by Cynthia Mathieu, Ph.D.
Have you ever heard of this quote “The devil is more devilish when respected” by Elizabeth Barret Browning? How we define success guides our everyday actions. In today’s society, success is associated with power and often comes in the form of external gain such as money, objects and titles. In fact, we often judge how successful people are by external cues: how they dress, how confident they are, how “driven” they seem to be.
This definition of success is without a doubt what attracts dark personalities to the business world and also explains why these dark personalities easily get hired and promoted.
Employee selection processes are formed to hire the candidate with the most success potential. Because extraversion, charm, charisma, grandiose vision and promises, nice clothes and calmness during an interview are all seen as signs of success, candidates who show these characteristics during interviews have better chances of being hired.
Human resources (HR) professionals and industrial-organizational (or I/O) psychologists, who are usually in charge of employee selection and promotions, are governed by society’s standards of what constitutes success. They are asked to select a candidate according to managerial needs and are usually given a competency profile that they use to evaluate candidates. However, as previously mentioned, some external cues and characteristics are perceived as signs of success regardless of the position that needs to be filled. Because many of the characteristics associated with successful individuals are shared with dark personalities, it is crucial that professionals in charge of selection processes are able to identify characteristics of such dark personalities. However, undergraduate and graduate programs, both in HR and I/O psychology do not introduce the notion of dark personalities and the repercussions these individuals can have on an organization. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge on dark personality features and the propensity of these dark individuals to charm and manipulate others makes it extremely easy for these “masters of illusions” to enter organizations and climb the corporate ladder.
