Author: John A Challoner

Independent Mathematical Logician, Social Scientist and Systems Scientist. Author of "The Mathematics of Language and Thought".

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26. How Cooperation Can Fail (Part 1)

How Cooperation Can Fail

In this article, I use social systems theory to explain how cooperative arrangements can fail. I will use the topical example of labour relations in business to illustrate this, although there are many other examples such as cooperative relationships in families, between friends, and between nations. The example that I have chosen reveals little that we do not already know from experience. However, this is not the purpose of the article. Rather, its purpose is to demonstrate how the underlying principles of social systems theory result in a model that reflects reality.

The example began as a series of equations, each of which, drew on the principles of ecology to describe a relationship between two unspecified parties. The principles of evolution were then used to link the equations and demonstrate how these relationships could change over time. Finally, the series of equations was translated into the text below.

The example is limited to a discussion of relationships within the private business sector. This sector interacts with many others such as education, healthcare, government, the legal sector, and so on. For the purposes of this article, only a brief discussion of interactions with government is included. Interactions with other sectors have not.

Cooperation, or as it is known in ecology, mutualism, occurs when two parties work together with a common purpose. The parties involved can be individuals or organisations of any type or size, including families, businesses, voluntary organisations, governments, and nations. Their purpose is usually to gain satisfiers or avoid contra-satisfiers for their mutual benefit. The source of these satisfiers or contra-satisfiers is a third party or the general environment. Satisfiers are those external things that satisfy the needs of an individual organism, group of organisms or species. Contra-satisfiers on the other hand are external things that reduce the level of satisfaction of those needs. For example, the employees and employers in a business cooperate to manufacture and sell goods to their market for a profit. This profit is a satisfier for the needs of both parties and is shared between them for their mutual benefit.

Initially, two parties in a cooperative arrangement may be relatively equal in power. However, as time progresses, one invariably gains greater power, and so, the benefits of the arrangement are shared less equitably. In a business, for example, employers typically come to hold greater power. However, there have been cases in which, through trade union organisation, employees have come to do so instead.

Two things can then occur. Those with greatest power can seek ever greater power, and thus, ever more inequitable distribution of the benefits of cooperation. Alternatively, or additionally, a shortage of the mutual satisfier can occur. For example, the market for the business’s product may decline.

There is a threshold above which parties will voluntarily cooperate, and below which they will not. For example, if employees are to co-operate with employers, then the wages gained from employment must be sufficient to satisfy their needs. Employers, on the other hand, must be able to satisfy their own personal needs and those of the business. If one party takes too much of the benefits and/or if the market for their product fails, then the other party may find the benefits of co-operation insufficient. The owners may no longer be able or willing to pay enough to make employment worthwhile, or the returns for the employers may no longer be sufficient to make the business worthwhile. So, one party may find itself cooperating involuntarily with the other. For example, the employer may, in effect, be taking the employees’ labour against their will, although the reverse is also possible.

When one party takes a satisfier from another and the other party a) needs it to satisfy their needs and b) has no resilience or rainy-day surplus such as savings or capital, then the former party is, in effect, imposing a contra-satisfier on the latter. As a consequence, there is a risk of conflict, and three courses of action are possible.

To avoid conflict, the weaker party can move elsewhere. For example, employees can resign and look for alternative employment, or employers can close the business. Cooperation then ceases. In ecology, this is known as neutralism.

Alternatively, because the imposition of a contra-satisfier by one party on another normally results in reciprocation, the two parties can engage in conflict. The purpose of reciprocation is, of course, to coerce the employer or employees into a more equitable apportionment of the business’s benefits.

Finally, the one party can accept harmful exploitation by the other. It is an objective fact that, in ecology, harmful exploitation is known as predation or parasitism. These terms are not intended to be disparaging.

Much depends on the relative power of the two parties. If the harmful exploitation of employees is widespread, there may be nowhere for employees to move to. If general employee power is too great, there may be no alternative business opportunity for the employers. In these circumstances, the only options that remain are conflict or the acceptance of exploitation. If either party has so much power that conflict with them will inevitably fail, then only the final option, an acceptance of exploitation, remains.

Co-operation can, of course, fail even when the parties are relatively equal in power and the benefits of a business are shared reasonably equitably. If these benefits should fail for any reason, e.g., market collapse, competition, etc., then, providing they have reserves of the necessary satisfiers, both employers and employees may find themselves in the position of being harmlessly exploited for a while. A reasonable degree of resilience by both parties is, therefore, needed to retain co-operative arrangements during short term market downturns, etc. However, if these reserves become exhausted, then harmless exploitation becomes harmful, i.e., a contra-satisfier, and so, co-operation fails.

The following conclusions can be drawn from this example. If employers gain too much power and are unwilling to share the benefits of businesses sufficiently equitably to satisfy the needs of their employees, then they will fail to gain the latter’s voluntary cooperation. Conflict can then become widespread and lead to economic failure with disbenefits for all. Alternatively, harmful exploitation can become widespread, and we can come to live in an authoritarian society. Employers can, of course, tread a careful line and share benefits just sufficiently equitably to make employee cooperation worthwhile. However, because there will be no employee resilience, when a shock to the business occurs, this can quickly cause cooperation to be lost.

Conversely, if employees gain too much power and demand excessive pay, then this can prevent growth, reduce business resilience, and thus place, the business’s continued existence in jeopardy. Again, co-operation will break down, and the benefits to both parties will be lost. If this situation becomes widespread, then only those employees who are organised will benefit, and then only in the short term. Ultimately, economies will fail to grow, and the benefits of this growth will be lost. In the extreme, economies can collapse, and poverty can become endemic.

The way forward, therefore, is a middle road in which the balance of power between employers and employees is optimised. This is the role of national government which, in an ideal world, should exercise it scientifically, objectively, non-ideologically and without undue influence from either employers or employees. It is worth mentioning that corrective legislation to curtail excessive power of either employers or employees should not be retained indefinitely. Rather, it should be rolled back once an optimum balance is achieved. Failing that, the optimum will be overshot, and the power of the other party will steadily increase. If they are to retain an optimum balance, governments should keep their eye on the ball and amend legislation as necessary.

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25. The Causes of Conflict

The Causes of Conflict

In this article, I will discuss from a social systems perspective the causes of all types of conflict. This perspective is a very general one and may appear somewhat abstract, therefore. There are many conflicts in the world today and it would be easy to give examples. However, it is also true that we tend to take sides. So, to avoid any suggestion of that, I will leave the reader to apply this general theory to any conflicts that they are aware of.

Firstly, I will define the basic concepts used in this article and describe their significance.

The term holon was coined by Arthur Koestler in his 1967 book, The Ghost in The Machine. It refers to any entity that can be recognised as a whole in itself, and which constitutes part of a larger whole. In social systems theory the fundamental component of society or social holon is any individual or group of people who work together with a common purpose. They can be an organisation of any type, and can range in size and extent from an individual, through clubs, businesses, sectors, political parties, governments, nations, and groups of nations, to the global community.

