There’s something about psychopaths that gives them an edge.
Research suggests people with the darkest of impulses can be remarkably adept at climbing the corporate ladder, often ending up in places of great power.
But how far back does this creepy phenomenon of corporate psychopathy go?
According to organizational behavior researcher Clive Roland Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, the roots of corporate psychopathy can be identified as far back as 400 years ago – to the very dawn of modern corporate capitalism.
In a new study published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics, Boddy suggests that Jeronimus Cornelisz – a mutinous merchant shipwrecked off the coast of Australia in 1629 in the infamous Batavia disaster – fits the bill as history’s earliest identifiable corporate psychopath.
“What makes this case remarkable is that when we analyzed Cornelisz using a modern management psychopathy framework, he displayed every major characteristic associated with corporate psychopaths,” Boddy says.
“The same playbook we see in toxic workplaces today appears in this case from 1629. He removed opponents, rewarded loyalists, created fear, manipulated followers, and pursued power at any cost.”
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The Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company, often considered the world’s first multinational corporation.
The vessel ran aground on its maiden voyage, striking a coral reef in the Houtman Abrolhos islands, near Western Australia, on 4 June 1629.
As many as 250 survivors were stranded in the shipwreck and were ferried to a nearby island that came to be known as Batavia‘s Graveyard (now called Beacon Island).
After Batavia‘s merchant commander and captain sailed to Indonesia for help, taking with them dozens of senior crew, Cornelisz – who had already planned out a mutinous theft of treasure on the ship prior to the shipwreck – assumed leadership of the remaining survivors, ranking as the most senior corporate executive left behind.
As history records, what followed was a chilling series of events that Boddy argues bear all the hallmarks of psychopathic leadership.
This included ordering groups of people onto other islands, ostensibly to find water, but potentially to thin the numbers of survivors competing for limited resources.
Cornelisz also replaced lawful council members with his own hand-picked colluders, making them sign oaths of allegiance.
“Thereafter, Cornelisz’s group gradually revealed themselves as mutineers and callous murderers, and gathered the treasure, water and remaining supplies from the shipwrecked boat, within Cornelisz’s tent, aiming to keep it for themselves and become pirates,” Boddy writes.
Later, the self-styled ‘Captain General’ Jeronimus Cornelisz is thought to have orchestrated the systematic murder of roughly 100 of the remaining survivors, in a cold bid to diminish the number of people who needed to be fed and watered, and to maximize his control over those who still lived. Women were also subjected to rape and sexual enslavement.
After a series of battles between the mutineers and soldiers, Cornelisz was ultimately captured and tried. He, along with his fellow ringleaders, confessed to murder, rape, and mutiny. As punishment, their hands were severed, and they were executed by hanging.
It’s a gruesome, violent episode of history. In many ways, a story of shipwrecked villainy that feels distant to today’s world.
And yet Boddy says Cornelisz basically exemplifies all the worst tendencies of psychopathic leaders in the modern era.
“Corporate psychopaths are found to exhibit a common modus operandi involving the establishment of control, a cowed workforce, and the formation of a climate of fear, marked by abuse, bullying and yelling,” he writes.
“Cornelisz exhibited all of these in extremity. Cornelisz also utilized the tactics and strategies that are still used by corporate psychopaths, including presenting a grandiose image, replacing boards of directors with personal appointees, using divide-and-conquer techniques to divide and confuse potential opposition, and using fear and dark humor as a means of control.”
According to Boddy’s own research into corporate psychopathy, founded on the theories of American psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, Cornelisz demonstrated all 10 characteristics of corporate psychopathy.
These are: superficial charm and apparent intelligence; untruthfulness and insincerity; cheating personality; extreme egocentrism; lack of remorse; emotional shallowness; unresponsiveness to personal interactions; irresponsibility and refusal to accept responsibility; calm, poised and apparently rational behavior; lack of self-blame and self-insight.
More than just a history lesson, the case of Cornelisz demonstrates that corporate psychopaths have been with us since modern capitalism was invented, Boddy argues.
And while the world might have changed since the dark days of the Batavia, psychopaths haven’t.
“They utilize a similar modus operandi across the centuries and are motivated by greed, self-aggrandizement, and the desire to hurt, dominate, and control others,” he writes.
“They adopt a strategy involving their ascension to power, the removal of potential opposition, the ruthless treatment of others, and the establishment of a climate of fear to quell potential opposition.
“Destruction follows in their wake, and they negatively impact the careers, lives, and fortunes of those around them, including investors, colleagues, subordinates, and other leaders.”
The findings are reported in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics.
This article was fact-checked by Rachel Garner and edited by Rebecca Dyer. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know.
