Ep14: How not to be a psychopath!

Let’s just get this out of the way – although our last 3 episodes have been about Elon Musk and Twitter, we’re not singling him out!

However, at the time of release, he is arguably the most famous leader in the world, so any psychological lessons on behaviour and personality are easily demonstrated by using him as an example.

In this jam-packed episode, we are joined by expert guest Sandy McKenzie.

Sandy is the managing partner of Amrop UK, an Executive Search & Human Capital Advisory firm, and he also is a fully qualified practitioner for Hogan Development Surveys, which measure the behaviours and personalities of leaders.

Resources

All the links mentioned in the show.

• You can find Sandy on the Amrop website or on LinkedIn.
• The Hogan Development Survey for Elon is here

Connect with your hosts

• Connect with Al on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Leanne on LinkedIn
• Join the discussion about this episode on LinkedIn
• Email: podcast@TruthLiesandWork.com
• Follow us on Instagram @truthlieswork
• Chat with us on Twitter @truthlieswork
• YouTube channel for the podcast @TruthLiesWork
• Check us out on TikTok (LOL!!!) @truthlieswork

Related Episodes

Loved this episode? Here are some more you might like:

The Transcript

⚠️ NOTE: This is an automated transcript, so it might not always be 100% accurate!

Sandy McKenzie
We need the Elon Musk. Hi HDS people you know in our world

Leanne Elliott
Hello, and welcome back to the truth lies and workplace culture podcast, where we delve into the complex world of people and culture and try and make sense of it all. My name is Leanne. I’m a Business psychologist.

Al Elliott
My name is Al and I am a business owner. And welcome back.

Leanne Elliott
Hello. Hi.

Al Elliott
So if you’re a regular listener, or you’ve listened to the last two episodes, you realise been talking a lot about Twitter and the Twitter layoffs. Now, what’s, what’s interesting is we spoke in over those last two episodes to three experts. And they made some really interesting observation on Elon psychology and behaviours.

Leanne Elliott
And how would you rate Elon Musk’s empathy? If there was zero, so a lack of empathy does that him do you associate that with anything else?

Al Elliott
Well, obviously being married to a psychologist, which is sitting to my right, then I would say something like a sociopath or a psychopath, like me think of Wolf of Wall Street guy, or Jeff Bezos or someone who’s just very single minded. And probably Yeah, doesn’t have much empathy. To put

Leanne Elliott
it simply, I guess sociopaths are known more for being hotheads. So they lack remorse. Guilt and empathy can be present in some cases. Whereas in contrast, psychopaths are known for being more cold hearted, and tend to have a complete lack of guilt, remorse, or empathy. And they don’t tend to feel emotion. So with that, they tend to be a bit more manipulative, narcissistic, and typically very charming. Which is often why they’re usually quite successful people, and will maintain what looks like a normal life. And of course, popular culture would leave us leaders to believe that psychopaths and sociopaths are violent. Not all psychopaths and sociopaths are violent. And not all violent people are psychopaths or sociopaths. The prevalence is actually only about 1% of the population

Al Elliott
is interesting, say 1%. Because that that’s a small amount, but still quite a large amount. If the average person has got say, 500 Facebook friends, or they’re followed on Twitter by 1000 people that means like five or 10 of the people who follow them are sociopaths or psychopaths.

Leanne Elliott
Quite possibly, and I think is, you know, something that we definitely do, do see in in the business world as well, this this conversation are, are some very successful business leaders bordering on psychopaths. And this is where Elon Musk comes in. We’re not going to dedicate the whole episode to him, but we will be talking about we’re using Elon as an example because he has given us just some very recent behaviours to reflect on. But absolutely similar to the experts, you know, my psychology, Spidey Sense started working, you know, looking at at villans management of the Twitter layoffs and his subsequent behaviours. And just you know, the relationship between creativity, intelligence and mental illness, which is well documented, particularly in the connection between exceptional ability and psychopathology. And I think most people will actually, when they start to think about it, but will recognise this connection. I think there’s term genius is particularly associated with mental illness, you know, as far back as Aristotle, you know, there’s no great genius without a mixture of madness was something that he said, and of course, one of the most famous examples, John Nash and his diagnosis as a schizophrenic.

Al Elliott
John Nash is the guy from the beautiful mind. Yeah, he is yes, the film if if you’ve not seen it, it is an incredible film. Russell Crowe, I think plays plays the character. But he, as you said, he’s struggling with paranoid schizophrenia. And then he won the Nobel Peace Prize, but according to the film, and I don’t know how true to life this is, you know, he still sees people, He still hears people. He’s still got lots of characters in his life. He was still talking, talking to him, I seem to remember then, in your master’s unit, your thesis was on something like this.

Leanne Elliott
It was it was on the relationship between dark side personality traits and work performance. So good to give you a bit of background. late 90s, early noughties, researchers really started to, I guess, reignite the view that normal and abnormal personality are basically extensions of each other abnormal personality, meaning a personality disorder, and that personality disorders are simply extreme forms of normal behaviour. So on the continuum, I think we’ve talked about this before on the podcast about personality and being treated based on a continuum. So because of that research, linking personality and job performance, started to venture into what we call sub clinical measures of psychopathology, or a catchy term, the dark side of personality. So yeah, it was it was the Hogan development survey that I used in my thesis. So Hogan, Hogan, psychologist, amazing psychologists and researchers. They were real pioneers in in both research and practice of Dark Side personality. And it started because in the late 90s They saw a correlation or or relationship between certain scores on the profile and problem managers.

Al Elliott
When you say profile was this, what do you mean by profile?

Leanne Elliott
So profile was an inventory. It was actually used by clinical psychologists at the time to measure personality disorders.

