Episode 208: The Dark Triad

In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores the concept of the Dark Triad of personality—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—and examines how these destructive personality traits can undermine leadership effectiveness and workplace safety.

Drawing from organizational psychology research, Dr. French explains that while these traits may occasionally produce short-term results, they ultimately erode trust, silence employees, and create environments where safety and ethical decision-making suffer.

The episode begins with narcissism, highlighting leaders who believe they always know best, dismiss employee input, and quickly shift blame when problems arise. Dr. French emphasizes the importance of organizational accountability, consistent enforcement of policies, and creating cultures where mistakes become learning opportunities instead of opportunities for punishment.

The discussion then turns to Machiavellianism, describing leaders driven by power and control who manipulate people, hide information, and may even compromise safety or ethics to achieve personal success. Dr. French stresses the need for meaningful performance metrics, transparent documentation, and leadership oversight to prevent manipulation and ensure that safety performance reflects reality rather than appearances.

Finally, the episode addresses psychopathy, noting that while these individuals are less common, their reckless behavior and disregard for others make them particularly dangerous within organizations.

Throughout the episode, Dr. French reinforces a central message: safety is a reflection of leadership. Leaders who genuinely value people create workplaces built on trust, accountability, and psychological safety, while toxic leadership ultimately puts both employees and organizational success at risk.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Mark French: 0:00

This week on the podcast, I'm going to dive a little deeper into personality traits. Actually, we're going to look at the dark triad. I want to look at that after something reminded me, and let's look deeper at how this affects our leadership and our safety. This week on the podcast, I'm

Unknown: 0:35

Welcome to the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast. Your host is Dr. Mark French. Mark's passion is helping organizations motivate their teams. This podcast is focused on bringing out the best in leadership through creating strong values, learning opportunities, teamwork, and safety. Nothing is more important than protecting your people, safety creates an environment for empathy, innovation, and empowerment. Together we'll discover meaning and purpose through shaping our safety culture. Thanks for joining us this episode. And now here is Dr. Mark French, the welcome

