No Really, Your Boss is Crazy.

A new study suggests that 1 in 25 business leaders and about 1% of the population may be psychopathic.

Paul Babiak, a psychologist in New York, claims to have discovered the “successful psychopath” using a model from U.B.C. Professor Bob Hare. According to his study, psychopaths mimic leadership qualities so well that roughly one 1 in 25 business leaders may turn out to be psychopathic. Babiak says positive environmental influences like happy childhoods can allow psychopaths to succeed in the workforce instead of becoming violent or harmful to society. He reports that these kinds of people tend be highly charismatic, mimicking leadership qualities like charm, manipulation, or intimidation in order to get ahead without feeling any empathy for others. The careful investigation also revealed that psychopaths were generally bad at managing people (What? It can’t be!). While they were very adept at getting jobs and promotions by charming others and hiding their bad qualities, they tended to perform poorly in terms of productivity and team dynamics.