Al Elliott
profile is like PR is like an acronym no acronym or something. Is it?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, so p r o f i l. H tools with profile? Yeah. So yeah, so they were they were using this to in their research and found relationship between scores on this profile tool, and product managers. And that’s where the idea for the Hogan development survey came from. So it’s a whereas the profile is a clinical inventory. Hogan development survey is a non clinical inventory that’s basically used to assess behaviours that adversely affect performance or reputation of people at work, and also as a tool that then could be used for professional development coaching. So because of that, they wanted to create a non clinical tool based on clinical conditions. The Hogan development survey or the HDS, just for ease, was developed using the DSM descriptions or personality disorders. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll remember the DSM for my imposter syndrome episode is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Manual of Mental Disorders, catchy, but basically what clinicians use to diagnose psychological disorders. So the 11 scales on the HDS inventory. Each one is linked to a personality disorder on the DSM.

Al Elliott
We have one expert guest on today, a lad called Sandy McKenzie, who knows plenty about Hogan and how to interpret the results.

Sandy McKenzie
I’m a managing partner for a global talent organisation called amrop. We’re an organisation founded back in 1977, over 1000 employees 55 locations around the world. So as

Al Elliott
you’ve heard Sandy’s basically a seasoned practitioner in the Hogan development survey, and he helps executive leadership teams to better understand their behaviours, when they want to have high performing teams and sustainable success. And this is both obviously from an individual level to the organisational level. He also is an Executive leader leadership coach, an expert in the Hogan, psychometrics and you’re going to hear a really interesting guy. So the first thing we asked him about what what was the first thing we asked him? Yeah, I think

Leanne Elliott
the first question is, quite rightly, why should leaders and organisations really care about psychometrics and what are the benefits of use them to assess and understand leadership behaviour so this is what Sandy had to say on that.

Sandy McKenzie
But it’s a trying to recognise and understand and extract and develop the behaviours that make individuals and organisations successful, we have a slightly corny slogan that says, if we can make an individual happy, we can make a team happy, which means we can make an organisation happy. And if we can combine all of that it equals high performance, and a lot of that captures behaviours and well being. And sort of really interesting aspects like that. And it’s, it’s an area that people don’t like to talk about, often. You know, very strong willed, senior executives don’t want to necessarily be vulnerable or talk about behaviours, or things that they’ve done right or wrong. Sometimes it’s easier just to fire and hire.

Leanne Elliott
I think it’s Annie makes a really good point there. And I think it is, you know, your behaviours as a leader do impact other people. And that can be for for good and for worse. So really, using these types of psychometrics is about making sure that the behaviours of leaders within the business are constructive, rather than destructive. And without examining these behaviours, they’re just they’re just going to repeat themselves.

Al Elliott
So we asked Sandy, a little bit more about the HDS. And his take on what it is and why it offers a unique perspective on leadership, personality, and behaviour. And this is what he said,

Sandy McKenzie
most assessment tools are fairly well aligned. So the Hogan Personality Inventory tool is similar to others in terms of the outputs. They’re essentially all based around the Big Five personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. The unique factor with Hogan is none of the other assessment tool platforms provide the dark side. And this is the Hogan development survey.

Al Elliott
So he’s mentioned there these five traits now, am I saying this right, five personality traits,

Leanne Elliott
yet the Big Five personality traits? So yeah, I guess they just unpack a little bit of the theory behind this. So personality research and practices typically have been divided into normal and abnormal and abnormal, referring to a clinical personality disorder. And the dominant theory in normal or what is called Bright Side personality research. And practice as well is the Big Five, the extraversion so that’s being gregarious. assertive excitement seeking. The second is agreeableness such as being straightforward, trusting or altruistic conscientiousness, so very much about being self disciplined, dutiful, very achievement focused. Then we have neuroticism that’s often defined by anxiety or nobility, impulsiveness. And then finally, openness to experiencing feelings, ideas, actions, or values. So these are the big five personality traits, or the Big Five model you might see referred to as well. And of course, while no theory is without criticism, the Big Five is actually one of the most comprehensive and widely accepted theories of personality.

Al Elliott
So what we’re saying, if I’ve got this array is that those five personality traits, they refer to you, whether you’re bright side or dark side, it’s not a question to all there’s another five for dark side, those are the five that you’ll get measured against.

Leanne Elliott
Not quite. So the big five, or the dome is the dominant theory and bright side, personality. But what we’re saying is that dark side personality traits are just an extension of these, or her personality disorders are an extreme form of normal behaviour. So when the Hogan development survey or the HDS was developed, using the DSM descriptions of personality disorders, as I mentioned before, each one was linked, each scale on the Hogan development survey was linked to a personality disorder in the HDS. So for example, the HDS has a scale called mischievious. Now, when scored highly that describes someone as risk taking, testing their limits and lots of innovation perhaps, but if behaviour becomes destructive, people can become manipulative, deceitful, exploitive, and those those traits in themselves correspond with the antisocial personality disorder on the DSM. So that’s characterised by lawbreaking, lying impulsivity and a lack of remorse. So there is you can kind of see that this extension of going from, you know, risk taking testing limits, then being manipulative, deceitful to them being lawbreaking lying. This is kind of how these these traits manifest over that continuum.

Al Elliott
So we’re talking about the antisocial personality disorder, which is part of this DSM, then is that what you would describe someone who’s a psychopath?

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So psychopath sociopath as well, are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality disorder. I think when you know, you just look back at some of those those characteristics there. It does make you question Elon Musk’s psychopathology? You know, does he have serious mental disorder? Is he a psychopath, which is why we wanted to speak to Sunday, which is, who is our guest is our said, behind the HDS. And we just start to explore Elon, Elon psychology and personality through this lens of dark side to is I need to profile Elon Musk on the HDS, based on what we know about his upbringing, his career, his recent behaviours. And the results were really, really interesting. But before we, we dive in, if you want to follow along, we are going to post the the kind of mock HDS that Sandy produced for us on our socials. And so if you want that visual to follow along, then that’s that’s useful to have. And before we do, I guess, as well, one big caveat with this. We’re not saying that anyone who scores highly on HDS is going to have a personality disorder. That’s not how this works. And in fact, Hogan makes a really a Hogan assessment systems who are the creator of the HDS make a really important distinction that, you know, under certain circumstances, these traits may actually be strengths. It’s more than under pressure, or under stress, they can become counterproductive. Sandy explains a bit more.