The genome comprises all genetic information held by an organism. In conjunction with the environment, it determines the physical manifestation of the organism. It also determines the nature of the organism’s needs for existence and procreation.

Culture is also information. It is held in the minds of individuals and, in conjunction with the environment, determines the nature of society. Culture comprises values, norms, beliefs, knowledge, and symbols. Values are those things that we hold good or bad; norms are socially desirable, acceptable, or unacceptable forms of behaviour; and symbols are those things, such as rituals, modes of dress, etc., that indicate our membership of a group.

Function is the common purpose of a group and the reason for its existence. It too is information held in the minds of individuals. This is evidenced by the fact that disagreement about the function of a group is relatively common.

Satisfiers are those external things that increase the level of satisfaction of our needs. Contra-satisfiers, on the other hand, are those things that reduce that level of satisfaction. Satisfiers and contra-satisfiers may be material, energy, or information both true and false. They can also be relationships between social holons. The status of a satisfier or contra-satisfier can be entrenched, precarious, latent, or absent. Entrenched means inextricably present in a situation; precarious means present but not guaranteed in the future; and latent means in the form of a promise or threat. The promise of a satisfier and the threat of a contra-satisfier both play a significant role in human affairs.

Genome, culture, and function are determinants of the needs of individuals or groups, as described in the table below.

It is often the case that people who have the most in common and who live closest to one another engage in conflict. The explanation for this is as follows.

Suppose we have two social holons, X and Y. The more similar their determinants, the more similar their needs. Individual human beings are, of course, genetically very similar and our existence needs are therefore almost identical. The functions of larger social holons or organisations are more diverse, and it is rarer, but still possible, for two to have identical needs. The relatedness needs of individuals, i.e., how we interact with others, are determined in part by the genome and in part by culture. This is evidenced by the fact that some cultures value the extended family more than others. Again, the relatedness needs of larger social holons are more diverse. They are influenced by a combination of the holon’s function and culture. Finally, the growth needs of both individuals and larger social holons are influenced largely by culture. Growth needs can be very diverse in both cases.

The more alike the needs of X and Y, the more similar the satisfiers of those needs. The more similar those satisfiers and the closer X and Y are geographically, the less likely it is that those satisfiers will be sufficient for both. X and Y then have three options. They can either:

  • cooperate to gain greater mutual access to the satisfiers;
  • one party can move to another geographical location, so that the satisfiers are sufficient for both; or
  • the two parties can compete for the satisfier. It is this that can lead to conflict.

The way in which competition evolves depends on the cultures of the competing parties. This is determined in large part by their leadership. Leaders’ attitudes lie on a scale from entirely selfish to entirely selfless. This is influenced by their personality traits. Greater empathy leads to greater selflessness. Dark traits, such as those held by narcissists, psychopaths and Machiavellians, lead to greater selfishness. The more selfish a group the more likely it is to regard the other as a potential threat or contra-satisfier.

A group’s culture is also determined by the social transmission of information and the reinforcement of beliefs by socialisation, i.e., reward for compliance and censure for non-compliance. This information exists on at least three levels, each building on the information in the one below:

Level 1. Whether or not a threat or contra-satisfier can be physically observed. This information is normally true, although it is possible to misinterpret observed events.

Level 2. Beliefs about the existence or otherwise of a Level 1 threat, as passed from one individual to another. This information can be true or false. It is not uncommon for people to propagate false information in their self-interest. It is also not uncommon for ideologies to be based on false information.

Level 3. Beliefs about Level 2 beliefs and their effect on a culture. For example, concerns about false beliefs propagated by an ideology.

These two factors, i.e., the selfishness or selflessness of a culture and its beliefs about any threat posed by the other party, affect the likelihood of competition becoming conflict. The more selfish the individual or group and the stronger their belief about the threat posed by a competitor, the more likely it is that they will behave in a way that causes a contra-satisfier or threat to that competitor. Conversely, the more selfless a group and the weaker their belief in any threat posed by the other party, the less likely they are to behave in that way.

Once one party, physically imposes a contra-satisfier on the other, then the threat perceived by the other party becomes real. They will often reciprocate, and conflict will ensue. Unless there are controls, external or otherwise, a feedback process will occur in which the contra-satisfiers that the two parties impose on one another escalate until the conflict becomes violent.

It can be seen from the above description that there are many ways in which either party, or a third one, can intervene to prevent conflict. This does, of course, require an understanding of the processes involved, and intervention at an early stage before violence becomes inevitable and unpreventable. Unfortunately, it is also the case that parties can intervene to make conflict more likely, and those with beneficial intent must be cognisant of that too.

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15. Uncontrolled Social Feedback and How to Control It

Uncontrolled Social Feedback & How to Control It

In his 1980 paper “A Confluence of Feedback Loops in Social and Educational Structure: (in the context of developed and developing countries)”, M. M. Gupta of the Systems Science Research Laboratory, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, stated the following.

“In the case of inanimated physical systems, it is a well-known empirical fact that unrestrained increase in the degree of positive feedback between the various components of a system leads to instability, oscillations, and eventually to a failure. There is a warning in this that cannot be ignored: Our socio-economic systems, too, are likely to face an eventual catastrophic failure if the growth in the degree of interdependence within them is not accompanied by better planning, coordination, and – what might be much less palatable – restraints on our freedom… In fact, in some of the advanced societies of so-called developed countries, with libertarian traditions – in which there is an understandable aversion to planning and control – our society is already witnessing the manifestations of what might be diagnosed as the ‘crisis of undercoordination’: vehicular and air traffic congestion, deterioration in the quality of municipal services, decay of urban centers, power blackouts, air, water and other environmental pollution, shortage of energy, unemployment, strikes, inflation, recession and depression, wars, depletion of earth’s non-renewable resources, and political and other economic crisis, etc. And there may well be the precursors of far more serious stresses and strains which lie ahead – stresses which may test to the limit the endurance of our democratic institutions – both in the developing and the developed countries.”

The solution that Gupta offered lies in Social Systems Theory. This concept has two aspects. Firstly, Social Systems Science, whose aim is to identify and understand the processes at work in society, i.e., why do we behave as we do? Secondly, Gupta uses the term Social Systems Engineering to describe the practical modification of existing feedback loops and other forms of causality to achieve a stated objective. That is, how to do what needs to be done for us to behave in a more sustainable, socially friendly, and environmentally friendly way.

The term, ‘Social Systems Engineering’, was coined in the 1970s and suggests that society should be steered in a mechanistic way by technocrats aloof from the rest of society. This is not possible or desirable. We are all subject to the same virtues and shortcomings, albeit in varying degrees, and the ideal technocratic leader does not exist.

It is also important to be aware that Social Systems Engineering can also be used to satisfy the needs of one group to the detriment of another. Its objectives should, therefore, be ethical and aim for improvements in the wellbeing of the natural environment and all of humanity.

