There’s always one. If you walk into any large office, and poll the staff on the office dynamics and personalities of their fellow co-workers, you are bound to find out there is always the one “weird/strange/scary” person in the office that stands out as being different from the rest. While this person sticks to themselves, doesn’t chit-chat by the water cooler, avoids happy hour at the pub, and mutters sarcastic remarks under their breath, most of the office has a running poll on when their eccentric peer is going to show up on the evening news with news they’ve been waiting for – they were a sociopath who committed (insert random crime). While this is probably far from the truth, and the reality is this person is an introvert who just prefers to be left alone, often times office alliances form and peer-to-peer relationships are blurred into friendships, much like those in high school “cliques”. If the psychodynamic approach was used to categorize these employees, it would show a wide variation of personalities and results, which could also differ depending on the organization they are working within (Northouse, 2013).
While the person could very well be a “sociopath”, which by definition is “a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience” (dictionary.reference.com), more so they likely just have a difference in how they associate or communicate with others. And in my former career leading a medical call center with a wide representation of individuals, there was a young lady who fit the bill of being the subject of whispering and gossip from her peers on her “odd” behaviors. Interestingly, from a leadership perspective, I communicated with this staff member well, and she was an exceptional employee when it came to getting the job done, as well as her customer service skills being impeccable. I am always a strong and decisive extrovert from the many assessments I have been given over the years, and I have found that I have learned quite a bit from introverts who reflect but are stable in their actions.
From her appearance and her quiet, withdrawn manner of hiding in the corner during her lunches and skulking as she moved through the building, I could understand the stereotype existing, and she was even aware of the rumors swirling around her. I actually believe she enjoyed the attention, albeit negative, and she did not mind being known for her “sociopath” persona. This also could be part of the psychodynamic approach, and some of her family origin playing into how she formed this identity once maturing and how she continued to utilize it to bring forth the attention she sought (PSU WC, 2015, M. 3., p.5).
There are many factors as to why someone may choose to conduct themselves in a manner that would cause others to question if they were the “office sociopath”, but in the end, it has more to do with the differences that come to be amongst co-workers. It may not have anything to do with how someone looks, but if they begin to act erratically, are caught in lies, or other red flags appear, they could quickly be labelled. Or, it could just be that they are the odd-ball out, and they separate themselves from the rest of the group. As leaders it is important to recognize this behavior, not just of those on the receiving end, but what is causing their peers to target them in such a fashion. There may be a great relationship between the leader and the eccentric follower, but having rifts amongst their co-workers could cause a great deal of harm in morale, and should be addressed accordingly.
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2015). PSYCH 485, Module 3: Psychodynamic Approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych485/001/content/03_lesson/printlesson.html
sociopath. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 29, 2015, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopath
As I was reading, I kept thinking about the person in my office this applied to- the one I was always nice to because I was afraid he was going to go off the deep end and I hoped being nice would work in my favor!
But I never really considered it from the perspective of him being introverted. Which piqued my interest in how introverts and extroverts could understand the other better. What I found was that in the 60’s a psychologist by the name Hans Eysenck thought that extroverts gained their energy, so to speak, by the stimulation of the world around them, whereas introverts, being over-stimulated, needed to be alone in order to reduce this over-stimulation (Bushak, 2014). Perhaps the reason we judge these people (because that’s exactly what we’re doing) is simply because we lack the understanding of an extremely introverted person.
I’m extremely extroverted myself with a sister who is introverted. I do struggle to understand how she would rather stay at home than go out an experience life. I think in a leadership situation more effort should be put forth in understanding and adapting better to each other.
Reference
Bushak, L. (2014, August 21). The Differences Between The Brains Of Introverts And Extroverts. Retrieved February 1, 2015, from http://www.medicaldaily.com/brain-introvert-compared-extrovert-are-they-really-different-299064
Thanks for putting the disclaimer in, that makes my job a lot easier while still allowing thoughtful conversation to go on.
*comment not for grading
This was great, thanks for posting! When I started reading, my first thought was “do we work together?” 😉
This was a fantastic post! I have worked in many different, very dynamic work places and the one link they all had was “that oddball.” For instance I used to work with a guy that would sing to himself; all day. He would not interact with the other staff in normal manner and quite honestly lead me to belief that he was unstable. Now whether or not he actually was unstable, or as you had stated, just had a hard time communicating as others did, was left to the unknown. I sometimes wonder what the world would look like through the eyes of that person. Do they see others in the office as the oddball, or do they recognize and enjoy being different?