Sandy McKenzie
And I actually tend to call it more The Hogan development survey than the dark side. Because I think the dark side has sort of connotations of destruction and evil and bad. And in many ways, what the Hogan development survey is, is it’s actually an indicator of people’s strengths. But But it’s those strengths that at times have significant levels of pressure, frustration, emotional imbalance, which could be anything it could do, you know, as simple as just having a bad night’s sleep through to things that are going on in your private life. But the sorts of things that will just create blind spots in somebody’s normative, sort of psychological state, that that becomes the derailleur in essence to themselves to that team. to their career, to the organisation that they might work with. And it starts with an individual but it, it travels out, and it relates to teams as well, where you end up with a unifying HDS scale scores in essence, which which kind of, you know, make the problems and the challenges associated with the HDS. That much more enormous. And that’s when you get cultures forming within businesses that can be poisonous in some cases.

Al Elliott
So what we’re saying here, if I’ve understood it is that there is kind of a fine line behind or between the strengths and the weaknesses, and at times of like, massive stress or challenge, we’ve talked about Twitter and musk, then our biggest assets can suddenly become the traits that are going to derail us and in some extreme circumstances, could potentially like destroy us.

Leanne Elliott
Absolutely. And I think it’s why the HDS is, is such an interesting and powerful tool, because it does work to identify the strengths, but also the associated risks ahead of time. And then through, you know, follow up coaching, leaders can build that that self awareness, you know, to make sure that they remain strengths, and they remain strengths that enable performance, the dark side is not necessarily bad. And in fact, in some cases, it really could actually provide the competitive advantage that, that a business needs. So yeah, let’s go back to Sandy. And here’s some more on that.

Sandy McKenzie
In our business, we’re not looking to rule somebody out because they’ve got a high risk score. In some ways, that’s a good thing. It’s a demonstration that when the chips are down, and you need an extra boost of, of, you know, energy and extraversion, to kind of move into fifth, sixth and seventh gear to really change the status quo, you’re gonna get that from somebody who’s scoring as a high risk. So you know, the best leaders in the world are plastered in high risk scores, but that, you know, what they, what makes them great, what makes them fantastic, is their EQ, it’s the ability to harness those those dark side or development traits, as opposed to let them roll out with complete disregard. And you know, that that’s probably linked into some of the challenges with with Elon Musk, of course, now, Sandy

Al Elliott
mentioned the term EQ there, I know that he’s become a lot more popular and people know what it is, but just in case, someone’s listening and thinking, I don’t know what EQ is, could you maybe define that for some for us,

Leanne Elliott
of course, or EQ, or to know that emotional intelligence. So EQ is the ability to perceive interpret, control, evaluate, use our emotions, both in terms of to communicate with others, but also to relate to others effectively. Some experts actually suggest that emotional challenges is now more important than IQ, for success in working life, given the VUCA world that, that we’re living in vakre, another term for another day, sorry. But what Sandy is basically saying here is that the EQ has the potential to moderate these dark side personality traits, simply some simple case being if we’re better to understand and perceive interpret the emotions, not only our emotions, but the emotions that trigger these destructive behaviours, then we’re going to be more likely to moderate them, and then reduce the risk of them impacting or is our performance and also that of our teams.

Al Elliott
That will make sense. So what happens when we do derail?

Sandy McKenzie
If on the one hand, talk about somebody like, you know, Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump, so these are individuals who are likely to have, you know, very, very high risk scores around three or four of their scales that are linked to being charming and interesting to being confident and assertive, to being outgoing and socially skilled, there is no way they would have got to where they got to, if it wasn’t for the positive effects and the depth and high risk nature of of their scores in that respect. But of course, what happens over time, and particularly as politicians is, you start to make promises to the people that have elected you. And when those promises Then unfold, and they start to not become true or they don’t happen. People will start to lose faith or lose interest, and they start to point the finger and say, liar, you said you were going to do this. And now you’re not. So you know, Boris Johnson making, you know, examples of manifestos which you know, just haven’t haven’t happened or, you know, being on television and making promises of what he, you know, is going to do and it just doesn’t happen, you know, so that’s a great example of mischievous, charming and interesting selling to the crowd, drawing them in. And then on the flip side, when it becomes a strength over you, you’re ending up with risk taking, limit testing, untrustworthy, self promoting dramatic attacks. Pension seeking. You know, these are the examples of when those strengths become derailleurs. I was trying to think of a positive example in the extreme, somebody that somebody that everybody could relate to, and I was kind of thinking about Neil Armstrong. So Neil Armstrong went to the moon. So, you know, when it comes to his appetite for risk, you know, where where do we where do we think he was in appetite to the risk, I mean, he went to the moon is pretty high. So you know, you’re gonna see some high HDS scores in his scoring scales. But of course, here at NASA, I’m sure test this to the nth degree, high EQ. So this is an example of somebody who yes, has the risk appetite, and the probably the ability to lean into his strengths as high risks, but fundamentally has the EQ to be able to manage those risks. Imagine how your emotions are feeling strapped to a rocket about to blast out into space, and being able to keep a hold on yourself and manage that. So that’s a great example of where you are looking at maybe the scales of, you know, the ability to deal with those very, very difficult decisions, but actually manage that situation. And that’s a great example I think of probably, you know, EQ, self awareness and self management of your your HDS schools,

