Corporate psychopathy and military leadership’

Success in warfare may be a matter of good fortune, superior resources and intelligence, propaganda, resilience, and training or discipline. It has often been attributed to exemplary leadership on the part of senior officers and civilians who provide strategic direction, assume operational responsibilities or choose the best officers. Failure has conversely been attributed to incompetence on the part of general staff and field commanders, interference by politicians in tactical decision-making or the behavior that led one biographer to characterize Hitler as the ‘psychopathic god’. This chapter suggests that corporate psychopathy offers a lens for understanding military leadership during times of peace and war. Some expression of the dark triad by people in command is likely to be accepted as consistent with institutional and broader cultural norms that valorize particular styles of leadership. Individuals who exhibit more extreme manifestations of corporate psychopathy are, by extension, likely to be acclaimed as long as they remain the favorites of the goddess of war.