So, in practice, the rational approach to steering society needs to be built into our democratic processes, rather than entrusted to the hands of a few. A better term might therefore, be ‘rational and informed democratic intervention’.

In his paper, Gupta concludes that “The strength of social systems engineering [or rational and informed democratic intervention] lies in its willingness to confront the basic issues and problems in the present day setup of socio-economic systems, and its boldness to borrow and integrate ideas and methodologies from the disciplines such as humanities and social sciences. We need system engineering, social scientists, and economists to spend more and more of their cooperative efforts in this direction. It can make a pragmatic contribution if we can bring a stability to our socio-economic system.”

To this I would add that, in order to fully understand our social processes, we also need to consider the evolutionary and ecological principles that have formed them.

Gupta’s paper was written in 1979, during a period of trade union unrest, and in it he refers to the UK as “the sick man of Europe”. However, times have moved on. Rightly or wrongly neo-liberalism has reduced the power of trade unions, and we currently face a new set of difficulties. Nevertheless, his recommendations remain relevant, albeit in a different context.

Reference

Gupta, M.M., 1980. “A Confluence of Feedback Loops in Social and Educational Structure: (in the context of developed and developing countries)”. Editors: De Giorgio, A. & C. Roveda, C. “Criteria for Selecting Appropriate Technologies Under Different Cultural, Technical and Social Conditions”, Pages 221-229. Pergamon. ISBN 9780080244556. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-024455-6.50031-7. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080244556500317

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14. Process Inflexibility and Extreme Super-Optimal Behaviour

Process Inflexibility & Extreme Super-optimal Behaviour

Neglecting the Disbenefits of our Actions

All actions have benefits and disbenefits. Benefits are mostly associated with the problem to hand, but disbenefits can be in an entirely unrelated area. When proposing an action, it is sensible to assess the disbenefits and only proceed if they can be satisfactorily mitigated.

Nevertheless, in practice, we tend to have an optimism bias that causes us to neglect disbenefits. Once a beneficial action is identified we will repeat it time and time again in expectation of the same outcome. Not only will we repeat beneficial actions that we have taken ourselves, but we will also copy those of others. A positive feedback loop develops in which apparently beneficial actions become the cultural norm.

An article by Donald Sull, in the Harvard Business Review (Sull, 1999) describes, for example, how business processes harden into routines. However, this problem applies not only to businesses but to organisations of all types and scale, including nations and groups of nations, such as “the West”. The article states that “When a company decides to do something new, employees usually try several different ways of carrying out the activity. But once they have found a way that works particularly well, they have strong incentives to lock into the chosen process and stop searching for alternatives. Fixing on a single process frees people’s time and energy for other tasks. It leads to increased productivity, as employees gain experience performing the process. And it also provides the operational predictability necessary to coordinate the activities of a complex organization. … established processes often take on a life of their own. They cease to be means to an end and become ends in themselves. People follow the processes not because they’re effective or efficient but because they’re well known and comfortable. They are simply ‘the way things are done.’ Once a process becomes a routine, it prevents employees from considering new ways of working. Alternative processes never get considered, much less tried.”.

Extreme Super-optimal Behaviour

Super-optimal behaviour means doing something more often or intensively than is most efficient. If any action is performed many times, there is usually an optimum at which the net benefit, that is, the total of the benefits minus the total of the disbenefits, is maximized. Below this optimum, not all the potential net benefit is gained. Above it, the disbenefits grow and progressively reduce the net benefit.

One example is functional differentiation, whose benefit is increasing efficiency. Its disbenefits are: an increasing need for administration; an increasing need for communication; and increasingly boring repetitive tasks. Outsourcing in industry is a practical example of functional differentiation, which, when taken to its logical conclusion, would result in everyone outsourcing their entire function and doing nothing apart from administering the process.

Another example is centralization. Centralised customer call centres work well when the customers’ concerns are relatively simple and frequently recurring. No specialist expertise by call handlers is needed. However, when customers’ concerns are complex, diverse, and recur infrequently, then specialist expertise is needed. The customer can become frustrated when he or she does not receive it. This example suggests that there is an optimum to be found between centralisation and specialization, to either side of which an organisation functions less efficiently than it might.

Uncontrolled Feedback

Super-optimal behaviour is a particular problem when there is a threshold at which the disbenefits become part of a positive feedback loop or vicious circle. An example is climate change, in which the melting of glaciers and polar ice is accelerating global warming. In the social environment, feedback loops can occur in which disbenefits are copied and become culturally entrenched norms. This can lead to the failure of a nation. Such feedback can be complex, however, and is best demonstrated by an example.

Example of neglected disbenefits subject to uncontrolled feedback

This example describes the effect of consumer economics on the birth rate in Europe. Clearly, womens’ education, empowerment, and the availability of contraception have had an impact on the birth rate, causing it to fall.

However, I would argue that consumer economics has also had a very significant but less obvious effect. The need for economic growth has led to ever increasing production and consumption. Rightly or wrongly, to increase production, women have been encouraged to join the workforce. In general, however, they are poorly supported in their parental role by employers. (The Fawcett Society, 2023). To increase consumption, we have all been encouraged, via advertising, to express our individuality through the products we consume. We work more and consume more.

Added to this, the competitive nature of business means that there is a need to drive down costs. This, in turn, has led to a form of economic brinkmanship in which poverty levels due to low pay have increased.

Finally, the cost, time, and effort involved in raising children is steadily increasing, and this is in no small part due to advertising and the expansion of consumer economics into that area of life.

Interestingly, although procreation is an evolutionary imperative, it is not listed by Maslow’s or the ERG model as an existence need. Rather, reproduction seems to satisfy a relatedness need, which has a lower priority than, for example, the needs for sustenance and shelter. Furthermore, it is vying with other relatedness satisfiers such as friends and pets.

These factors have led to a situation in which fewer people are having children. The cost and time needed to raise them is now too great for many. It is, therefore, becoming a cultural norm to have two, one, or even no children. However, rather than recognise the above causes, couples frequently describe their decision not to have children as a lifestyle choice. Again, this is probably due to advertising.

Demographers cite a fertility rate, i.e., the average number of children born to every woman,  as being 2.1 for a stable population. If the number is less than this, a population declines and ages; if it is greater, it grows and becomes younger. The fertility rate in the United Kingdom is currently (2023) about 1.6, in Germany about 1.5, and in Italy about 1.3.

Therefore, a demographic crisis is emerging in which the active workforce is becoming unable to support elderly retired people and those unable to work. Furthermore, unless a declining workforce is replaced by automation or immigration, this will cause a similar decline in the consumer economy. Taken to its logical conclusion we may end up with automated factories producing goods for people who do not exist.

There is evidence that progressive social policies increase the fertility rate. For example, in the mid-1990s Germany had a rate of 1.3. It then improved access to nurseries, extended school hours and parental leave and this is thought to have resulted in the rise to 1.5.

Nevertheless, fertility rates remain below the threshold of 2.1 and the declining and aging population will inevitably have an impact on the economic growth that the consumer economy has brought about to date. Without change, nations that rely on a consumer economy will therefore, ultimately fail.

