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Enemy at the Gates
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knowing what the left hand is doing” is a common embarrassment in
organizations under the best of circumstances; to purposefully create
such dilemmas is contrary to organizational success.
However, it is easy to understand why psychopaths hoard information.
The failure of others makes it easier for them to appear successful.
Knowledge really is power in an organization. Psychopaths
who keep others “out of the loop” use the power this gives them to
their own personal advantage, which they see as more important than
the interests of the organization. When a psychopath does share information,
it is with an ulterior motive. Keeping others in the dark
can make others look stupid, and this is a form of neutralization
used by psychopaths against their detractors. For example, “They
wouldn’t understand” was the condescending rationale used by one
psychopath we met to justify not sharing information with his
coworkers. Another claimed to be protecting the department from
the disruptions of a coworker, stating, “She would only get upset
and then we’d have a bigger problem”; a statement designed to
bolster the psychopath’s superiority and plant the seeds of distrust
of the “emotional” coworker. Clearly, comments that discount the
value of coworkers or teammates, especially their ability to think and
reason as equals, are consistent with the elevated (grandiose) selfperceptions
psychopaths have of themselves. They are too selfcentered
to see the danger of this approach, let alone its unfairness or
unethical nature.
An extension of the inability to share information is the inability
to share credit with others (unless there is some benefit to the psychopath).
Credit sharing can be difficult to measure, as upper management
does not have easy access to the truth about the relative
contributions of employees. Complaints from coworkers who feel
that they are not getting the information and other resources they
need to do a good job, or who feel they are contributing to the outcome
but not getting proper credit, may be the only hint that something
is amiss. Supervisors and human resources staff should pay
attention to complaints of this kind, some of which may turn out to