The “Dark Triad” traits of personality to look out for in leaders: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy

By Rejoice Esi Asante (PhD)

Have you ever felt manipulated by a superior or come across individuals who demand worship, expect underserved praise all the time, full of ego, pride, self-importance and lack empathy?

They are individuals who exert control over their followers and tend to use their power to manipulate and dominate others. These are individuals with dark personality traits that can lead to negative consequences.

These personality attributes influence leadership positively to some extent but when negative, these attributes become excessively manipulative, focus on personal gains and lack empathy, they present a cause for alarm and organisations must beware and find ways of reducing such tendencies before they get out of hand.

These manipulative personality attributes are known in psychology as the dark triad traits of personality, i. e. Narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and deceit) and Psychopathy (callousness and cynicism), (Paulhus and Williams, 2002). This article examines from literature, the three dark triad traits, their effect on leadership and organizations and how to reduce their influence.

The Dark Triad

The dark triad is a psychological theory of personality that describes three notable offensive personality types. Paulhus and Williams (2002), first coined the term describing them as containing malevolent qualities. Conceptually, the three are distinct, but empirically found to overlap with a callous-manipulative interpersonal styles.

They are generally associated with negative human behaviours and must not be confused with specific actions, such as deception and greed. According to Frothingham (2024), in non-clinical terms, dark traits are the personality types exhibited by people who are generally deemed antisocial.

Individuals manifesting the dark triad personality type, according to Paulhus and William (2002), have been associated with tendencies toward violence and criminal activity. Even when they don’t slip to those extremes, the trio usually spells self-serving, manipulative, and low-empathy behavior.

The sub-clinical forms of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are moderately interrelated and share several characteristics such as self-centeredness, coldness, and manipulation to allow them to “get ahead” while disregarding “getting along” (Jones & Paulhus, 2010).

Narcissism

Narcissism is derived from the Greek mythology story of Narcissus, a hunter who fell in love and became obsessed with his reflection in a pond of water and eventually drowned. People with narcissism can be selfish, arrogant, lacking empathy, boastful, and sensitive to criticism and insults. They are found constantly feeling entitled and superior, but all of this is to make up for their typical sense of inadequacy (Frothingham, 2024).

This personality trait is described as having a self-centered perspective, feelings of superiority, and a drive for personal power and glory (Galvin, et. al. 2010). It is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism and a lack of empathy including exaggerated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, a belief in being special, and a sense of entitlement. Individuals with this trait have inflated views of themselves, fantasize about being in control of everything, and like to attract the admiration of others. (Heinz, 1977).

A counsellor describing the personality trait, notes that the personality expects heavy doses of praises and undeserved accolades. They are self-absorbed and self-focused and sometimes take on god-like postures as if they want others to worship them (Bature, 2025).

The narcissist cuts their victims off to isolate them in order to have absolute control over them. Other contentions are that narcissists often portray fragile ego underneath the inflated self-image, and so are very sensitive to criticism or devaluation. They behave arrogantly, vain, and are focused on their own needs, often devaluing others.

Frothingham (2024) contends that narcissism is a concern with one’s self to the extreme. This can be seen as extreme self-esteem, a clear sense of uniqueness and superiority, with fantasies of success and power.

Narcissism is characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one’s own needs, often at the expense of others. Often, narcissists will have a difficult time forming and maintaining relationships with others since that would require them to consider someone’s needs outside of their own.

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism (abbreviated as MACH) is the name of a personality trait characterized by indifference to morality, lack of empathy, and a calculated focus on self-interest. Psychologists created the construct and named it after the famous Niccolò Machiavelli, a 16th-century politician and diplomat from Italy and a renaissance philosopher who described how a head of state ought to behave in one of his most acclaimed works, “The Prince”. One of the main themes of the book is that the ends justify the means—and it’s that very theme that underscores Machiavellianism as a personality type traits including manipulation, self-interest, lack of emotion, absence of morality, and deceit (Moon and Geis, 1981).

The trait can be summed up as a personality type that incorporates the ideas put forth by Niccolo Machiavelli such as the use of manipulation, strategic and pragmatic, with a cynical view of human nature, and a moral code that puts results over principles, uses deception, flattery, and exploitation to achieve goals, often playing people against each other (Frothingham, 2024).  Niccolo Machiavelli was a Renaissance philosopher who described how a head of state ought to behave in one of his most acclaimed works, “The Prince.” One of the main themes of the book is that the ends justify the means—and it’s that very theme that underscores Machiavellianism as a personality type.

Those who exhibit Machiavellianism are highly manipulative. Societally, they are often viewed as adept liars, however, their deception often runs much deeper (Moon and Geis, 1981). in “The Prince,” a true Machiavellian personality inherently understands the importance of appearing forthcoming while using deceit to obtain what they want.