References

The Fawcett Society, 2023. “Paths to Parenthood: Uplifting New Mothers at Work”. https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=d73d0c92-19af-479c-a206-0807ec008bf1

Sull, D. 1999. “Why Good Companies Go Bad”. Harvard Business Review, 1999. https://hbr.org/1999/07/why-good-companies-go-bad

Further Reading

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/07/italy-births-far-right-demographic-winter

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

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13. How to Avoid Dark Leadership and Toxic Cultures

How to Avoid Dark Leadership and Toxic Cultures

There can be no leaders without followers. So, the latter have an important role to play in preventing the rise of leaders with dark personality traits. Education is essential. We should make ourselves and others aware of the potential risks posed by such leaders. It is also important to be able to identify people with dark traits. This applies not only to leaders, but also to those who aspire to lead, and those who support them.

It is important to develop our own set of values and to reject any influences which might cause us to deviate from or alter them. Simply saying “no” to an unethical request by a dark leader may be possible if we are in a reasonably secure position. This has the advantage of advertising the problem to others who might support us. However, it is fraught with difficulties when our livelihood is at stake, and a less overt approach may be needed, therefore. There are many ways in which a project can fail without drawing attention to ourselves, and many ways in which we can gain time to find an alternative livelihood.

Adrian Furnham, principal behavioural psychologist at Stamford Associates, notes that when selecting people for leadership roles we select those with positive traits but do not deselect those with negative ones (Furnham, 2019). The best-known technique for idetifying these traits is the Hogan Development Survey, details of which can be found at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373015957_The_Hogan_Development_Survey & https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316341398_Hogan_Development_Survey

The psychologist, Steve Taylor, has suggested that tests to profile potential leaders can be subject to cheating. (Taylor, 2021). There are certainly many sites on the internet that offer to prepare candidates for such tests. However, the darker and more ingrained the traits, the more difficult it becomes to hide them. Both Furnham and Taylor suggest questioning people who have, in the past, worked with or for potential candidates. The implementation of such tests is, of course, likely to be resisted by those who are in power. However, the fewer the dark leaders, the more acceptable implementation becomes.

Leaders can be appointed by a top-down or a bottom-up process. The top-down process prevails in industry, and the bottom-up process in democratic government. Clearly, the top-down process enables dark leaders to select those like themselves, and thus, a toxic culture can develop. However, as evidenced by some of our democratically elected leaders the bottom-up process is fraught with problems too. Essentially, electorates who do not know a politician personally can easily be manipulated.

Nevertheless, democracy is a significant inhibitor of power. It is not a finished product, however. Rather, it is a process which, in the UK for example, has been going on for many centuries, steadily distributing the power of the elite ever more widely. This process has tended to be two steps forward and one step back. One elite, the land-owning class, has been replaced by another, the industry-owning one, then by another the finance-owning one, and so on. There still is much to do, of course, and we will never be satisfied with the situation during our individual lifetimes. However, we must do what we can to ensure democracy’s continued progress. There will always be those who feel threatened this and who will attempt to reverse it. We should, therefore, remain aware of their activities and counter them vigorously whenever necessary.

Another problem is that people without dark personality traits are less likely to seek leadership roles. Such roles can be hard work and stressful. Furthermore, the higher we climb in a hierarchy, the more likely it is that we will have to deal with and interact with others who have dark traits. This can be an unpleasant experience. These factors discourage potentially competent leaders with light personalities. So, we need to encourage them by supporting them and by equipping them with the skills to compete with their darker colleagues. As dark personalities are progressively weeded out this should become easier.

Although all organisations need a control component, i.e., leadership, this does not necessarily have to be a single individual. It is increasingly common in more left-leaning organisations to have co-leaders, one male and one female. In an article in The Conversation online magazine, Steve Taylor describes the process of “sortition” used by the Athenians, in which leaders were randomly selected by lot and incompetence guarded against by the formation of decision- making groups. (Taylor, 2023).

Finally, another way forward is to distribute power. Essentially, this means preventing the rise of monopolistic organisations and distributing both function and decision-making ability to networks of much smaller ones. There is an optimum size of organisation and large inefficient ones, whether they be businesses, governmental organisations, or empires, tend to be established solely to satisfy their leaders’ need for power.

In summary, there are several vicious circles that currently sustain a relatively high level of dark leadership. It will take time to convert these into virtuous circles that favour a lighter version. Change will not happen overnight therefore, and the only way forward is to keep up the pressure in many small ways.

References

Furnham, A., 2019. “The dark side of investment management failure”. CFA Society, UK. https://www.cfauk.org/pi-listing/the-dark-side-of-investment-management-failure#gsc.tab=0

Taylor, S., 2021. “How to stop psychopaths and narcissists from winning positions of power”. The Conversation, UK. https://theconversation.com/how-to-stop-psychopaths-and-narcissists-from-winning-positions-of-power-158183

Taylor, S., 2023. “How the ancient Greeks kept ruthless narcissists from capturing their democracy – and what modern politics could learn from them”. The Conversation, UK. https://theconversation.com/how-the-ancient-greeks-kept-ruthless-narcissists-from-capturing-their-democracy-and-what-modern-politics-could-learn-from-them-208042

Categories
12. The Risks to Nations of Leaders with Dark Pesonality Traits

The Risks to Nations of Leaders with Dark Personality Traits

Sectors can influence the general culture of a nation. Ronald Inglehart and the World Values Survey have identified two independent variables that define national culture: firstly, traditional vs. secular rational values, and secondly, survival vs. self-expression values (Inglehart, 2018). According to this perspective, the starting point for the cultural evolution of a nation comprises traditional values based largely on religion, and survival values due to the nation’s relative lack of wealth. At this starting point, the religious sector is the main influence on national culture, and this is still the case in many parts of the world. With industrialisation, the industrial and science sectors replaced religion as the main influence, and this resulted in a shift from traditional to secular rational values. More recently, in the West at least, there has been a shift from survival to self-expression values, with their emphasis on individuality as opposed to group cohesion. This is thought to have been brought about by the commercial and finance sectors and their concern for a lively consumer economy. Finally, we are on the cusp of another significant cultural change which will be brought about by the information technology sector, particularly with the introduction of artificial intelligence. There is much debate about where this will take us but, in practice, the destination is unknown.

Clearly, if influential sectors are led by individuals with dark personality traits, then there will be little concern for the wellbeing of society or the environment. Among the risks are the following.

