By John Kariuki
The workplace is full of all manner of people including psychopaths.
A psychopath could be any person whose behaviour is unprincipled or anti-social and where this can be attributed to his or her psychological make up. You cannot ascertain a psychopath by a mere glance.
Alfred Kingo’ri, a psychologist, says that at work it is possible to find a socialised psychopath instead of the usual stereotype of lonely and dangerous people. He says workplace psychopaths can be charming people but who get easily annoyed and throw a tantrum of great anger on short notice.
Often their annoyance is out of proportion with the cause of their frustration.
wrong things
"Psychopaths are as focused and ambitious as anybody else . But they may give a tell tale signal in their total lack of a sense of guilt or regret for any harm they may cause to others," says the psychologist.
He adds that when a grownup routinely does the wrong things at work but pretends everything is alright, you could be dealing with a probable psychopath.
For many of them, simple conflicts that arise while parking cars and taking water from the dispenser are golden opportunities for their immaturity to show. In all such instances, they display extreme selfishness.
Kingo’ri says that often workplace psychopaths may take extreme and often unjustified actions when in conflict.
Anybody who has worked with other people in a typical workplace can easily spot this extreme nature of psychopaths.Kingo’ri warns that in the likely event of such people turning violent, he suggests using your gut feelings about such people and the overall impression you have made about their integrity, sociability and maturity.
