Do You Work with a Sociopath?
At first glance, a sociopath may be difficult to identify at work. They generally don’t draw attention because they have no internal need to socialize or interact with co-workers unless there is something to be gained from the experience. When they choose to intermingle, they present as charming, intelligent, balanced, sexy, and yet seemingly harmless. But this is a front.
Sociopaths are often confused with narcissists and psychopaths but they are very different. A narcissist is an attention whore who needs a constant flow of admiration from a flattering staff. Even when they are not in charge, a narcissist will assume the role and eventually take things over to feed their lust for power and domination. Sociopaths, in contrast, do not need attention to feed their ego.
Unlike the narcissist, a psychopath would never draw so much noticeable attention as they prefer to be extremely selective about who sees what face. They are chameleon-like with the ability to instantly change from one persona to another. Employers see only the best side of a psychopath while co-workers see another irresponsible, manipulative side. Sociopaths differ in their ability to maintain the chameleon image. Psychopaths can maintain the façade for decades. Sociopaths become too easily bored with the same role.
What is a sociopath? The term is encompassed under the definition of Anti-Social Personality Disorder along with psychopath. However, psychopath and sociopath are not interchangeable terms. Think of them as two separate parts of a whole personality disorder. A sociopath has more erratic behavior, is unreliable, lies for no apparent reason, and takes greater risks than the psychopath.
At work they may present as the following:
- Charming and superficial only to people that can give them something such as power, money, or empathy.
- To everyone else, they are cold, distant, and aloof as if those people don’t exist.
- Completely lacking in emotion or the ability to empathize with others but they do possess the ability to fake it for a short period of time.
- Unpredictable and unreliable at work completing only the tasks that they enjoy or get instant gratification for finishing.
- Lies to see what they can get away with without any master plan unlike psychopaths who are more intentional about lying.
- Blames others for their own mistakes without any remorse or guilt taking pleasure in seeing punishment administered to others for their blunder.
- Takes unnecessary risks out of boredom just to stir things up.
- Continues to make the same errors over and over with no self-awareness.
- Uses their appearance or sex for self-promotion and/or manipulation.
- Openly makes threatening remarks of harm towards others and themselves (suicidal comments).
- Doesn’t remain in a job for too long, constantly change career paths and frequently are fired.
- Commits illegal activity because they can.
Working with a sociopath is only dangerous if a person gets in their way, attempts to expose the manipulative self-seeking behavior, or has something the sociopath wants. Otherwise they can appear harmless. The best advice is to avoid the sociopath and ignore their behavior. Eventually, they self-destruct or become bored an move on to another work environment.
Posted under: abuse Anti-Social Narcissism Personality Disorders Psychopath Sociopath Work Frustrations Writings from Christine
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