Lessons big business can learn from the Trump tragedy

President Trump will be the first president in 150 years not to attend his successor’s swearing-in today. Instead of being present at the usual hand-over, Trump is now at his Mar-a-Lago residence as Joe Biden is sworn into the highest office of state in the Western World.

What will the ex-president be doing? Watching Biden’s inauguration on TV? Unlikely, says Professor Ian Robertson, because he will be too busy “plotting, plotting, plotting and plotting.”

“You can be sure Trump will be seeking his revenge. He still does not see that he has done anything wrong: he will be full of self-pity and plotting how to get back into power.”

In his farewell address on Tuesday, Trump seemed to hint at precisely that. This is what he said: “As I prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on Wednesday, I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning.”

And so it appears. There is already talk that Trump is planning to create a new political party – the Patriot Party- to continue the MAGA movement which he has “begun.”

This doesn’t surprise Professor Robertson, who specialises in neuroscience and clinical psychology, one bit. “Narcissistic personalities like Trump have little scope for self-reflection, they don’t do reverse. They only operate on forward drive.

“Like a primitive mob boss, he’s a mixture of high over-confidence and intimidation. He will now be seeking to destroy the cartel that dropped him. And he will also be suffering withdrawal symptoms now he has lost, because power is such a powerful addiction.”

You know the saying “power goes to your head”? Well, it really does. This is because the sense of power triggers one of the key neurochemical transmitters in the brain – dopamine – which is involved in generating the feeling of pleasure that comes from all rewarding behaviours, including power. In turn, this then creates a “high” in some people who are given great power over long periods, similar to what happens in drug addiction and compulsive gambling. So when we say, power goes to the head, it’s because a great big dollop of dopamine goes swooshing around the brain circuitry and makes many people feel on top of the world.

The reverse is true too. When that power is taken away, cravings will follow, just like coming off drugs. In the case of Trump, this will have triggered his decision to fight to the death to prove the election was fraudulent, to do anything and everything to stop that loss of power.

Trump’s departure, and the manner of his departing, is a lesson for everyone involved –  the Republican Party members, the donors who pledged millions to the Trump presidency, his family and fans and of course the millions who voted for him, to look more closely at the psychological make-up of those whom they choose to back.

And the clues were there. In an interview with the New Yorker in July 2016, just as Trump declared his bid for the Presidency, Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter who penned the Art of the Deal for him, says that Trump told him he would never look in the mirror because he might not like what he saw.

Schwartz, who now regrets writing the book, added that Trump is pathologically impulsive, self-centred and if he were writing the book again, he would call it The Sociopath.

He went on to say that “Trump didn’t fit any model of human being I’d ever met. He was obsessed with publicity, and he didn’t care what you wrote. He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it.”

Since most people are “constrained by the truth,” Schwartz said Trump’s indifference to it “gave him a strange advantage. … If he could run for emperor of the world, he would.”

Trump’s exit from the White House is a big wake-up call to organisations, boards and shareholders to take a closer look at their leaders, and who they choose to head up their companies.

Decades of psychological research has shown that many of the characteristics displayed by Trump – a mixture of bully, victim and coward – are also found in business leaders at the highest echelons of companies around the world.

Over the years I have met and interviewed some of those top chairmen and CEOs – and they were mainly men – and many of them were, on the face of it, utterly charming. Yet they also displayed some of the more worrying psychological traits displayed by Trump.

Some of them are still in positions of power today so they will remain nameless but they are the sort who send emails from wherever they are in the world at 7am on a Sunday morning, nitpicking about what you have written.

Others in the narcissistic camp include figures such as the late Robert Maxwell, who ran the Mirror newspaper group. It was both exhilarating and scary interviewing Maxwell, who at the time was one of the UK’s most powerful media tycoons, as it was impossible to make a judgment on what he was telling you.

Above the article I wrote, we ran the headline: “When the Ego has Landed,” which says it all. Yet his eventual fall from grace – and the misery it caused to his employees, pensioners and family – was in so many ways of his own making. Indeed, the knowledge that Maxwell took his own life because he was unable to face the disgrace of his empire’s collapse was the ultimate act of a coward.

