A LEADING Australian expert on emotional intelligence believes Lance Armstrong is a classic "corporate psychopath" who has hustled and bullied his way to the top his whole life.
According to Sydney-based lecturer and author Chris Golis, the characteristics of a corporate psychopath are their charm, their lack of natural empathy, their ability to deceive and their view that life is a game with winners and losers – and that they are winners.
“Typically they are manipulative, lack ethics, desire power and are very active players in corporate politics,” Mr Golis explains.
“They meet someone and they say, ‘what’s in it for me? How can I make money from this person?’”
Mr Golis says well known examples of the character type in the corporate sphere include businessman Alan Bond and the late Sydney stockbroker Rene Rivkin. But he says top sportsmen often exhibit the characteristics too, and Lance Armstrong appears to fall smack bang into the category.
“Corporate psychopaths have a phenomenal desire to win or to make money and the two often go together, of course.
“Obviously Lance had an incredibly strong desire to win bike races, but he also very much has the desire to make money through the deals he signed left, right and centre.”
Mr Golis says corporate psychopaths are not all bad. “They’re wonderful rogues and fantastic company. They’re hustlers, they’re the ones who get deals done and the world would be more dull without them.
“The problem is, many of them have no moral compass.”