Essentially, they are highly manipulative and are willing to ruthlessly deceive others to obtain what they desire while having a genuinely cynical view of the world. It is not surprising that individuals who believe everyone lies to get what they want and that it’s necessary to cheat to get ahead are less likely to garner support from others Frothingham (2024).

As leaders, Machs lack affection in interpersonal relationships (are unable to empathize with their victims, lack concern for conventional morality (they do not care about lying and cheating), lack of gross psychopathology and low ideological commitment (Kaufman, et al. 2019). The condition has been attributed to genetics and upbringing. People who are high on Machiavellianism are known to have both significantly genetic and environmental influences.

Psychopathy

This personality is characterized by impaired empathy and remorse, persistent antisocial behaviour along with bold, disinhibited and egocentric traits. They are traits masked by superficial charm and immunity to stress (Simonsen, et. al., 2002; Stone and Brucato, 2019). Psychopathy trait lack concern for others, impulsive and lack remorse or guilt when their actions harm others.

Frothingham (2024) contend that a true psychopath is someone who exhibits antisocial behaviors. Namely, they show a lack of empathy or remorse and typically have dampened impulse control. These are typically unrelated to the instances that you can name from common everyday life experiences. For true psychopaths, this lack of empathy and remorse form the rule and is not the exception to their behaviour.

Influence on leadership in organisations

Colin (2025) show that the three triads overlap regardless of their conceptual differences. Those with the traits tend to emerge as leaders or take up leadership positions but usually promote counterproductive work behaviours from others. Grijalva, et. al., (2015). found that change agents who display narcissism, show excessive ego, portray lack of fairness, or any of the traits indicated, become bad leaders and are likely to engender resistance from recipients.

The Dark Triad influences leadership in both destructive and constructive ways. They produce negative outcomes like manipulation, lack of empathy, exploitation, poor decision-making and increased stress for employees. However, they have strategic advantages enabling leaders to succeed in competitive environments by using traits like dominance, confidence, strategic thinking, risk-taking persuasiveness and a focus on power. While negative behaviors like abusing power and stealing other’s credit, can harm organizations, individuals with high Dark Triad scores can sometimes rise to top positions.

Colin (2025) notes that narcissistic leaders create cultures where opposition is viewed as disloyalty, they take credit for successes while blaming others for failures, they demand excessive admiration and special treatment and foster environments where employees compete for favour rather than team up. Grijalva and Harms (2014) found that narcissistic leaders charm and energize organisations but ultimately create cultures of fear and compliance that stifle novelty and genuineness.

Machiavellians tend to manipulate information flows to maintain power, they create politically charged environments where coalitions matter more than performance, they tend to reward devotion over capability or results and undermine potential successors who might challenge their authority. Belschak et al. (2018) found that Machiavellian leadership correlate with decreased trust, reduced knowledge sharing, and higher employee turnover.

Psychopathic leaders display shallow emotions and limited empathy, they make impulsive, high-risk decisions affecting others’ livelihoods, use punishment rather than empowerment to motivate and create unpredictable work environments that breed anxiety. Boddy (2011) contend that these leaders significantly reduce corporate social responsibility, employee well-being, and productivity while increasing workplace bullying.

Reducing the influence of the Dark Triad

Awareness is the first step to reducing the influence of the dark triad. Organisations which identify them are sure to find ways of managing them to reduce their negative effects on the organization. Research has shown that careful selection and placement to ensure that leaders with such traits are avoided as a mitigating factors, including leader development, can limit the effect of the dark triad.

Other actions according to research include the implementation of vigorous governance systems with regular, meaningful leadership evaluation, the creation of psychological safety for honest feedback at all levels, the establishment of clear team guidelines with escalating performance expectations, help deal with the negative effect of the triad.

Training leaders to value organisational cultural health over individual leader entrenchment is also suggested and all the above serve as the most effective protection against toxic leadership and ensure that leaders remain genuinely accountable to those they lead (Colin, 2025).

A scripture in the Bible that explains these dark traits.  Second Timothy 3:2-5 talks about how in the last people will become lovers of selves (narcissists, self-focused), lovers of money (impelled by greed), boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane, [and they will be] unloving [devoid of natural human affection, calloused and inhumane], irreconcilable, malicious gossips, among others.

Proverbs 28:25-28 warns that “the greedy stir up conflict” and “those who trust in themselves are fools.” It also states that “when the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding,” while “when the wicked perish, the righteous thrive,” illustrating the negative impact of such leaders; 1 Kings 14:9 references Jeroboam, a leader who led his people to idolatry by building golden calves, warning against the dangerous compromises and idolatry that can arise from a leader’s poor choices.

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