Leanne Elliott
some great examples there from Sandy. I love that he gave a positive example there as well. But I think Boris Johnson is such a good example. As I was listening to Sandy, then I was thinking about him when he made quite a few visits to Ukraine during the war, when there was loads like massive opposition to him even being Prime Minister in the UK, say that kind of attention seeking behaviour that grandiosity it’s, yeah, it’s a great example. So let’s send let’s dive into Elon Musk. And that’s the look at the profile that Sandy’s put together phrases, I’ve said, a copy will be available on our socials, truth lies work on Instagram and everywhere else. And we’ll pop it on our LinkedIn as well and leave a leave a link in the show notes. But yeah, so once you’ve you’ve got that in front of you. Here’s Sunday to talk us through what we’re looking at

Sandy McKenzie
the HDS is basically made up of 11 scales, each of those scales giving us insight into the personality of the individual that we’re looking for. And it’s scored on a scale of zero to 100. And effectively, anything that is above 90 in that school is a high risk derailleur. So it’s a high risks. It’s a it’s a strength. But it’s but it’s a high risk derailleur. Anything between 70 and 90 is a medium risk derailleur. And in the main, what we’re really looking for, and talking about are the high risk.

Al Elliott
So you mentioning that or Sandy’s mentioning that is high risk. I wonder if you could just clarify that little bit for us and just say, What does high risk actually mean?

Leanne Elliott
So leaders are classified as high risk, because they’re prone to these frequent and quite intense, maladaptive behaviours. So for highly visible leaders, that have lots of responsibility, job stress may become more frequent. And therefore this self monitoring of these less effective behaviours, not not kept in check, so that what it means to to be high risk.

Al Elliott
And a lot of what Sandy and you are both saying, is this derail? So can you give us an example of or what derailing actually means in practical terms.

Leanne Elliott
So in this context, around means to behave in a way that is basically counterproductive or destructive to our reputation, and could ultimately, you know, do significant damage. So to give, you know, a very current real world example and our case study for today, Elon Musk, yes, all of his recent questionable actions around Laos have been directed at Twitter. But that has also damaged his reputation, which is reflected in the massive drops in stock prices. We’ve seen it Tesla.

Al Elliott
So if I’ve got this right then so if we talk about someone who already is showing Darkside personality traits, and they start, they don’t have the cue necessarily to rein it back in. And something happens that starts to take off, they get excited, and then come off the rails and would that be like Trump when he incited those riots in that he’s got such an ability to lead a group of people, whether he’s right or wrong, or whatever you believe in, but he’s got a great way to lead people. But that just went too far.

Leanne Elliott
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a really good example it is this, you know, this, this risk taking behaviour, there’s testing into limits. And yeah, just this, this whole snowball that we saw with Trump, you know, he didn’t start his presidency by supposedly inciting riots. That is how he He ended it. I think that’s where I’ve found the conversations around. Boris Johnson at the time, the whole party gates scandal, it’s like, what’s the big deal? He had a glass of wine with some mates after work, and it’s like, Yes, but what we’re starting to see is somebody Who is starting to take more risk taking behaviours starting to engage in law breaking such to themselves as above the law? So yeah, having a drink against COVID regulations is perhaps just the kind of the first, you know, the first tip, that could happen for it to be much more destructive, which is why quite rightly, his behaviour was taken very, very seriously. So, as I’ve said, If you score above 90 on the HDS, this is seen as a high risk. And typically, you know, as is, Sandy said, great leaders are peppered in high risk scores. And typically between one and three, what’s interesting, as you would have seen, Sunday estimates that Elon has seven high risk scores. Let’s find out more.

Sandy McKenzie
Yeah, so look, you know, first of all, we’re looking at a scale called excitable. It’s looking at the individual’s emotional control, and particularly in moments where they get excited about projects and people, it’s about being enthusiastic, in essence, when it’s kind of been capped at a sort of a mid range about people and projects with Elon, you know, inevitably, we’re talking about somebody who’s off the chart 100 In terms of his scale, so this is somebody who, you know, invests huge amounts of energy and enthusiasm into anything that he’s doing, you know, ventures, Tesla, even with Twitter now, and others, it’s a real, all or nothing approach, and the derailleur is that whilst you could be incredibly positive on the, you know, in one moment, you can very quickly become very disappointed in people and projects on the other, and you know, the the volatility and unpredictability that you can see, and that is going to be somebody who is on the one hand driving positively, somebody who, let’s say, is in charge of one of his Tesla projects. And then a week later, he’s decided to finance you know, the statistics are indicating that the project was sort of behind behind time or something like that, you know, and, and he’s just lent into that sort of energy score, which people feed off and suddenly it becomes volatility and crash, bang, sharp decision, get rid start again, let’s get somebody new in complete disappointment or failure. And you see it a lot in entrepreneurs as well, where they start, fail, stop, fail, stop, fail, until eventually something you know, lands and is the big sort of dream thing that they sell or whatever they do with it. So it’s quite a common trait that you will tend to see in, in neurodiverse people but also in, in entrepreneurs, sceptical is the second it’s to do with social insightfulness and the surroundings that you’re seeing other people might call it wisdom, for example. But it’s really sort of the, you know, being able to read the social cues and situation around you. And I think, you know, this is probably an area linked to the Aspergers diagnosis, and also what you mentioned earlier about just being black and white, you know, he clearly has a problem with seeing and understanding social cues, I think he’s aware of it. And he’s obviously read a lot. And he’s tried to work on it, you know, through his childhood and teenage years, and even up to now, but you know, that’s something which isn’t going away. And it’s probably something which is a major challenge for him. So I’ve scored him very low on this, because you know, what we’re saying is, is that he doesn’t have that social insightfulness, he doesn’t have that ability to kind of see what’s going on around him. In a media analysis, we will be picking that up and sort of saying, look at development area here is you need to read the room a little bit more, or you need to try and work out how to engage and understand people’s intentions and be a bit more insightful, and you know, in terms of how you’re perceiving and picking up situations around you.

Al Elliott
Just a quick one. Sandy mentioned their neurodiversity. Now I know that that seems to be I’ve seen a lot more articles about that in the last couple of years than I ever did before. I’m not 100% Sure, I understand exactly what neurodiversity is what what does psychologists define it as?

