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140 SNAKES IN SUITS
to make and maintain excellent first impressions. But then over time,
some coworkers began to realize what was going on and turned
against them. Given this scenario, one might predict that eventually
the psychopaths would fail, that they would be uncovered, or that
they would offend the wrong person and be removed from the organization
before great psychological and financial harm was done. But
this did not happen. Most of them are still enjoying successful careers
in their original organizations. The few exceptions left their
companies for larger jobs in other companies—some of them
competitors—who most likely were sold a greater “bill of goods”
than the original organizations in which we found these people. Unfortunately,
some unnamed victims were reorganized out of their
jobs, had their careers derailed, or left their companies in disgust.
The natural phases of psychopathic behavior—assessment,
manipulation, and abandonment (see pages 43–54)—are common in
society as psychopaths move from victim to victim. We added an initial
phase to capture the process they use to gain entry into the organization,
and now we will add a subsequent phase, which we label
ascension.
Ascension Phase
As a direct result of their manipulation skills, corporate cons are able
to build careers that lead them to increasingly higher-level positions
in the organization. This need not be the CEO’s job, of course, as
not all psychopaths aspire to that position. But one position that often
is immediately attractive is the one occupied by their patron.
Once the psychopath’s manipulation network has expanded to
include the whole power structure of the organization, and all key
players are in his or her corner, the ascension can take place. Almost
simultaneously, and seemingly overnight to the victim, the entire
power structure shifts its support to the psychopath who moves up
into the now deposed patron’s position. The risks of this actually oc-