“Charisma without Conscience – A way of life in the business world?”
They are sophisticated, good looking, confident and able to earn your trust with a relaxed smile and a few well-chosen words. Today’s business “knights in shining Armani”*are here to ‘help’ relieve you of your excess dollars. Recognize the profile?
These “charmers with refrigerated hearts”* could be suppliers, customers, businessmen/business women, ministers of government, leaders of important organizations, even presidents, monarchs and world leaders. What they all have in common is the ease and charm with which they can persuade others to willingly give them what they want and then take it without blinking an eye. Combine these natural persuasive skills with unbridled power and you have a lethal combination.
I am not talking about the crude thief or con-man – I am talking about the intelligent, persuasive psychopath who convinces you that it is in your best interest to take your life and the life of your children by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. This is precisely what the notorious Charles Manson persuaded all 900 hundred of his followers to do.
It happens every day, all over the world on a perhaps a less physically lethal scale. The ‘mother of them all – Enron -’left in its wake thousands of devastated lives. The question is: “Why do people in many third world countries have a reputation for being the front runners in lying, cheating and stealing?” Is it because we are better or worse at the game? Is it because power is mainly one-sided in these countries that we do away with the CH in charm and simply use strong-arm strategies?
Is it because we secretly admire lying, cheating and stealing and even see them as virtues and signs of intelligence? Or is it because ‘honesty’ is perceived as synonymous with stupidity? Maybe when POWER is added to the equation, the charm dissolves and bare-faced greed kicks in – “pure psychopathy” takes over where the more charming and genuinely effective brand of “functional psychopathy” left off.