Leanne Elliott
So you’re right, neurodiversity is brilliantly been talked about a lot more. But neurodiversity is basically a word that is used to explain the unique ways that people’s brains work, right? So everyone’s brain will develop similarly, but no two brains function the same, we even see that you know, and identical twins don’t function exactly the same. Being joined divergent means that you have a brain that works differently from the average or neurotypical person. So for example, perceptual reasoning, verbal reasoning, processing, speed, working memory, people who are neurodiverse operate, literally and figuratively on a different level, you know, on this potentially genius level within these particular ways of thinking. It’s about 15 to 20% of the population. On neurodiverse and it can include any condition that affects some but not all thinking skills. So, commonly dyslexia, dyspraxia, add ADHD, ADHD, autism and Asperger’s are all examples of neurodiversity. And it was actually in, in May, last year, May 2021, Elon Musk was on Saturday Night Live, and actually shared that he has Asperger Syndrome. Asperger’s is basically a form of autism. But what distinguishes it and why it’s classed as it is its own separate syndrome, is that people with Asperger’s typically have very strong language skills, and very strong intellectual ability using very high IQ. So yeah, it’s associated in terms of behaviours. Very, very good focus, lots of persistence, and incredible aptitude for recognising patterns. And also having a high attention to detail. As I mentioned, that it does diversity does come with unique challenges as well, for somebody with Asperger’s, they can have difficulty with social interactions, they may have more restricted interests, and just find it difficult, you know, that give and take of, of a conversation. But yeah, I mean, I think the best person to sum up is Elon himself. So he actually, you know, said of his is Asperges, you know, to quote, I know, sometimes I say or post strange things. But that’s just how my brain works to anyone who’s been offended. I just want to say I reinvented electric cars, I’m sending people to Mars and a rocket ship, did you think I was going to be a chill, normal, dude.

Al Elliott
Love it, love it. So now we know much more about interpreting the results of the HDS that’s going to Sandy and find out how Elon is environment might have influenced his behaviour.

Sandy McKenzie
The third score is reserved. So again, a bit like excitable, I’ve scored this 100 Like nothing in between. And I think the thing about reserved, it’s an interesting one. And I think I went with this because it links back to probably his childhood where, you know, he wasn’t a popular kid, he was bullied, you know, he was bullied for being different. And I think he probably built up a very independent resilience internally, which was probably just not to trust anybody, quite frankly, other than himself. And so I think, I think, whilst we see a very extroverted individual based on Twitter, and because he’s sort of so widely recognised, I think he’s a very vulnerable and very reserved individual, in fact, internally, and, you know, the, the sort of the derailleur that’s associated with that is that, you know, that that can lead towards becoming very socially withdrawn very tough, and actually uncommunicative. When it becomes when it becomes a derailleur, you know, when it’s when it’s when it’s sort of a positive, it’s about being very independent, very objective, you know, not needing a lot of round you to make hay of the situation and surroundings. But, you know, I think definitely, there’s a, there’s a, sort of a reserved introvert as well, that exists potentially with him. And I think that, again, is perhaps why we see such massive sort of swings in his behaviour patterns, as well, you know, probably built up through years and years of defence mechanisms to sort of deal with what he had to deal with. As a, as a child. There’s a cluster of schools now, which is bold, mischievous, colourful, imaginative. And this cluster represents behaviours at a macro level that we would say, are moving against people. So these are the fight behaviours, as opposed to the flight behaviours that you might typically recognise. And so this sort of quick run through what you’d expect from bold, Mr was colourful and imaginative, because I’ve scored all of these 100. He’s off the chart. So this is about being confident and assertive, it’s about being charming and interesting, outgoing and socially skilled, innovative and creative. And I think, you know, what he’s achieved and what he does I, you know, I think we can see all of that in terms of what he’s done. But this is the bit where the major derailleurs you know, for me occur, the potential strength over used as a derailleur becomes entitled, arrogant, overestimate competence, risk taking, limit, testing, untrustworthy, attention seeking, self promoting and dramatic, eccentric, impractical and lacking in focus. You know, these are the sort of words that are typically used to describe the Hogan derailleur at the very sort of top end and they’re all contextual. So you have to put them into sort of different situations and scenarios to kind of interpret Yeah, the extremity of that, but I think with Elon, we’re talking about extremity and I’m trying not to swear, but But you know, I could probably add a few more My words in to kind of, you know, accentuate some of those comments, but I’ll try to avoid that. But yeah, you know, this is a guy who moves against people. There’s definitely some flight behaviours, which is that reserved and that excitable score. But I think he, you know, he, that’s where he’s built up the defence mechanism. And what tends to happen is you see the, I’m going to fight this situation, for no reason that you know, for no reason at all, potentially, you know, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a case to sue somebody, I’m going to sue them get the lawyers on. So I don’t care how much it costs. Do I don’t even realise what the reason is, it’s just my natural mechanism to fight, fight, fight.

Al Elliott
So this is really interesting. So once you look into each one of these scales, you can start to see how the scoring is matching up with the behaviour we’re seeing, and we’re not picking on Elon Musk is just that he is most probably the most famous leader right now at the moment in November 2022. So I’m intrigued how, as a psychologist, you’re going to sum this up? How did he measure up on what you think?

