Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Kate was about to take a sabbatical from working. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have solid plans, wouldn’t have a job or source of income, wouldn’t be achieving anything and didn’t care. People would say it was unwise, that it was bad for her career, that they worried for her. Kate, on the other hand, felt liberated, alive and euphoric at the thought of doing nothing but travelling, reading, writing, taking photos, eating, drinking, meeting new people and being out of her comfort zone – free from the stresses of a corporate job. Even though they were difficult (first world) lessons to live, Kate’s draw to toxic bosses had driven her to take a chance on something different.
Despite knowing instinctively from her first day that her current job didn’t feel right, she had persevered for nearly two years. Friends and family were astounded when they heard the stories from her days in the office (on the days she wasn’t too numb from the job to take phone calls). Mostly, she avoided talking about work – knowing it was not normal and that any person in their right mind would leave, and not understanding herself why she wasn’t.
Early in a new year – after two days of sitting through a series of workshops run by her boss (Colin) with a display of narcissism that that would put Donald Trump to shame – Kate was ready for out. Out of character for her, Kate didn’t tell anyone she was resigning that day, or seek anyone’s advice – not only because her family and friends were sick of their counsel falling on deaf ears – but because she didn’t want to be talked out of it. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. She didn’t want to live it anymore. She didn’t know exactly what she would do next, but she was one hundred percent sure it wasn’t this.
Kate had been on the verge of promotion to the most senior job she had ever been offered, in a company whose mission was admirable and meaningful. She had built up a team she loved – who she had fun with, achieved with, laughed with and cried with (yup). The work was fulfilling and there was lots of it.
The sole downside: Colin – the person whose company it was, and who was still at the helm, was a corporate psychopath. Beneath a cleverly formed façade of charm, wit and warmth – Colin, like all corporate psychopaths – had a strong need to control and manipulate others, and bully, humiliate, and intimidate without remorse. This type of callous behaviour typifies a real personality disorder and is sadly present in disproportionate volumes in senior leadership teams – places where people like Colin can control others and use their power to victimise.
From early in her time at the company, Kate had heard stories that Colin was not a nice person, and received an unofficial corporate induction – full of third hand accounts of things he had done. People alleged his executive assistant was not allowed to leave her desk, and not allowed to go to the toilet. That women giving birth and people caring for sick relatives were called back from hospital to the office. That people were given faux deadlines that made them work overnight, for his amusement. That his senior leadership team regularly burnt out and were seen in tears.
Despite having worked for a similar personality before, ever the naïve optimist, Kate decided she would make up her own mind. Colin seemed charismatic, interested, funny and attentive. He took notes when she provided observations of her work area and what improvement was needed. He regularly gave her time, and regularly stopped by to say hello and share anecdotes from his weekend.
Over the months that followed, Kate watched people burn out in the organisation at an alarming rate, and watched people leave the business and never return – too stressed to even work out their notice period. She saw someone come into a new job, only to leave after three weeks when their blood pressure monitor went through the roof and the impact on their health was too high. She saw incredibly high turnover of staff and observed an enormous volume of mental health issues. There was an inexplicable culture of fear and panic in the organisation that was at odds with what it stood for and what the people in it believed.
Despite knowing intellectually that it was possible, Kate couldn’t believe that one person alone could have that level of impact. She heard people say that the atmosphere in the office was different when Colin was there versus when he was not – and that you could just ‘feel him’. She had even been told by some people (usually women) that they felt an inexplicable discomfort in his presence.
Over time, Kate began to observe some of Colin’s alleged behaviours herself. She watched other staff members being very subtly, but very publicly humiliated or performance managed. She’d seen him big note himself a lot – turning up to the office on free dress days in head to toe louis Vuitton and making sure everyone knew that’s what it was. She saw him lose his shit when a car parked next to his car in the carpark, causing him (not his own poor driving, obviously) to clip the wing mirror of his sports car, subsequently ordering that no one ever use the space again. She heard him repeatedly name drop the people he knew, the people he could ask to guest speak for the organisation, the people he’d sat next to on planes and the people he’d had to functions at his mansion overlooking the beach.
Yet she also experienced him being down to earth, funny, approachable and charming. There was a contradiction between the personas he displayed that was confusing. Kate (despite experiences in relationships and in work that should have caused her to know better) continued to believe that underneath it all he was a good human. Perhaps he was misunderstood? had personal difficulties? had never had anyone with whom to discuss the inordinate amount of pressure he was under? Perhaps he was insecure about his rags to riches story, and wanted desperately to prove he fitted in the world he had found himself in? She felt compassion for him that he wanted so deeply to be liked and felt the need to display external symbols and tell stories that ensured you knew who he was and what he had achieved, and that he deserved what he had.
