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    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry
    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry
    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry

    By Adrian Furnham

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    About this ebook

    Can managers have too much of a good thing?  Can managers be too clever, or too charming or too courageous? How do you address aggressive behavior in the workplace, the narcissistic manager or anger management in the workplace?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    ISBN9781483512952
    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry
    Author

    Adrian Furnham

    Adrian Furnham is professor of psychology at UCL, and adjunct professor of management at the Norwegian School of Management. He has written over 1,000 scientific papers and 70 books and is among the most well-known psychologists in the world.

    Read more from Adrian Furnham

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    • 5/5
      For me, this book was worth its weight in gold. I now have an in depth understanding of what is going on in my employees heads, and what should be going on in their heads.
    • 5/5
      After being recently promoted to an upper management position, I needed something to give me the edge to show I deserved the position. With the knowledge I gained from this book, I was able to stand-out in the crowd of management types. My superiors took note of how I handled the different people on my team. Bravo!

    Book preview

    The Secrets of Managerial Psychiatry - Adrian Furnham

    Introduction

    Nutters at Work

    The law of supply and demand presumably apply as much to self-help books as to any other. We all know from bitter personal experience of a boss, colleague, or employee, that some people at work are seriously difficult. Difficult to manage, difficult to motivate, difficult to team up with. They suck up your time and attention and they give little in return.

    No wonder that people look for help in the most American of solutions: the magic self-help book. A quick survey of Amazon throws up the following snappy titles.

    Jerks at Work: How to deal with people problems and problem people

    I Hate People: Kick loose from the overbearing and underhand jerks at work and get what you want out of your job

    Toxic Workplace: Managing Toxic Personalities and their Systems of Power

    The No Asshole rule: Building a civilised workplace and surviving one that isn’t

    Dealing with People you can’t stand: How to Bring out the Best in People at their Worst

    Coping with Difficult People: The Proven-Effective Battle Plan that has helped millions deal with their troublemakers in their lives at home and at work

    Since strangling isn’t an option… Dealing with difficult people - Common Problems and Uncommon Solutions

    Toxic Co-workers: How to Deal with dysfunctional people on the job

    Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates… and other difficult people by using emotional intelligence to survive and prosper

    Note the books refer to difficult and toxic people. However, few would dare to imply that these difficult people might be more than difficult: more likely dysfunctional and disturbed. OK, out with it: Suffering from a mental illness.

    Given the incidence of mental illness in society, it would be highly surprising if we did not meet it every day. However, how many people recognise someone with a mental illness? Work on what is called mental health literacy indicates that most of us could recognise a person suffering from clinical depression, but far fewer schizophrenia or even bi-polar disorder.

    To recognise borderline or schizotypal personality disorder could be very useful. Indeed there are (much better) popular books written by psychologists and psychiatrists that try to explain the behaviour of those who have problems, mainly personality disorders, in our midst.

    The first thing to do is to make the condition or diagnosis less mysterious, jargonised, psychobabble. So, obsessive compulsives may be called over-conscientious detailers, diligent, or perfectionists. Equally, clinical narcissists are called arrogant, bold, or super-self confident.

    Second, they detail the typical behaviours associated with that condition. The aim is to help diagnosis. The behaviours are spelt out in detail. But the books are much lighter on cure. In fact, they don’t talk about cure, they talk about management. What to do if your boss/colleague/report (even spouse) is passive aggressive, paranoid, histrionic personality. Clinicians seem a lot more pessimistic than managers or self-help book authors who offer proven ways to solve the problem.

    The most common and undiagnosed disorders associated with senior management are anti-social personality disorder (i.e. being a psychopath) and narcissistic personality disorder. The guilt-free, manipulative, risk-taking but deceitful and cunning psychopath can flourish in many business settings so much so they are not thought of as disturbed or dysfunctional at all. They are in some sectors the norm: so they are normal and the rest of us are not!

    However, is all this talk a worrying trend of psychiatrists to medicalise and pathologise every form of behaviour? So, a naughty child in need of a good spanking has Oppositional Defiant Disorder and needs psychotherapy on the NHS? Certainly there has been an asymptotic rise in the number of disorders ‘discovered’ or demarcated by psychologists.

    Yet, mental health literacy brings many advantages. It is all about recognising behaviours at work or out of it for what they are. Most of all, it helps to explain the origin of the problem as well as the best pathways to help. It gives a much better idea about prognosis and what sorts of treatments are likely to make the problem worse rather than better.

    Try your skill: What is wrong with Laura?

    Laura is a married 45 year old lawyer. She is known as the hardest driving member of the firm. She is too proud to turn down a new case and too much of a perfectionist to be satisfied with the work done by her assistants. Displeased by their writing style and sentence structure she finds herself constantly correcting their briefs and therefore is unable to keep up with her schedule. When assignments become backed up, she cannot decide which to address first, starts making schedules for herself and her staff, but then is unable to meet them and starts working 15 hours a day. Laura never seemed to be able to relax. Even on vacations, she develops elaborate activities schedules for every family member and gets angry and impatient if they refuse to follow her plans.

    And Mary?

    Mary is the owner of a successful small business. When asked recently about what makes her company successful, Mary replied that, among other things, her leadership was the driving force. Currently though, she is having difficulty hiring a new assistant because she feels that none of the applicants are bright enough to do the job right. Mary also commented that her employees went out for happy hour last Friday after work, but they did not invite her and added that they don’t like that she makes more money than they do. However, she is puzzled by the fact that her friends did not seem interested in

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