  1. The risk of one sector holding undue influence over another, through its upper stratum’s membership of the establishment. For example, the ability of the religious and commercial sectors to influence the education of children in their own interest.
  2. The risk of one sector usurping the leadership of another and imposing its own ideology, e.g., the finance sector usurping the leadership of the industrial and commercial sector and imposing bottom line capitalism.
  3. The influence of a sector over government via its upper stratum’s membership of the establishment. This enables a sector to promote its own ideology and to influence government decisions in its interest. This can result in the promotion of the ideologies of powerful sectors and the suppression of more rational views. Examples include the gun lobby in the USA and the international oil lobby. Another example is the economic brinkmanship pervasive in the West today. This is evidenced by the steadily increasing wealth gap and levels of poverty, despite economic growth. This brinkmanship allows low wages and poverty to proliferate to a point where they begin to destabilise the consumer economy, but no further. However, because this leaves no resilience, economic shocks, such as the bank failures of 2008 and the COVID epidemic of 2020, do then impact on the economy.
  4. The potential for a sector to usurp democratic government, e.g., the replacement of a democratically elected government with the upper stratum of a military or religious sector, leading to a military dictatorship or theocracy.
  5. Competition and conflict arising from alliances between sectors and political parties. For example, the Spanish civil war was the consequence of an alliance of the catholic church, right-wing political parties, and the military on the one hand, and left-wing groups and parties on the other.
  6. Governments that suspend or create a false impression of democracy, engage in imperialism, and are corrupt.

These problems are rife throughout the world and, in the next article, I will offer some suggestions as to how to end them.

References

Inglehart, R., 2018. “Cultural Evolution”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108613880

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11. Dark Strategies for Maintaining Hierachies

Dark Strategies for Maintaining Hierarchies

Introduction

In this series of articles “organisation” is a generic term meaning any group of people who work together towards a common goal, for example, small clubs, businesses, and nations. This article describes several dark strategies that are used to maintain the hierarchy in an organisation. If they are used, then:

  • they tend to go hand in hand with authoritarian and highly stratified organisations rather than more egalitarian and democratic ones;
  • they are indicators of dark personality traits in the organisation’s leadership; and
  • they are significant contributors to the formation of a toxic culture with little regard for the wellbeing of sub-ordinate members, stakeholders, the broader community, or the natural environment.

Coercion

Coercion lies on a scale. In most organisations there is an understanding that if one does not carry out one’s role or function, then one will be dismissed or excluded. This is a part of the normal human socialisation process, and a part of the social contract that one enters into when joining an organisation.

However, more extreme forms of coercion are often used in highly authoritarian organisations, in those that are highly stratified, or in those with a toxic culture. This involves the use of resources controlled by leaders to deny the satisfaction of sub-ordinates’, stakeholders’, or competitors’ needs. It can also involve the use of those resources to threaten or impose harmful contra-satisfiers. Thus, coercion can vary on a scale from minor implied threats to imprisonment or torture. As a rule, the more extreme the coercion, then the more authoritarian and stratified the organisation, the darker the personality traits of the leadership, the more toxic the organisation’s culture, and the less regard it has for the wellbeing of the broader community or natural environment.

However, coercion is inefficient. It involves an expenditure of resources that might otherwise be employed to benefit the organisation. Thus, coercion is normally progressive, escalating, for example, from minor implied threats to more severe action, until compliance is achieved.

Fortunately, the more extreme forms of coercion are now illegal in Western democracies. Nevertheless, it continues up to the point of legality and social acceptability. It remains possible for leaders to optimise the benefits for themselves or their organisation by engaging in a form of brinkmanship. The more stratified an organisation, the less benefit the lower strata gain by comparison with the higher ones. Thus, the less likely the lower strata are to give their voluntary support. Brinkmanship involves concentrating benefits in the higher strata to a point where voluntary cooperation begins to break down, and may need to be replaced by illegal coercion, but no further. Coercion can then, for example, include making an example of some individuals as an implied threat to others. Were stratification to be taken further, then negative competition between the strata would ensue, beginning with non-compliance, through legal and political challenge, and ultimately, in less stable nations, to violence.

Behaviour Shaping

This involves controlling the behaviour of sub-ordinates through operant conditioning, i.e., rewarding the desired behaviours and punishing the undesired ones. A particularly unpleasant example was, and in some places still is, the promise by the Christian church of heavenly reward for good behaviour and the threat of hell for bad. Whilst being a very effective means of control for many centuries, this has caused considerable distress and anxiety among believers.

Bullying

This is a combination of coercion and credible deniability. Members of the lower strata are coerced into complying with the wishes of members of the higher strata in a way which can be denied by the latter. “It was just a joke”.

Divide and Rule

This is a strategy allegedly used by the British in India and hinted at in an earlier article entitled “How hierarchies form”. Where two or more individuals or groups are perceived as a threat to the power of a higher stratum, the latter will encourage the former to compete negatively with one another, thereby diminishing their resources, and thus, the threat that they may pose.

Removal from Power

Where the power of an individual or group appears to be a threat to a higher stratum, the latter will remove the power of the former. A range of techniques exist, assassination, character assassination, imprisonment on false charges, dismissal, etc. Fortunately, the more extreme techniques are now illegal in Western democracies. However, they continue to be used by dictatorships.

Categories
24. Systems Thinking and the Elephant in the Room

Systems Thinking and The Elephant in the Room

Introduction

Systems thinking can be defined as a conscious rational approach to the analysis of events and the design of interventions, combined with a knowledge of systems theory. The role of the conscious mind is to check and verify decisions presented to it by the unconscious mind before we act on them. So, systems thinking does not preclude unconscious creativity. However, if practiced regularly, it can train the unconscious mind to make better informed decisions.

Systems thinking is not new. Only the term used to describe it is new. We have practiced systems thinking for millennia but only recently has it become a formal discipline. Although it applies to systems of all types, the present-day focus is on information and management systems because a living can be earned from expertise in those areas. However, there are two problems associated with this focus. Firstly, it can be assumed, incorrectly, that systems rules applicable to human organisation also apply more generally. Secondly, social pressures mean that practitioners can ignore the elephant in the room, i.e., organisational leaders with dark personality traits.

Proto-Systems-Thinking

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a young professional civil engineer, my more experienced seniors taught me that every design, or solution to a problem, had both benefits and disbenefits. Clearly, the benefits related to the problem to be solved, e.g., how to move water, people, or vehicles from A to B. However, the disbenefits often applied to apparently unrelated things. So, it was necessary to identify those disbenefits by thinking of the proposed design in its environment and at all stages in its lifecycle, i.e., construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning. For example, a reservoir might improve water supply, but increase the risk of people drowning. Safety is an obvious area of potential disbenefit, but there were many other areas to consider: maintenance, environmental impact, public nuisance, and so on. Those potential disbenefits had to be identified and their risk assessed. This was done largely by group critique and the exercise of imagination. The process required us to be honest with ourselves and others about the potential disbenefits of our designs before they were built. If necessary, these disbenefits then had to be treated as problems requiring solutions in their own right. For example, the reservoir might need to be fenced to mitigate the risk of drowning. However, the fence might create its own disbenefits, and so, the process was an iterative one. Obviously, if the mitigation of a significant disbenefit was impractical, then we would have to backtrack and try another potential solution.