One day, things had changed very quickly for Kate. With the departure of the manager in between her and Colin, she suddenly found herself reporting directly to him. Once there was a power differential, he was different. The shine came off. She saw quickly what he was, but still wanted to believe he didn’t mean to be it. He did. He knew the impact he had on people, and he enjoyed it, like all corporate psychopaths.
The first meeting they had as boss-subordinate, he made an enormous effort to do it offsite, to be generous, to appear cool, to make clear he backed her 100% and wanted to make her everything she could be. He was charming, personable and made incredible offers. She was excited. She wanted to please him, to do a great job.
After the first meeting, he stopped trying to pretend, and the psychological warfare commenced.
Kate would get vague instructions and huge responsibilities to deliver, and Colin would disappear and be unable to clarify what he wanted. She would be told to prioritise something, would spend days completing it, and would then be told it was not a good use of her time.
She would be called into a meeting to discuss a strategic project she had prepared a PowerPoint presentation for, only to be told he “didn’t do PowerPoint in meetings”. She would adapt and try to use the meeting to get operational decisions made, but would be told “I don’t make operational decisions in meetings”. She quickly learned that one to one meetings with him were actually just forums for him to provide feedback on her, for hours at a time.
In an early meeting, Kate was told Colin had received observations from ‘others’ that she “couldn’t take feedback”. He then proceeded to tell her that she was not a good ambassador for the company, didn’t understand she needed to display company values, and was not solutions focussed. She needed to learn to be more like him – in style, thinking, and output. His ideas were good ideas. He was a success.
When she raised cultural issues in the business (which was part of her role), Kate was told her and her team were the only cultural issue in the business. When she tried to give another view on herself or her team, she was interjected with “ah. See – they’re right. You can’t take feedback”. She was silenced.
After one of her team made a joke in Colin’s presence, Kate listened to three hours of why the team member was an “abhorrent human” and “the worst example of an employee” who needed to be sacked immediately. When she advised Colin that she would give feedback to the team member for her minor transgression, he again told her she was not an ambassador for the company and didn’t understand the seriousness of the behaviour. The team member must never again interact with an executive of the company and must be kept away from him.
In one meeting where she was subjected to constant criticism, including being told that she got too many colds (?!), Kate was finally reduced to tears. Despite this, she was held in his glass meeting room – with staff members passing by – with no tissues offered for two hours. “you can’t leave because people might think I did this to you and it will look bad” and then “I believe in you. I am the right person for you to express this emotion with”. After this horror meeting, Colin’s assistant told Kate that he felt he had “had a real breakthrough with her”.
Since her manager had left the company, Kate had been doing two roles. Despite asking Colin for support for one of the roles, Kate was refused any, and continued to do crazy hours to make both roles work and support the team. She was told when she presented a strategy for the team she could commence getting support, but she wasn’t given any space or access to information to write one. Having been told he was ‘relaxed’ about when he got said strategy, one day Kate received a text message saying “I am boarding a flight to Asia. As discussed, please send through your strategy within the next thirty minutes so I can read it on the plane”. Exasperated, Kate sent through what she had – she was then predictably lambasted for not having a finished it, and told she did not have “vision”. Subsequently, she was given one day to write 5-6 points showing what success would look like for her team; before being told to video tape herself saying it and send him the video – so he could “feel that she meant it”.
Her final humiliation just before a break was going in for a further meeting on her strategy and being told she needed to stand up and do a “stop, start and continue” exercise on herself (again, in his glass meeting room in full view of the office) – the behaviours she wanted to start, stop and continue to be a success. She was told to use green pens for start, orange for continue and red for stop – because psychologically it would set her up to really “feel” the exercise. When it came to behaviours to stop and start, he told her she needed to stop being so private, and share more about her personal life. He told her she needed to stand up straighter, and that she needed to work on her “off-field support” because it “wasn’t working” for her. She needed to smile more in meetings and perhaps she could be a success.
All around her, the rest of the leadership team continued this behaviour “Just Colin” and laughed that he used to be much worse. Meanwhile Kate’s bedtime reading became titles such as “the arsehole survival guide”, “working with monsters”, “the psychopath test” and “games people play”. Relaxing.
Kate lasted a total of 12 weeks before she simply couldn’t anymore. The constant punishment, humiliation, criticism and patronising took its toll. For the first time, Kate truly believed that some people are actually truly not good people, albeit likely because they are personality disordered.
When she quit, Kate was told she was “passing up the best opportunity of her life”, that she was “like a grand prix driver who had trained their whole life to win a race and was careering into a wall just before the finish line” and that she “could have been a success”.
Finally able to see it for what it was, Kate felt like she was leaving a cult.
As her new chapter began, and she began to plan her trip bucket list overseas trip, Kate vowed to spend her life raising awareness of the corporate psychopath…