What working with psychopaths taught me about leadership
[Music]
i don’t want to freak you all out
when i tell you this but none of us here
is authentic
we’re all a little fake we’re not 100
authentic pinch yourself
just to check to see if you’re real but
i’m going to be talking about a
different kind of authentic
the kind of authentic which is about how
we show up our true selves
to other people and what i’m going to do
today is i’m going to share with you
what i learned about being authentic
from working with psychopaths
and how i then use that in my work with
leaders later on
now the psychological research backs up
what i’m about to tell you
which is that being less than 100
authentic
is probably a good thing and it might
even save your life
let me tell you about a time when it
probably saved mine
so picture this i’m sitting in a room
and actually it’s a prison cell
to be precise it’s a maximum security
prison cell
with bars on the windows big heavy iron
doors
the room is quite bare and i’m wearing a
belt
with keys which allow me to go in and
out of this room quite freely
i’m sitting in this room with a man in
his late 50s
who is a psychopath and he’s been
incarcerated for many many years
for killing three people
two were his girlfriends and one
was his closest male friend now it’s
safe to say
he had issues with relationships
and particularly when they didn’t go his
way
so back to me sitting in the room with
this psychopath and i’m there because
i’m a clinical and forensic psychologist
and i’m there to carry out a risk
assessment
i need to figure out the likelihood of
him killing again
and for that i need information from him
i need to know how well had he planned
these murders
were they triggered by revenge or power
or hate or control
and how would we know now you can
imagine he wasn’t very motivated to
share that information
with me i mean he was locked up and i
had all the power with the keys
literally to his freedom and i wasn’t
going to be able to trick him or
manipulate him into giving me that
information either
because psychopaths by the nature of
well
very good at manipulation and he would
have seen it coming
so actually i was going to have to
motivate him to give me that information
i was going to have to build rapport
build trust
be authentic encourage him to share the
details of what he had done
now to do that i did three things the
first thing i did
was i stayed within the role i was
there for and the permissions of it and
what that means is
i was there as a psychologist to do a
job i wasn’t there as a friend
i wasn’t there as judge or jury there to
criticize or punish
and so i made very clear the
expectations from my side
on my role in the work i needed to do
and i stayed within those boundaries
the second thing i did was i was
prepared
i did my research it’s a very good idea
if you’re going to walk into a room with
a psychopath to be prepared
and know who you’re about to face so
before i walked in i checked out what
kind of day he was having
had he had any bad news
was he in a bad mood and how did he feel
about talking to a psychologist
about all the things that he’d done most
importantly
i checked where the exit was in the room
so i could get out quickly if i needed
to
the third thing i did was i remained
curious
even when i was challenging him or felt
challenged
i mean he was a pretty unlikable person
so you can imagine some of the thoughts
that were going through my mind
but it wouldn’t have been wise for me to
start saying some of those things that
were on my mind like
oh my goodness how could you do such
terrible things and what about the poor
victims and oh
that sounds gruesome so
i stayed curious i framed my questions
and responses carefully
to test hypotheses to make sure i didn’t
share assumptions
to gather the information i needed
was i authentic yeah
what kind of not if being authentic
means that you’re 100
honest at all times i mean i had to
think about what i was wearing
where i sat what questions to ask
how not to give away all the thoughts i
was having in my facial expressions of
my body language
so if being authentic is being a hundred
percent honest or brutally honest
no i wasn’t
and so what i had to do was think about
what being brutally honest would have
done had i shared all those things that
were on my mind
i mean let’s face it his brutal honesty
had resulted in the death of three
people
i didn’t particularly wanted to trigger
that
and if i’d been brutally honest i
probably would have killed a
conversation
close down the things that he i needed
him to share with me
and so what i did was i was
authentic but with empathy
and what that meant was i put myself in
his shoes and thought about
what it must be like to sit with
somebody and have to share the details
of your past
and what you had done and i stayed
curious
whilst i was showing empathy but let me
be clear
showing empathy doesn’t mean that you
agree with what has been done
i wasn’t sympathizing with him or
condoning what he had done
because empathy is not agreement it’s
about understanding
and so by showing empathy i was able to
get an understanding
and through several meetings over many
months
i managed to figure out what had
triggered those attacks
to prevent them from happening again and
he was able
to share openly with me some of the
experiences he had had that had led him
up to those actions
we call that psychological safety
as therapists when we sit and create a
safe space where somebody can share