Leanne Elliott
So as the as I mentioned earlier, each of these scales on the HGS is related to a personality disorder on the DSM. We’re not saying if you score highly and I can’t stress this enough, we’re not saying if you score highly on the HTS, you have a personality disorder. That’s not the case. But if we’re imagining personality traits as this continuum, then the dark side of personality is much closer to personality disorders and the bright side of personality. So I think what is really useful comparison is to really demonstrate when these things derail, to the point where they become real, I mean, really derail, like Elon Musk level, derail, then, you know, they might start to become clinical. And we can use we can find some really interesting examples to kind of bring this all all to life. So let’s, as Sonny said, there’s a few kind of a cluster of scales there. So let’s just delve into kind of the psychopathology of those. So first Sunday talking about bold, which is a scale on the HDS. So bowled is related to narcissistic personality disorder on the DSM five. So that’s characterised by an inflated sense of self importance, a lack of empathy, need for constant attention need for admiration. And you know, history is really littered with narcissists. They do make their mark in the world for good or bad. Adolf Hitler, Joan Crawford, as we’ve said, Donald Trump are examples of narcissists, just to name a few. And they would score highly in bold, they would score highly on bold on the HDS. Exactly, yeah. So the next HTS scale that Sandia mentioned there is mischievious. So that’s related to the antisocial personality disorder on the DSM five, so antisocial personality disorder, repeated law breaking impulsiveness, aggressiveness, potentially complete lack of remorse. As we’ve said, Psychopaths, sociopaths are said to have an extreme form of antisocial personality disorder. So yeah, killers, such as Ted Bundy. And Jeffrey Dahmer sought to to be afflicted with antisocial personality disorder. But as we’ve said, it’s not just limited to kill it out. Have you heard of Kenneth lately?

Al Elliott
I think he’s the Enron guy. Yeah. Yes. So if I remember, he was basically the CEO of Enron, before it went bankrupt. And he was, I think he was the highest paid CEO in America about a year before they went bankrupt. But when the company got in trouble, he was telling his employees to buy stock to prop the price of the stock up whilst he was getting rid of his own. So basically, is employees are buying the stock that he knew was gonna be worthless whilst he got out of his own position, which is obviously not a great thing for someone to do, which is

Leanne Elliott
quite shocking, really, isn’t it? But, but yeah, I think that is a really good example of that kind of callous disregard, not caring about, you know, financial ruin of other people. No Remorse over it at all. You know, they’re they’re classic signs of antisocial personality disorder.

Al Elliott
Brilliant. So that was mischievious. The second one? Yes, that was mischievious. Brilliant.

Leanne Elliott
So the next one that we have. The third skill is cluster on the HGS is colourful, and this relates to something called histrionic personality disorder, or more commonly dramatic personality disorder. So yeah, exaggerated emotions attention seeking behaviours. Usually people the histrionic personality disorder are characterised as flirty, seductive, charming, manipulative, impulsive, lively. You’ve actually probably heard of histrionic personality disorder, because Amber Heard was publicly diagnosed with that during her trial with her ex Johnny Depp.

Al Elliott
I think I’ve met a few of these. In fact, I went out with a girl in my 20s who threw my shoes out of a window and she What did you do? I don’t want to get into that. But but the fact is yes is exactly that very flirtatious, very seductive, very charming. And it’s not just, you know, fame of the opposite sex or whoever you’re attracted to. There’s a lot of people I’ve worked in business who just come across as so like likeable, but then you just end up like, you go along with them for a night and you end up in jail or something as they head off on their on their private jet.

Leanne Elliott
another story for another time. Right.

Al Elliott
Exactly. So this was colourful, the third one

Leanne Elliott
that was colourful, yeah, which is linked to histrionic or dramatic personality disorder. So the final scale that Sandy touches through that, on the HDS is imaginative, and that’s related to schizotypal personality disorder. So people with this personality disorder often described as odd eccentric, might not have many close relationships, typically don’t really understand how relationships form or really have an appreciation of the impact of their behaviour and other people, I guess, you know, popular culture probably see them as like the odd creative types. So some speculate that Vincent van Gogh the artist had this disorder, and is a fictional characters used discussed quite a lot. In terms of schizotypal personality disorder is Willy Wonka. So someone who has very unusual perceptions, bodily illusions, suspicious, paranoid, very odd, eccentric behaviour and appearance as well. Magical thinking and yeah, potentially a lack of close friends, which is why I needed Charlie. Oh, so yeah, well, we’ll come back to personality disorders. And it’s simple. That is true, he did have his own plumpers different type of dynamic friendship employees. Tell us with what do you think. But yeah, well, we’ll come back to personality disorders shortly. But first, let’s hear about Elon suspect score and the diligent scale of the HDS, which is related to obsessive compulsive disorder on the DSM,

Sandy McKenzie
he will nitpick to get something absolutely perfect and right. And if somebody else can’t do it, I think he would probably end up jumping in himself and micromanaging the situation. So I think his corporate politics in terms of how he respects board versus executive team versus, you know, n minus one, for example, a probably terrible, he just doesn’t think in a structured way about that, or the impact of his actions, he’ll just plough through any structure, you know, which is that sort of almost micromanagement tendency, which is founded on his desire to be a perfectionist in what he’s doing. He’s an innovator, a creator, and he wants it to be the very best product that it can. So, you know, I was feeling that actually, you know, he will move towards people like engineers or people that are able to aid and support him in fulfilling his his dream and have a very short fuse in terms of, you know, if they if they don’t help him, and he sees no further use to them, that’s when you get the shot, you’re out of here. You know, we saw that with one of his engineers that I think was Eric Green Huffer, for instance, you know, that he just sort of got rid of very quickly and his laptop just shut off and he couldn’t get back into it. And that was the signal to say he’s been fired, for example.

