal weakness.

Assessment should include organisational trauma history. Standard clinical intake may not capture workplace abuse by psychopathic leaders. Clinicians should specifically assess for: supervisors who behaved dramatically differently with senior leadership versus subordinates; patterns of colleagues departing or being sidelined; experiences of being blamed for failures caused by others; discovery that carefully cultivated reputations were destroyed behind the patient's back; and the particular disorientation of being disbelieved by systems ostensibly designed for protection.

Career guidance may be part of treatment. Survivors of workplace psychopathic abuse often face practical dilemmas: returning to the workplace triggers symptoms, but financial necessity requires employment. Clinicians should recognise that treatment may need to include developing strategies for identifying healthier organisational cultures, recognising warning signs during job searches, and establishing boundaries in new positions. Collaboration with career counsellors familiar with organisational psychology may be beneficial.

The interconnection with earlier trauma should be explored. Babiak and Hare note that psychopaths often target individuals whose histories make them vulnerable—those conditioned to accept mistreatment, to doubt their own perceptions, or to persist in abusive situations hoping for change. For patients with histories of narcissistic family dynamics, workplace psychopathic abuse may represent retraumatisation rather than a first occurrence. Treatment should explore these connections while avoiding any implication that prior vulnerability caused or excused the abuse.

Broader Implications

Organisational Design and Psychopathy Screening

The research raises profound questions about how organisations select and promote leaders. If psychopathic traits are overrepresented in corporate leadership, and if these traits predict organisational harm, then screening becomes a governance issue rather than merely an HR function. Some organisations have begun implementing integrity assessments, 360-degree feedback that includes subordinate perspectives, and promotion criteria that explicitly value collaboration and development of others. However, Babiak and Hare caution that psychopaths are skilled at gaming assessments—any screening must be designed with awareness of sophisticated manipulation tactics.

Financial Sector and Systemic Risk

The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent scandals highlighted how concentrated psychopathic leadership can destabilise not just individual organisations but entire economies. When individuals without conscience control vast financial resources, the absence of internal moral constraints creates systemic risk. Babiak's subsequent research with the financial sector found elevated rates of psychopathic traits among traders and executives, raising questions about whether the industry's structure and incentives actively select for dangerous personalities. Regulatory frameworks that assume normal empathy and conscience may be inadequate for addressing risks posed by individuals lacking both.

Workplace Mental Health Costs

The economic costs of corporate psychopathy extend far beyond direct malfeasance. Babiak and Hare document extensive secondary costs: elevated turnover among quality employees who leave to escape toxic leaders; reduced productivity among those who remain but disengage for self-protection; healthcare costs from stress-related illness; litigation and settlement costs; and long-term reputation damage. These costs often appear on different ledgers and different time horizons than the short-term metrics by which psychopathic leaders are evaluated, creating systematic underestimation of the damage they cause.

Leadership Development and Education

Business schools and leadership development programmes have been criticised for inadvertently cultivating psychopathic traits by valorising "tough" decision-making, glorifying risk-taking entrepreneurs regardless of harm caused, and treating empathy and emotional intelligence as soft skills rather than core competencies. The research suggests that leadership education should explicitly address the distinction between healthy confidence and pathological grandiosity, between strategic decisiveness and callous indifference, between calculated risk-taking and recklessness born of lacking genuine stake in outcomes. Case studies of corporate psychopaths should join case studies of successful leaders in business curricula.

Board Governance and Executive Oversight

Corporate governance structures often fail to detect or constrain psychopathic executives. Boards receive information filtered through management; they see the charming presentation, not the internal destruction. Short tenure and high compensation may not align directors' interests with long-term organisational health. The research suggests that boards need independent channels for information about organisational culture, including systematic collection of subordinate perspectives, exit interview analysis, and attention to patterns of departures and complaints. Governance frameworks should include metrics that psychopaths cannot easily manipulate.

Regulatory and Legal Implications

Current employment law focuses primarily on discrimination based on protected characteristics rather than on protection from personality-disordered leadership. The research raises questions about whether legal frameworks should evolve to address the specific harms caused by psychopathic management. France's conviction of executives for "moral harassment" following employee suicides suggests one direction; expanded workplace bullying legislation in the UK and Australia suggests another. The central challenge is distinguishing between demanding-but-fair management and systematically destructive leadership in the manner of coercive control, a distinction that requires understanding the patterns Babiak and Hare document.

Limitations and Considerations

Prevalence estimates vary. While the 3-4% figure for psychopathy among senior executives is widely cited, estimates in the research literature range from 1% to over 10% depending on methodology, industry, and how psychopathy is defined. The headline figures should be understood as indicative of significant overrepresentation rather than precise measurements.

Correlation and causation are complex. The research demonstrates that psychopaths are overrepresented in corporate leadership, but the causal pathways are complex. Do psychopaths seek corporate environments that reward their traits? Do corporate environments shape individuals toward psychopathic behaviour? Both processes likely operate simultaneously, making simple interventions challenging.

The focus on psychopathy may underemphasise other pathologies. Corporate dysfunction also arises from narcissism, Machiavellianism, and other personality patterns not reducible to psychopathy. The "corporate psychopath" framing, while powerful, may create blind spots regarding equally destructive but differently configured personality pathology, including malignant narcissism.

Organisational factors interact with individual pathology. A psychopath in an organisation with robust accountability structures, transparent information flows, and empowered subordinates causes less damage than one in an organisation lacking these features. Individual pathology is necessary but not sufficient for the patterns described; enabling organisational structures are equally important.

Historical Context

Snakes in Suits emerged from the convergence of two research traditions. Paul Babiak's organisational psychology work had identified executives whose charm masked profound dysfunction, but he lacked a theoretical framework for understanding them. Robert Hare's four decades of research on psychopathy in forensic settings had established rigorous assessment methods, but the focus had been on criminal populations. Their collaboration extended psychopathy research into the corporate world.

The book appeared in 2006, during a period when corporate scandals—Enron, WorldCom, Tyco—had demonstrated that individuals capable of immense destruction could reach the highest levels of corporate power. The research provided a psychological framework for understanding these failures that moved beyond individual "bad apples" to examine how organisational systems select for and enable psychopathic behaviour.

Since publication, the framework has influenced research on workplace bullying, toxic leadership, and organisational culture. The concept of the "corporate psychopath" has entered popular discourse, though sometimes with oversimplification that the authors caution against. Subsequent research by Clive Boddy and others has extended the framework to additional industries and national contexts, confirming that the patterns Babiak and Hare identified are neither culturally specific nor historically bounded.

The book's insights have proven prescient. The 2008 financial crisis, subsequent corporate scandals, and ongoing revelations about toxic leadership in technology, entertainment, and other industries continue to demonstrate the relevance of the research. Each new scandal provides further evidence that psychopathic leadership is not a rare aberration but a predictable consequence of systems that reward charm over character and confidence over competence.

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work

APA Citation