At the time, this process was something that practicing professional engineers passed on to one another; not something that we learnt through formal training. The process is probably familiar because it is a form of systems thinking that we carry out almost intuitively, and that was practiced long before the term was coined, and long before it became a formal discipline.

Systems Thinking Formalised

The main advantages of systems thinking becoming a formal discipline are that it can identify good practices, such as the one described above, help to train new practitioners, and help to disseminate the practices to others who might benefit. However, it would be wrong to think that professional systems thinkers have invented it.

The term “Systems Thinking” was originally coined in 1994, by Barry Richmond, and is now widely used. Richmond defined systems thinking as “the art and science of making reliable inferences about behavior by developing an increasingly deep understanding of underlying structure”. Importantly, he went on to say that “people embracing Systems Thinking position themselves such that they can see both the forest and the trees; one eye on each” (Richmond 1994).

To expand on this definition, systems thinking is a cognitive perspective in which everything is seen as comprising interconnected systems, i.e., processes with inputs and outputs, the outputs of every process acting as inputs to others. Properties can emerge from the whole which do not apply to the parts.

According to this definition, systems thinking can be applied wherever systems are encountered, that is, everywhere and in every discipline. I refer to this perspective as “Pure systems thinking”, therefore.

However, because properties emerge with increasing complexity, the rules of human organisation do not necessarily apply in less complex arenas.

Pure and Applied Organisational Systems Thinking

In a letter to the Editor of Systemist, Frank Stowell, then of DeMontfort University, Milton Keynes, UK, said that “If we consider the situation within current systems thinking and practice, we find that systems have been hijacked. Management and Information Systems dominate most of our activities.” (Stowell, 1998). Clearly, the most important systems to us are human ones. This is, therefore, where systems thinking has since focussed; particularly on business organisations. Thus, whilst the basic definition of systems thinking has remained much the same, as time has moved on, the concept has increasingly become associated with organisational problems and improvement. To distinguish this highly coloured form of systems thinking from the pure one, I refer to it as “Applied organisational systems thinking”.

So, why has this change taken place, and why have applied organisational systems thinkers ignored the elephant in the room?

The Influence of Industry on Applied Organisational Systems Thinking

Unfortunately, scientists, especially those acting as consultants, can become beholden to business. A full list of strategies that industry uses to control science is given in a 2021 paper by Legg, Hatchard, & Gilmour, referred to below. In particular, strategies include: funding “safe” research; controlling the reporting and supressing the publication of unfavourable science; and monitoring and attacking scientists and organisations. Clearly therefore, industry can control scientific funding, reputations, and career advancement. So, to make themselves useful to business leaders, and thus earn a living, consultants may conform to industry requirements.

I can confirm from personal experience that such industry influence does exist. In one example, scientific research contrary to the commercial interests of a US company was driven off the internet. In another example, a consultant in the employ of a US company succeeded in changing the policy of a professional society to align with his employer’s interests, despite much objective evidence to the contrary.

The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room is the existence of toxic business cultures and the leaders with dark personality traits (Narcissism, Psychopathy and Machiavellianism) who establish them. These toxic cultures are a major cause of organisational failure and the adverse impact of organisations on their social and natural environment. In the search for organisational and even personal benefits, potential disbenefits to these environments are, either deliberately or inadvertently, ignored. Yet, in general, applied organisational systems thinking fails to address this issue. No consultant can expect to earn a living and avoid retribution if they do encounter a toxic culture or a dark leader and address the problem head on. Instead, they may respond in a similar way to an environmental consultant I once met. Over drinks, he openly admitted to me that he “tells the client what he wants to hear”. Unfortunately, he was employed to advise on work in a part of the Amazon rainforest, so I am not entirely sure how he managed to reconcile that approach with his conscience.

The Risk of Anthropomorphism

Frank Stowell goes on to say that “If we look at the past three UKSS conferences, the major streams have been either Business/Management or Information Systems. There has been very little contribution towards [pure] systems thinking as opposed to the development of existing ideas in any of the past conferences.” He goes on to ask “Has Peter Checkland said it all, i.e., that a system can be characterised by emergence, communication, and control – and [is that] a fact? Is anyone critically evaluating this assertion?” This is a good question, to which the answer is “No, it is not a fact.” Not all systems are characterised by communication and control. Systems can be categorised as: non-living, living, or artifacts, i.e., products of living things. (Korn, 2023).  Communication and control emerged with life, and so, apply only to living things and the artifacts they produce. They do not apply to other non-living systems. (Challoner, 2023). Clearly, therefore, applied organisational systems thinking and its focus on human organisation may be leading pure systems thinking astray.

Summary

In summary therefore, applied organisational systems thinking seems to have pushed pure systems thinking into the background. This is: a) because living systems are of particular significance to us; and b) because scientists can obtain funding and consultants can earn a living by making themselves useful to industry. Unfortunately, this gives industry power over the direction that applied organisational systems thinking takes. In particular, it means that it ignores the elephant in the room, i.e., leaders with dark personality traits and the cultures they create.

Furthermore, applied systems thinking can pollute pure systems thinking with the assumption that what applies to life and its artifacts applies to everything. A form of anthropomorphism can take place. For example, information is organised matter or energy. It is recognised and transmitted only by living things and their artifacts. However, despite a lack of evidence, systems practitioners sometimes regard information as being metaphysical, and thus, as applying to everything. The same is true of concepts such as control, requisite hierarchy, purpose, and so on.

Solutions

To address the dominance of applied organisational systems thinking, Mr Stowell suggests “the promotion of [pure] systems research as a distinct entity”. In a Facebook article dated 3rd February, 2021, Christopher Chase says that after teaching systems thinking to classes at Kyushu University, Japan, “many of these Japanese University students said understanding how all the sciences fit together as a unified whole was the most interesting thing they had learned, and that they felt it should be included as part of a formal Science education for children (and young people) in Japan and elsewhere. That the compartmentalisation of topics in education hampered their ability to fully understand how in reality all the sciences are connected to each other, and also to the arts, history, economics, everything.” (Chase, 2021). Unfortunately, the examples given at the end of this quote are, once again, drawn from human society. Nevertheless, the argument is a good one. Clearly, there is an appetite for, and benefit to be gained from pure systems thinking, as opposed to the applied organisational version.

To address the problem of the elephant in the room, I would suggest that applied organisational systems thinkers:

  • recognise that they are a part of the system on which they are advising;
  • recognise that all interventions have both benefits for the problem to hand, and associated disbenefits that must be mitigated. As in the case of AI and the atomic bomb, it is not sufficient to pursue the benefits and, only when a solution has been implemented, hope to mitigate its disbenefits; and
  • develop a professional code of ethics for their consultancy work. See (Institution of Civil Engineers, 2015) for an example.