Mark French: 1:32

to this episode of the Leading and Learning through Safety podcast. So happy you've joined me. So happy to be part of your podcast rotation. Did I grab your attention with the little teaser, the dark triad? Yeah, this has been a kind of an organizational psychology, and also other parts of it bled over into organizational psychology in the early 2000s is really when it came to be known in its three key personality traits that can show up that are very detrimental to an organization and to the people around them, even. And what reminded me that this exists in the first place, and to talk a little bit more about it, was I received the Society of Psychologists and Leadership, their psychology of leaders and leadership is their publication of their, their journals, and there was an article about the dark triad. Now, what they were talking about and studying is that if someone's already a toxic leader and they work for someone that has the dark triad, they probably survive a little longer, not that they're happy, but they survive longer because they're already kind of like toxicity and toxicity kind of meld together a little bit, so it's not productive at all. No one's happy, but they seem to be able to hang on. But from this standpoint, it reminded me that I want to look at it from the safety and leadership standpoint, especially safety, because fundamentally I believe safety is a key leading, is probably the most important to me, and I would argue that that it, it is the most important leadership trait that if you find someone that's doing well in safety for their team, they are going to be stronger leaders than someone who's not. And my key argument is that safety is a fundamental human right. If you fundamentally don't care about someone else's life or danger, how can you even care at all? It's not leadership anymore, it's just being there to direct someone. Anyway, let's get into a little bit. What is the dark triad of personality? So, it's narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Now, narcissism, Machiavellianism, very well known. Now, unfortunately, psychopathy does, does exist. It does exist within the team, and out there, there are people still existing as supervisors, as leaders that exhibit the strain, and sadly, in some cases, you see some of these get elevated in organizations because they can show very short-term high gain processes, but they can't be sustained. They come in, they do what they do as this dark triad of personalities. It improves their performance long enough that in a high churn or a very large organization they can look like they are doing exceptionally well, and you see them get promoted, and sometimes well up. I mean, there's no doubt that we can look at even news, and in the modern day, you can look at some senior leadership of some very large companies and see these traits. And recognizing that they're not good traits and usually they end up causing failure of some form, but let's dive into each of these one by one and talk about them and and see how they affect safety and ultimately affect the leadership, and what do we do about it? Are there ways that we can help coach these, help recognize, help escalate and elevate that these are happening within our organization? So, let's begin. Narcissism, Randy, grandiosity, pride, egotism. So, basically, it's the self-centeredness. I'm right, no one else is wrong. I am superior to everyone. I deserve special treatment, that kind of person. Now, what would that look like in the safety world? So, this is the one that not everybody has some of these traits that pop up when we're talking about, and I have to preface this a little bit, when we're talking about true people with these traits, like very strong, like they are the embodiment of this, this is moderate to extreme, it's not just a little bit here and there, this is truly textbook in a way, looking at someone who is purely motivated by these traits and by what enables these traits. So, the I know best mentality, certainly I have seen this. I'm sure you have to, the supervisor, the leader that is there, that says no, no, I got this. I've been doing it forever. I know best. I always know best. Now, there's a little bit of that in a lot of people. I've been doing it for so long, it's hard to make the chance. We got to look the difference between, is it just hard to change and you're set in your ways, or is it truly, I have such a huge ego, such a level of arrogance that I can't be overcome. So they silence the team. This is the team that's absolutely quiet. They're not going to make decisions, they're not going to ask questions, they are going to do what they are told to do, and then there's also blame shifting, so a lot of times we'll see this type of person when something does go wrong, the finger pointing comes out immediately. Now, again, this happens quite a bit, especially if there's an organization where there's a lot of fear, or if it's a new person and they've come from an organization with a lot of fear, I have seen that, especially, and that's a little confusing at times when we have a new supervisor, new manager that's come to the to an organization, and we're learning them, and they have their first issue, they have their first mistake. This is where we as a safety team, as a, as leaders, we have to be. This is where we're able to show what kind of organization are we in, what kind of organization are we creating. We have a choice. Just because an organization is a certain way doesn't mean we have to embody that. If it's negative, we can be better as individuals. We can choose, we can set the tone in a certain way. We have the ability. We don't want to fall into the trap. So we're part of an organization. This person shows up, and then they have their first mistake, and they're a little scared, their finger pointing. We, as leadership, we, as safety people, especially have an opportunity to be that one that puts our arm around them and says it's okay, we're going to learn, we're not going to blame, we need to learn, and we prove it, and we put it out there. We can see if that person changes, if we see the little change, if we see the development, we have hope, we have opportunity, we have an opportunity to change that person. So it's probably not as I'm going to use the term clinical because it's not so embedded that it can't be changed, it's just what they were taught and what they have brought over, so what do we do with this? So we have this supervisor who has this narcissistic personality, lot of ego, lot of arrogance. They're telling people, I make the decision, I know what's best. You're going to listen to me, you're not going to ask questions, you're not going to make a difference on yourself. The real key here with overcoming something like this is one we have to have, that is one of the reasons we have standards in the organ in organizations, we have policy, we have law, so we can stand behind it and say. Yeah, you're saying you know best, but this is a policy we don't want to break the policy, we don't want to break the law, and I hate having to use those terms, but this is the type of personality that needs to hear those terms, they've got to be able to see that there is a line that cannot be crossed, and here it is. And make it public. This person was told they know the policy, they know the law, they have chosen to either follow or not follow the company guidance. That is where we draw the line for them, and that is their line, is knowing that this is the line they can or cannot cross, and the organization has to choose to enforce and create accountability, so the key with this type of supervisor, the narcissistic person in the organization, is to assure that we have firm accountability to the policies. All right, we'll come back, we'll talk about the next two on the second half of the Leading and Learning through Safety podcast.

Unknown: 11:05

You are listening to the Leading and Learning through Safety podcast with Dr. Mark French. What drives next level performance in your business? It's not just strategy, it's your people, and great performance starts with great leadership at TSDA Consulting. We believe real leadership begins by creating a workplace where people feel safe, supported, and heard. TSD Consulting is led by Dr. Mark French, a recognized leader in the workplace culture, who helps organizations bridge the gap between behavioral psychology and operational safety. Learn yourself, lead others, create safety. Visit TSDA consulting.com today.