Core to narcissistic behaviour is this twin trait of bullying and cowardice.  Others who fail to have any capacity for self-reflection are businessmen such as Philip Green, whose Arcadia group has collapsed in tatters. Green shows all these classic signs of over-confident behaviour with his well-known bullying of staff and not caring a hoot what others people think of him.

On the only occasion I was introduced to Green by a mutual acquaintance at a drinks party, Green snorted: “Not another f…. journalist” and turned on his heel. He really doesn’t care.

Fred Goodwin, who crashed RBS into the ground through his over-ambition, is another businessman who Robertson points to as showing similar narcissistic characteristics.

“The crucial ingredient that these leaders share is their love of power, and what that does to their behaviour. Fred Goodwin was only one of many, many people in leading positions who seemed to get carried away during the years leading up to the 2008 Lehman crash.

“Does psychology have anything to say about this phenomenon? Yes it does, and the crucial ingredient in that explanation is the fact that the brain is changed by power, through its effect on dopamine activity in its reward network.”

He says the stories about Goodwin forcing his employees to wear the same ties, objecting to pink wafer biscuits being served in his boardroom because they didn’t suit the surroundings and his pre-occupations with wallpaper are all tell-tale signs of his succumbing to power intoxication and self-aggrandisement, and show how power shapes the brain.

“The plasticity of the brain is extraordinary, and can be shaped by excessive power. It’s interesting that Goodwin appeared to be rather a normal accountant when he started out. It’s only when he started climbing the ranks and acquiring power that he changed so dramatically.”

How then can company boards make sure they don’t pick a Trumpian  megalomaniac? Lindsay Leslie-Miller, headhunter at Hunter-Miller, says: “It’s not always easy to spot narcissists because they are usually very clever, complex people who are good liars. The difference with them is that they genuinely believe what they are saying.”

However, Leslie-Miller, who has interviewed hundreds of senior executives and CEOs over the years, adds she has found ways of scrutinising what they say to pick up early warning signals.

But she has been caught out too. On one occasion she had been interviewing one exceptionally bright director – someone with a first class degree from Cambridge who had flown through the early stages of his career and was now being sought for a top executive role. She rather liked him, despite acknowledging his ruthlessness.

But the results of psychometric testing sent out flashing red lights, warning her not to touch the man. “The company didn’t hire him but he went on to work elsewhere and is phenomenal at delivering results but breaks many of those around him.”

It’s notable that so many business leaders who are in the narcissistic category are entrepreneurs who run their own companies, where it is easier for them to do more or less what they like without being challenged.

Leslie-Miller adds: “I would say that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have these nascent characteristics, an obliviousness to those around them that gives them license to run the show. Indeed, those who work for them often feel lucky and honoured to be working so close to power.”

Yet the signs for future leaders are positive. Professor Cary Cooper, one of the country’s leading organisational psychologists at Manchester University’s business school, says there are fewer narcissists in business because of better vetting down the corporate ladder but also enhanced corporate governance.

Indeed, Cooper reckons that Trump is an anomaly. “Leaders like Trump are like vestigial organs in the body, dinosaurs which are dying out. We are starting to see the age of the nice guy. Top executives are learning that being kind and decent in the workplace is a positive move, and that they don’t have to be ruthless to be successful.”

Cooper cites a new talking shop that he spearheads with c-suite executives  from companies around the world called the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work.

As well as chief medical officers from companies such as BT, GSK and Shell, there are permanent secretaries from government and executives from the NHS involved, all working together to promote a healthier workplace. Cooper highlights BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, who has been public about his own fight with depression, as an exceptional leader who others should look to for inspiration. “He’s the best CEO I’ve ever met and a great example of good leadership.”

Just in case there are dinosaurs still roaming, Robertson, whose new book is published this spring, says there are signs for boards and organisations to look out for.

For starters, the royal we is a no-no. An excessive preoccupation with reputation and legacy and a tendency to enjoy seeing others suffer are also red alerts. “But most of all, watch out for those who talk the talk with regard to values but who in reality don’t walk the walk by implementing those values. Power intoxication damages a person’s moral compass and makes their speech and action diverge dangerously.”