References

Challoner, J.A., (2023). “Systems Theory from a Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective”. https://www.academia.edu/95027266/Systems_Theory_from_a_Cognitive_and_Physicalist_Perspective

Chase, C., (2021). “The Need for a Unified Systems Science Education”. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2391509563/permalink/10158720702184564/

Institution of Civil Engineers (2015), “Civil Engineering Ethics Toolkit: ‘say no’” https://www.ice.org.uk/engineering-resources/best-practice/civil-engineering-ethics-toolkit-say-no

Korn, J., (2023). “Existence as a Web of Problem Solving Systems”. https://www.academia.edu/100451240/EXISTENCE_AS_A_WEB_OF_PROBLEM_SOLVING_SYSTEMS

Legg, T., Hatchard, J., & Gilmour, A.B. (2021). “The Science for Profit Model—How and why corporations influence science and the use of science in policy and practice”. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253272

Richmond, B. (1994). “Systems Dynamics/Systems Thinking: Let’s Just Get On With It”. In International Systems Dynamics Conference. Sterling, Scotland.

Stowell, F., (1998). “Opinion; systems is a spent force”. Systemist, Journal of the UK Systems Society, v20 n4, 1998.

Categories
10. Machiavellianism and Dark Empathy

Machiavellianism & Dark Empathy

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is a personality type first described by the psychologists Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis (Christie & Geiss 2013). Although the name for this personality type is derived from that of Niccolo Machiavelli, the infamous author of “The Prince”, it is not related to his political doctrine. Rather, his work was used by Christie and Geiss as a source of ideas about those who manipulate others.

Typical features of a Machiavellian personality, as described by Sanjana Gupta in Very Well Mind, are:

  • “Focusing only on their own goals and interests.
  • Prioritizing success, power, money, and fame above all else.
  • Manipulating or exploiting others for their own gain.
  • Having no qualms about deceiving or lying to others.
  • Being charming and using flattery to their advantage.
  • Believing the end result justifies the means.
  • Having a cynical view of human nature.
  • Having a negative attitude toward everything.
  • Believing themselves to be superior to others.
  • Not being able to empathize with others.
  • Having difficulty trusting other people.
  • Being disconnected from their own emotions.
  • Struggling to identify and express their feelings.
  • Staying aloof and lacking genuine warmth in social interactions.
  • Avoiding emotional attachments with others.
  • Being able to read people and social situations, and using this insight to their advantage.”

Machiavellianism is one of the three personality types that form the “Dark Triad” described by the psychologists Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002 (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). All three personality types are a consequence of both inheritance and environment, but Machiavellianism is thought to be influenced slightly more by environment than is the case for narcissism and psychopathy.

Dark Empathy

Empathy is an ability to understand the minds of others and to share feelings with them. According to psychologists who advocate the classification of personality using the dark triad, i.e., narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, these personality types are characterised by a lack of empathy.

In practice however, all the traits the go up to make these personality types vary on a scale, sometimes independently and sometimes in a way that correlates with other traits. The pattern of divergence from the average for each trait is very diverse and probably unique for each individual. So, the three personality types that comprise the dark triad are broad categories that overlap and share common features.

Researchers have found that empathy also varies independently of other traits, and thus, that it is possible for people who are broadly narcissistic, psychopathic, or Machiavellian to have empathy. These personality types are known as dark empaths. (Heym & Sumich, 2022)

Heym and Sumich assessed the personality traits of one thousand people from the general population. They were testing for elevated or lowered personality traits rather than psychological disorders. They found that 67% were low in dark traits and 33% high. 53% were high in empathy and 47% low. The distribution is shown in the following diagram.

They also found that dark empaths were not as aggressive as those in the traditional dark triad group. However, they were more socially aggressive than both the typicals and the empaths. That is, they were more willing to hurt or manipulate others using social exclusion, malicious humour, or by inducing guilt.

Unsurprisingly, they also found that empaths were the most agreeable, followed by typicals, then dark empaths. Those in the traditional dark triad group were the least agreeable, i.e., exhibited the least “niceness” and friendliness.

Heym and Sumich conclude that “Though the aggression reported by the dark empaths was not as high as the traditional dark triad group, the danger of this personality profile is that their empathy, and likely resulting social skills, make their darkness harder to spot. We believe that dark empaths have the capacity to be callous and ruthless, but are able to limit such aggression.”

References

Christie, R. & Geis, F.L. (2013). “Studies in Machievellianism” Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-4832-6060-0.

Heym, N. & Sumich, A., 2022. “Dark empaths: how dangerous are psychopaths and narcissists with empathy?”. The Conversation 16/3/2022. https://theconversation.com/dark-empaths-how-dangerous-are-psychopaths-and-narcissists-with-empathy-178715

Paulhus, D.L. & Williams, K.M. (2002). “The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy”. Journal of Research in Personality. 36 (6): 556–563. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6.

https://www.verywellmind.com/machiavellianism-origins-signs-scale-and-coping-7377514

Categories
09. The Narcissist Politician

The Narcissist Politician

Introduction

This article is a summary of one by Rosenthal, S. and Pittinsky, T.L., entitled “Narcissistic Leadership”, published in 2006, in The Leadership Quarterly. The latter article is a thorough review of the literature on the subject. The full article can be downloaded at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223046510_Narcissistic_Leadership

It can be difficult, at first, to distinguish a narcissistic leader from one who simply has power, motivation, or charisma. An individual suffering Narcissistic Personality Disorder must, according to the American Psychiatric Association, show a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity”, “a need for admiration” and a “lack of empathy”. Their diagnostic criteria include:

  1. a grandiose sense of self-importance;
  2. a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success or power;
  3. a belief in “special” or unique status (including fixation on associating with high-status people or institutions);
  4. a requirement for excessive admiration;
  5. an unreasonable sense and expectation of entitlement;
  6. interpersonal exploitativeness;
  7. a lack of empathy;
  8. envy; and
  9. arrogant behaviours or attitudes.

They can also display hostility and fragility of self-esteem. Clearly, such characteristics do not equip a leader to make rational strategic decisions and, when a narcissist is an adversary, they can be dangerous.

The root cause of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is thought to be associated with childhood upbringing, for example indifferent or aggressively rejecting parents. This leads to deep seated feelings of emptiness and inferiority and to a desire for revenge. Narcissists did not have their need for positive regard satisfied as a child, and so, pursue that need through their actions in later life. The need may also be amplified by a negative regard for oneself.

Psychological Defences

Narcissistic leaders resort to the following psychological defences against these deep seated feelings.

  1. An insatiable need for recognition and excessive admiration. This isone of the main ways of coping with deep feelings of inferiority. However, even when regularly flattered by sycophants and in a position of unquestionable authority, narcissists are still unable to sustain positive feelings about themselves.
  2. An insatiable need for superiority and fantasies of unlimited success or power. Another main way of coping with feelings of inferiority is a constant quest to prove their superiority over others.
  3. A belief in their own special or unique status. They tend to have inflated views of themselves in respect of leadership performance, task performance, personality traits, expected academic performance, behavioural acts, intelligence, and/or physical attractiveness. However, these inflated assessments are not accompanied by greater actual ability.
  4. A grandiose sense of self-importance.
  5. An unreasonable sense and expectation of entitlement.