Al Elliott
Now I read something, or fact, it might have been an interview I saw with Elon a little while ago. And he said, when he was building Tesla, he said that he was on the brink brink of bankruptcy for about three years. And he moved into the factory. And he said, he is quote, well, I’m slightly misquoting here, I’m sure. But he said, I lived in that factory for three years, I slept on the floor. And so no, I know more about manufacturing than anyone in the world. Now, that just kind of just sums up exactly what Sandy was just saying there is no doubting he is a visionary. And we also need people like this in the world to drive this innovation. But it’s how this is done, that is gonna determine his sustained success. I think we need

Sandy McKenzie
the Elon Musk, high HDS people, you know, in our world, you know, there is there is as much as there’s a lot wrong in terms of how he has gone about doing what he has done. It comes from a place and an individual who just sees the world in a particular way. And he’s driving innovation, you know, what he’s doing and what he believes in, you know, rightly or wrongly, you know, will do things for society, engineering, you know, the economies of the world. It’s how you do it, that that’s the thing because there are others that are, you know, with you carry the same traits, but they have seemed to be able to do it very differently. You know, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, as a comparator, you know, probably carries some similar traits and probably through fame and fortune has developed stronger, you know, HDL scales from perhaps the, you know, the chap who was at university way back when, because of his position. And maybe that’s given him strengths and powers and beliefs that, you know, he now has that he didn’t have before. But it’s how you go about operating from one day to the max, he’s had to do a similar thing and better in terms of the layoff of staff. But if you look at the way he’s done it, versus the, the Elon Musk approach, you can see based on some of the comments that I’ve made, where Musk has taken the derailleur to the extreme, I mean, he carried a sink into the headquarters in San Francisco, just so that he could write a tweet that said, entering Twitter HQ let that sink in. Yeah, it’s ridiculous, right. So this was on the 26th of October. So, you know, I was reading Mark Zuckerberg, you know, similar letter to employees that, you know, had so much more thought caring, he had to do the same thing and done similarly. But the sort of the how, if you like, was done with a lot more compassion and empathy potentially. And that may be that Mark is slightly different, but probably slightly more self aware, and or recognises it and has people around him that helps to control you know, some of those derailleurs.

Leanne Elliott
So what we are seeing is that leaders that score highly on the HDS, are undeniably huge, huge assets to that organisation. But they are also high risk. So it’s important that we understand what triggers leaders to do a on

Sandy McKenzie
the other aspect of vital aspects is that, you know, this isn’t just about the individual, and how they are and what they might need to do to change. It’s also about, you know, the people or the team, or organisation that’s interacting with that individual, you know, if we know what this individual is like, then maybe it’s not always a negative, and what we think is a negative could actually be a positive. And therefore, what can I do to facilitate this individual and their HDS scale scores to get the best out of them? Am I the trigger? I could, I could easily be the trigger, if I know that somebody is, you know, super, highly processed and regulated. And I’m just a complete entrepreneur. You know, it’s, you know, I’m potentially being the catalyst without knowing about it to that individuals, HDS scale schools, so So what can I take away from that, to kind of understand more about the individual and sort of create a more harmonious situation where they can lean into those strengths and gain higher performance from it.

Al Elliott
So if I’ve understood this right, then what we’re talking about this trigger is the environment is something that’s happened, the people they work with. So if someone was advising, Musk, and they said, obviously, in the SpaceX and the Tesla environment, everything is highly controlled, highly engineered, is all based, you know, a lot of space on software processes, etc, etc. And then Elon said to his coach, I’m thinking of going and buying Twitter, which is like 98%, human 2% code, then do you think that the coach might be saying, well, look, this is a triggering thing for you, this is what’s really going to push you over the edge

Leanne Elliott
is interesting that you say that Sandy had a similar thought.

Sandy McKenzie
Yeah, it’s fascinating reading. But the timeline that dates back to roundabout the sort of the fifth of April, when he was informed, he was joining the board. And then on the 11th, of April, informed that he wasn’t joining the board, but no explanation was being given. Now, you know, who’s beating up para ghagra valve at the time was the CEO for effectively announcing to the world that he’s joining, and then he’s not with no explanation. like Elon Musk’s derailleurs are now going supersonic, in terms of his fight syndrome, and you know, the way he’s been treated in that respect, as a main shareholder, I’m gonna take this company, and I’m going to rip it up, and you’re gonna get fired. And, you know, the perspective of why he’s done, it has probably got lost along the way. And that’s why what we’ve seen in the, in the months after that, you know, has just been a series of lawsuits backwards and forwards. And then there’s really random point where it decides to go, yeah, actually, I am gonna buy it, you know, drop drop the lawsuit to do with, you know, scam accounts, I am going to buy it. And it’s kind of like, you know, what was your MO here? Like, what, what, what was this all about, you know, and the chances are, it’s probably just because he was pissed off about how he was treated in the first instance. And he’s got the money and the power and the influence and he wants to demonstrate that don’t mess with me. I can, I can do what I want. And it could be as simple as that.

Leanne Elliott
I think what’s so interesting about what Sandy said there, you know, our last couple of episodes, we’ve talked a lot about searching for a reason what is motivating Elon Musk to, to behave in this way? You know, our experts on the Twitter episodes, made it very clear that he didn’t seem to have a plan. But maybe dark Lee, this is his plan. His plan is to destroy Twitter.

Sandy McKenzie
Yeah, totally. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a power move. He knows he’s not going to be elected as the, you know, as President. You know, how else can I control the world and get the world to see it, how I see it, you know, it’s in the absolute extreme, I think it’s very difficult to to understand what his strategy is, and I think even probably his closest confidence, don’t actually know because he is so unpredictable.

Al Elliott
So let’s get back down from a $44 billion company to one that’s perhaps a little smaller. So listener, has got a got a company and agency, they may know that they’ve got high risk people in their leadership team. So how can they develop or support those people, so they don’t become as destructive as someone like musk, or Bezos,

Leanne Elliott
the same way that you know, leaders are supporting in other areas of their development is about assessing and then coaching, it always comes back to building self awareness, you know, understanding yourself, understanding your triggers, understanding your behaviours, and developing effective coping mechanisms are ultimately going to make sure that you, you may maintain your status as an effective and high performing leader.