openly without fear of criticism or
judgment
we call that psychological safety and
that was important
in our relationship to get the work done
and so after many months i completed my
risk assessment
and i was able to walk out of that room
closing the door behind me and i walked
out alive
because i was authentic with empathy
fast forward and i’m working as
a leader and a leadership coach in
business
now some of you might be thinking what
can working with psychopaths possibly
have to do with leadership
although some of you might be thinking i
know the answer to that
well in leadership we talk a lot
nowadays about leaders needing to be
authentic
they need to show up as their true
selves they need to be more open
they need to be more vulnerable well
i’ve seen some leaders using being
authentic and being their real selves
as an excuse to be what i call brutal
brutal honesty and i’ll hear them saying
things like you know nashville it’s just
me
this is me you want me to be authentic
right
and there are essentially two kinds of
leaders that i came across in my work
those that were able to create the
psychological safety i had seen
when i was working with psychopaths
where they had teams that trusted each
other and they
collaborated and they shared and they
seemed to have fun and
they could even disagree and still keep
going and the relationships remained
positive and intact and then there was a
second group of leaders
who didn’t manage to do that and you
could tell because the teams well they
whispered behind closed doors
they didn’t have that trust between them
they didn’t like to share or collaborate
and they certainly were fearful perhaps
even mistrusting
of being negatively criticized by the
leader or by each other
and so in my work with this second group
of leaders
i asked them what impact they thought
they were having in the way they were
approaching their teams
and of course the first thing you would
typically hear was
you know nashville it’s not me it’s them
if i had smarter people i’d be a much
better leader
and so i explored the kinds of
conversations they were having
with their team and i made the same
observations that this brutal honesty
this i’m just being myself but giving
unfiltered criticism or micromanaging
shouting perhaps or even you know the
red pen all over the
the memo ignoring perhaps your messages
and mails
sitting behind computers when you’re
talking all these behaviors
were ways of in a way being brutal
in your feedback to your team members
and what i shared with them was you know
what if that’s being you
authentic you it’s not working for your
team
you’re brutal honesty is
actually killing the team’s motivation
their trust in you and their cooperation
and so i began to think some of the
things that i’d learned about being
authentic with empathy
rather than being brutal in my
authenticity
might be helpful to these leaders and so
i shared three things i encourage them
to do
the first was know your role and stay
within the boundaries of that
you are there as a leader you’re not
there as a friend
you’re not there to criticize or punish
it’s important that you’re clear about
your expectations and you have a
conversation with your team members
about
the boundaries of those expectations the
second thing i encouraged them to do
was to be prepared and do their research
to know their team members much more
than just the tasks
and the activities they were involved in
together what drives this
person what motivates them what makes
them want to work
in this company or with you in doing so
you’re able to hook into
the other person’s desire or motivation
to do their work and to perform
the third thing i encourage these
leaders to do
was to remain curious even when they
felt challenged
because they would often say that they
felt they had people who were
incompetent or
who were resistant to change or pushing
back on the agenda that they had
sometimes they just didn’t like members
of their team
and so i suggested they remained curious
rather than being judgmental or critical
and so my feedback to these leaders was
well
being authentic isn’t an excuse to be
brutal or careless
you can be authentic but you can do so
with empathy
we all do it all the time take for
example a friend who has a bad haircut
and asks you what you think and you’ve
probably heard yourself saying
yeah it’s very you do you like it
i mean you’re not being a hundred
percent authentic and honest
by telling them you don’t because you
want to save their feelings you care
about them
so you’re showing empathy so we can do
it and we actually do it all the time
and so the message to leaders is in
order to be authentic
you don’t have to be 100 honest and
brutal with it at all times
and so what i learned from working with
psychopaths
was that being authentic comes in many
shapes and forms
and we don’t need to be brutal to be
authentic
brutal authenticity kills
conversations kills connections kills
motivation
and kills trust whereas being authentic
with empathy
encourages openness encourages
conversation
and builds trust and so my message to
you today as you leave this room
is think about that think about the
connections that you’re building
think about the role that you play
within those connections
and think about the impact that you want
to have
you can be authentic but be authentic
with empathy
it might just save your relationships
both at home
your reputation at work and one day
it might even save your life thank you
you