These characteristics explain the attraction of politics to a narcissist. However, pathological narcissists are unable to integrate these idealised beliefs about themselves with their actual inadequacies, and this results in fragility of self-esteem.

Attitudes and Behaviour

These defensive strategies and fragility of self-esteem lead to the following typical attitudes and forms of behaviour:

  1. Arrogance, i.e., an attitude of superiority, self-importance, and pride, together with an overbearing manner.
  2. Seeking leadership positions. The need for recognition causes narcissists to self-promote and self-nominate more than others. The desire to structure the external world in a manner which supports their grandiose needs is also a key motivator, and they will often seek power, therefore. Even when seemingly at the pinnacle of power, they crave yet more, often putting themselves and their followers at great risk. However, their leadership is motivated by their own personal, egotistical needs for power, recognition, and admiration.
  3. Visionary leadership. Because they are inspired by power, glory, and legacy, they often embark on grandiose projects and can see the big picture. However, they tend to leave the analysis and detail to others.
  4. Presentation. There is near unanimous agreement that charisma is key to the popularity and rise of such leaders. Their rhetoric tends to be that which will generate impact and recognition rather than meaning.
  5. Amorality. Narcissistic leaders are likely to employ deception, manipulation, and intimidation to aid their rise to positions of power, including those for which they are not qualified. They are prone to lapses in personal conduct and can ignore or alter rules that do not suit them.
  6. Taking excessive credit for successes whilst blaming others for failures. This is the case even when the successes are due to the efforts of others and the failures due to their own shortcomings. However, this strategy only temporarily alleviates and never entirely eliminates narcissistic leaders’ negative feelings about themselves.
  7. Envy and a fixation on associating with high status people or institutions. This is due to a belief in their special or unique status and the tendency to seek recognition from idealised parent substitutes. In can also be a strategy to gain power through trading favours.
  8. Conspicuous lifestyle. They engage in conspicuous consumption as a symbol of status.
  9. Lack of empathy. Narcissistic leaders are lacking in empathy, i.e., they are incapable of understanding the perspectives of others. Thus, they are not driven by an empathic concern for those that they lead.
  10. Interpersonal exploitativeness. Narcissistic leaders are not only likely to abuse their power but can also use their charisma to convince followers to buy into the abuse and take the blame for it.
  11. Intimidatory behaviour. Followers who are not swayed by the narcissistic leaders’ charisma are often intimidated into subordination.
  12. A demand for loyalty. Because narcissists have an insatiable need for recognition and superiority, they demand unquestioning loyalty from their followers.
  13. Paranoia, hypersensitivity, and anger. It is rational to be wary of the true intentions of sycophantic followers, but narcissists go beyond rationality and distrust, reject, or destroy even their most loyal supporters. In this way they create enemies where there may have been none. Narcissists are hypersensitive to anything which might threaten their psychological defences of superiority and grandiosity, and the slightest misstep by a follower can result in a dangerously exaggerated reaction.
  14. Hostility. Narcissistic leaders can be vengefully hostile in response to an insult and can commit horrific atrocities. They can demand the impossible from supporters and, when they do not get everything that they have asked for, can turn on them. Such behaviour can also be used strategically to gain and hold power.
  15. Failure to recognise reality, complacency, inflexibility, and short-sightedness. Narcissistic leaders often resist adviser’s suggestions, ignore wise counsel, changes in circumstances, and new threats. This is thought to have their arrogant attitude as its root cause.
  16. Irrationality. The transient fears and wishes of narcissists are a poor basis for rational decisions and they are prone to lapses in professional judgement. However, because of their drive and grandiosity, narcissists make poor judgements with greater certainty and confidence than others, and thus, have greater influence.

Consequences for society

These attitudes and forms of behaviour, in turn, have implications for society. Depending on the particular circumstances, these consequences can be neutral, negative, or positive. They can include:

  1. Signifying a need for change. Narcissistic leaders tend to emerge in times that call for a new order to be established. Although such leaders may fail to effect the desired change their rise may signify that change is needed.
  2. Ability to attract followers. The narcissist’s air of confidence, dominance, charisma, and grand vision causes them to appear leader-like and attract followers who may perceive them as super-human, may blindly believe them, and may follow them unconditionally. In turn, these followers fulfil the narcissistic leader’s need for admiration thereby bolstering his confidence and conviction in his visions. Some followers may themselves be narcissistic and feel worthwhile only when they relate to others that they can admire for their prestige, power, beauty, intelligence, or moral stature.
  3. Abuses of power. Because they are driven by personal, egotistical motives, narcissists often use their power to satisfy personal needs rather than those of their followers. They can, however, do better in situations where their personal goals are the same as those of their followers.
  4. Poor, overinvolved, and abusive management. Narcissists are notoriously poor, overinvolved, and abusive managers. They are also unable or unwilling to mentor subordinates.
  5. Difficulties with interpersonal relationships. These are often caused by their arrogant behaviour, lack of empathy, poor management style, and unwillingness to heed advice.
  6. Failures. Narcissistic leaders are more likely to make decisions based on an idiosyncratic, self-centred view of the world and to ignore advice which conflicts with their view. They also suffer from complacency, inflexibility short-sightedness and a failure to recognise reality. Finally, they make riskier decisions and are less interested in low-risk decisions than non-narcissists. These factors combine to result in a high incidence of failure.
  7. Longer Term Sustainability of Leadership. The qualities needed to form a group differ from those needed to sustain it and, whilst a narcissistic leader may readily be able to form a group, the difficulties with interpersonal relationships, the poor talent for management and the failures which ultimately emerge cannot sustain it. Research has shown that narcissists receive higher initial leadership ratings because they are more outgoing and entertaining than non-narcissists, but that this positive effect wanes over time.
  8. Conflict. Paranoia, hypersensitivity, and anger are, of course, dangerous characteristics in a world leader and, in a foreign policy context, particularly in times of crisis, may lead to a desire for revenge, aggressive behaviour, or war.
  9. Downfall. Less rational and amoral behaviours, e.g., engaging in cruelties with no political purpose, undermining their power base by challenging conventional morality, over-reach in foreign engagements, etc., often place narcissistic leaders in a vulnerable position and ultimately result in their downfall.
  10. Damaged Institutions. Even at their best, narcissistic leaders are bound to leave damaged systems and relationships in their wake.

Avoiding the negative consequences of narcissistic leaders

Suggestions that the narcissist is supported by an advisor who is rooted in reality, or that the leader submits to psychotherapy seem doomed to failure as a consequence of the very nature of narcissism. Organisational checks and balances, honest feedback, and the training of sub-ordinates to keep the leader under control are unlikely to be successful for the same reason.

Rather, it is suggested that the problem of narcissistic leaders is avoided by reducing their influence, moving them out of harms way, and keeping inexperienced and insecure subordinates out of their reach.

Further reading

An analysis of US presidents for narcissistic tendencies, published in 2013,  can be found at:

https://scottlilienfeld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Wattsetal.2013narcissismpresidents.pdf