Mark French: 11:49

And welcome back to the second half of the Leading in Learning Through Safety podcast. This week, talking about the dark triad, that's pretty the next one, Machiavellianism. So, this is a key phrase based from back in the Renaissance period, and this is a manipulator. The end justifies the means. It is someone who pulls the strings, makes everything about power, money, control. They're not driven by by applause and people add adoration. It's truly about they want to be in control, they want to be the ones that are doing all of the power plays. So, what we'll see in this type of clinical of Machiavelli clinical type personality, we're going to see someone who's willing to cut the corners for the matter. If it gets them their bonus, if it gets them what they need, they'll do whatever it takes to show that whatever is being measured, they are the winner. They are in control. They are doing it. They will potentially even be falsifying records, like to make themselves look better. They'll under report, they'll hide things again. It's a power play. It's making sure they are in control. They have the power. They are manipulating. They're pulling the strings, and then even manipulation of people, they manipulate people to be quiet. They, it is not just, hey, I'm smarter than you, therefore you'll be quiet. It's truly, I have the power, I am the king, I control everything that happens in my area. Now this is one that I have come across, especially like unfortunately I've seen it more in the off shift where there's not a lot of supervision. So the one thing I did love about night shift, I met some wonderful, wonderful people while working night shift is there's a core group of people, and you don't have a lot of the overhead of the key, like high up management at the time, you don't have them there, and so you're able to really get work done and collaborate and have fun doing it. There was days that it was really tough, but I met some really great people. On the flip side, when I have also been at organizations that have a night shift. What you can see happening is that there's a key manager or a key supervisor who wants power so bad that they become the de facto almost night shift plant manager. They just take the title, they're not giving it, they just take it and start ruling it with the iron fist, and so I've seen it more, not to say it doesn't happen all the time or anywhere. I personally have seen it there, where that night shift group suddenly has this de facto leader, and you don't break in unless that person lets you in, and that doesn't change, they know it. This is their. Domain, you're not going to change anything, because you are now in their world. So, what do we do when we see that? How do we overcome things? One, we need to make sure that we, I love the book, Measure What Matters, because so many organizations get used to just red or green without understanding, is the red or the green in your metrics, like, are you hitting it, not hitting it? What's it driving? What personality is it driving? Is it getting you the real results you want? And you have to ask yourself that in a very strong way, because with safety metrics it's so easy to get a very false sense of security, because the numbers, the aggregate numbers can tell you one thing, and when you start talking to people and get down into the granularity, you might hear something else. So you have to be able to balance that, and so here we need good metrics. We need something that says if you're not performing, it will be shown, and this is how you cannot manipulate it. This is where it's not going to happen. Paper trail is absolutely important because they want to pull the strings from behind. They want to keep it a little bit in the shadows because they know some of the decisions they're making or the work they're doing may not be fully approved of by senior senior leadership, and so we have to be able to create a very strong paper trail to make sure that they're accountable. It creates a lot more work for us at times as leaders to be able to create the additional well-detailed paper trail to show that things need to change, and yet that's what we have to do when we encounter this style of person, we encounter this style of supervisor that has created their kingdom, created their domain, because it can be very dangerous for safety, especially because we don't see everything we need to see to be able to make sure good decisions are being made, not just power and profit decisions, and I think we see a lot of this throughout different organizations, you see a good mix of narcissism and Machiavellianism in these systems, and some of it helps, like a little bit of that helps fuel someone to be better, to be greater, but again, we're talking more in the clinical sense, the final one is psychopathy. Now I personally don't see these because they're so reckless, they're so volatile. I mean, this is like the true angry person that is not just wild, and most of these don't survive the organization, because it's not just safety that they're blowing through, they don't care about anything, they're just, I mean, they're just scorched earth, burning it all, laughing the whole way, it's, it's unbelievable, once the cover and the veil comes off to see that you're dealing with something like that, the organization usually takes care of itself very quickly, so I didn't spend a lot of time on that one, because when it exists, it's not as subtle as the other two, it really shows up, and this is where we have to just refuse, we have to get other people involved, we have to escalate, we have to make things happen, but my guess is that other leaders, other people, are having the exact same trouble with this type of person. Thanks for joining me on this episode. I'm very happy to head to be part of your podcast rotation. I hope you've enjoyed this talk about the dark triad. And until next time we chat, stay safe.

Unknown: 19:05

Thank you for listening to the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast. More content is available online at www dot tsda consulting.com All the opinions expressed on the podcast are solely attributed to the individual and not affiliated with any business entity. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes. It is not a substitute for proper policy, appropriate training, or legal advice. This has been the leading and learning through. Safety Podcast I.