Sandy McKenzie
I think the coaching aspect would be about helping him to gain perspective on situations in order to be able to recognise what the triggers are. And then to be able to try and learn behaviour to mitigate those and I would say, you know, one of the key things for somebody like that is, before you decide to tweet, run that past your lawyer. And that’s why he’ll continue to derail. I mean, I think, you know, the question is, what would the advice be, and you can give advice, but the willingness of the individual to take that on board is another thing. But, you know, I think if it was in a development situation, you know, with somebody who was presenting with those scores, not an Elon Musk, but they happen to, to have those scores, you know, I think it would be about developing that individuals EQ, you know, working with an executive coach, in order to help bring perspective and bring light to situations in a very calm and stable environment, that understands the language that that individual prefers to speak in, so that they can interpret, you know, where you’re trying to get to in terms of setting the goals being relatively interventionist, I think, in term and transformative in terms of the style of the individual, perhaps also working with some of their team members as well, in order to help others recognise, you know, well, what are the triggers that could be through other, you know, might not just be that individually, it could be the team, it could be the environment, and what could be done to to look at the wider context of that situation to make that individual more comfortable. But yeah, through through the, through the, through the coaching mechanism, particularly, there’s lots of tools as you and I both know, from from where we met, that that can be used to help, you know, develop that individual, that’s probably the first step, it’s just the acceptance that says, Actually, I could benefit from an independent neutral third party, and listen to what they’ve got to say, to help me,

Leanne Elliott
as a psychologist, as a leadership coach myself, I really love behaviour based tools, because of exactly what Sandy said there. You know, in terms of professional development, sometimes if we use personality based tools, they can be a bit restrictive, because someone might say, Oh, well, you know, I’m an intp, what do you want me to do about it, I’m a blue. Whereas, you know, if we looked at your lens of behaviour, your personality might not change much over time, but behaviours can be modified, they can be changed, and they can be chosen. And, you know, that’s the amazing power of, of coaching, helping people to, to explore, understand their behaviours, and also modify and change their behaviours.

Al Elliott
So this goes back to we looked at Myers Briggs, the answer just alluded to with her ij, B, B, and

Leanne Elliott
A, B, C, D.

Al Elliott
And we looked at that a few episodes ago, and the it’s all about whether it’s brilliant or bullshit. And the whole point that Leanne was saying about Myers Briggs, if I remember was that it’s a personality based inventory. In other words, it’s the same as saying I am a Taurus, and therefore I’m going to do this, whereas what we’re talking about here is actually measuring the behaviour and using that as an indicator.

Leanne Elliott
It’s measuring both it’s measuring personality, it’s measuring the dark side of personality, but through the lens Because of how does this translate into behaviours? And how did we how can we modify these, so we don’t derail it’s connecting personality with behaviour. And yeah, behaviours are a much more effective tool in terms of leadership development than personality can hope to be. So, with all that in mind, what did Sandy conclude about Elon Musk? And what does he predict for his future, given his suspected HDR scores?

Sandy McKenzie
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the future is, you know, where the, the power and the actions of the man, which still has a lot of support, a lot of following, you know, there’s still lots of positives in what he’s doing around electric vehicles, and so on, and so forth. But what happens when that turns to fear? You know, when we look at the future, and, you know, Third World Wars and things that are created by, you know, let’s say nuclear situations, you know, what else are we looking at in the future, you know, when it comes to the power that’s being created through things like a social media platform, and actually where that that sort of dictator, lead leadership style, then turns to fear. You know, and maybe if I was trying to predict the future, and think about the derailleur aspect, that that’s, you know, certainly something that that could be the case, and that will be where it will be his downfall, because, you know, that’s where, regardless of how good a Tesla might be, on the buying one, you know, I’d rather go and get a, you know, a Honda or a Tesla, or whatever it might be, you know, or perfect, whatever it might be, but it will become around not the quality of the vehicle, it’ll become around hate of the man, or fear of the man. Yeah. And that’s, and that’s potentially you know, how his derailleurs might happen. There is a potential positive development side of that, which is he’ll keep doing what he’ll doing. He’s got the money, the finances, the resources, he’s got the ability to do great things, but there’s a super high risk there as well. And I think it is fear. That’s, that’s all like, that’s what I can sort of see in the future from a derailleur perspective.

Al Elliott
So Leanne, is Elon Musk, a psychopath or sociopath?

Leanne Elliott
I think there is definitely a case for for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. I think he’s made it quite clear that he does lacking empathy. You know, and the more recently developments we’ve we’ve seen from Twitter, this demand that people remain, the remain at Twitter buy into this hostile culture, this hardcore culture, I think not only does that show a lack of remorse in terms of the way he’s already gone, about his decision making, but also, you know, a lack of regard for for the people and potentially a violation of their, their rights as well. Though, there is evidence of law breaking as well, which we’ve seen, you know, from is how we, how when he disclosed that he purchased so many Twitter shares, you know, right through to other claims and SpaceX. So yes, I think while of course, we can’t make any firm conclusions on the psychopathology of Elon Musk, this is all conjecture. I think between our research Sandy’s expertise, and our knowledge of of leadership behaviours here are up learned, I think we can be fairly confident that we are see that what we are seeing for sure, is Elon Musk derailing. And this could very well be the start of his downfall.

Al Elliott
Definitely interesting times, it’d be fun to see come back in about six months time and see what’s happened. I just want to thank Sandy, just an amazing guy. You can see he’s got so much knowledge. So if you want somebody to help you with either executive search or coaching, leadership coaching, or you want to do your own Hogan, psychometric tests, then you can find Sandy a at amrop. UK, I’ll put a link in the show notes. Just make sure and if you if you have enjoyed this just can’t find them on Twitter or something or on LinkedIn and just say, Thanks, enjoyed your episode. I think you’d really like that. So next week, we’re talking about psychological safety. Leanne’s going to give again, her opinion on it. And then we’ve got a great guest who’s going to come on and it’s basically what he does. So we’ll be learning a bit more about that. So until next time, anything to add Leanne I don’t think so. Great. Thanks for joining us. And hope you enjoyed this slightly longer episode. Give us feedback. Just find this on the socials. truth lies work. You search for that. You’ll find it everywhere when you learn. Yeah. See you next time.