Machiavellianism in the workplace is a concept studied by many organizational psychologists. Conceptualized originally by Richard Christie and Florence Geis, Machiavellianism in psychology refers to a personality trait construct based on a cold, callous and exploitative orientation."Machiavellianism is characterized by planfulness, the ability to delay gratification, and interpersonal antagonism (ie, manipulativeness and callousness)." Collison, K. L., Vize, C. E., Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2018). Development and preliminary validation of a five factor model measure of Machiavellianism. Psychological assessment, 30(10), 1401."Finally, people high in Machiavellianism can be described as acting in a highly exploitative and emotionally cold way when interacting with others." ---Volmer, J., Koch, I. K., & Göritz, A. S. (2016). The bright and dark sides of leaders' dark triad traits: Effects on subordinates' career success and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 413-418. It has been adapted and applied to the context of the workplace and organizations by psychology academics. Oliver James wrote on the effects of Machiavellianism and other dark triad personality traits in the workplace, the others being narcissism and psychopathy.
Characteristics Research has identified several characteristic unethical behaviors that commonly manifest in those who score high in Machiavellianism, including engaging in theft, practicing deception and dishonesty, deliberately sabotaging others' work, and participating in various forms of cheating to gain advantages.
High Machs can exhibit high levels of charisma, and their leadership can be beneficial in some areas. The presence of Machiavellianism in an organization's employees has been positively correlated with counterproductive workplace behavior and workplace deviance. The origin of exploitative tactics entering the workplace can be tied to multiple factors, such as distrust towards others, pessimism, survival/self-protection tactics, or even the gender of involved parties.
A new interpretation of how MACH levels specifically affects organizational contexts, encompasses three key elements: the assertion and maintenance of workplace authority, the implementation of severe management practices, and the employment of manipulative behavioral strategies to achieve desired outcomes.
The Dark Triad personality traits correlate with distinct influence tactics in workplace settings. Psychopathy correlates with threat-based tactics, while Machiavellianism correlates with charm and overt manipulation of people and situations. Narcissism correlates with using physical appearance as an influence tactic. The Dark Triad traits showed stronger intercorrelations when measuring hard (forceful/aggressive) tactics compared to soft tactics. This suggests these personality traits facilitate workplace influence primarily through aggressive and forceful methods rather than subtle approaches.Jonason, Peter K., Sarah Slomski, and Jamie Partyka. "The Dark Triad at work: How toxic employees get their way." Personality and individual differences 52, no. 3 (2012): 449-453.
Leadership The leadership of High Machs tends to be more unethical and destructive than other types of leadership. Unconstructive behaviors may appear in the workplace due to signals being sent from leaders to their employees. According to the findings of a study conducted in 2016, there was a particular relationship between low-ethical leadership behaviors and higher levels of manipulative behaviors from their followers. However, the followers do not need to have high levels of Machiavellianism. This suggests that these negative behaviors could be unintentional and are a result of employees trying to fulfill their workplace responsibilities.
High levels of Machiavellianism among leaders have been positively associated with higher ratings of abusive supervision among regular workers, contributing to low job satisfaction, which results in a negative impact on the workers' well-being. It has also been documented that employees who are high in Machiavellianism may participate in knowledge hiding, a technique of withholding or hiding knowledge from co-workers. This could then lead to damage in co-worker relations and distrust in the workplace. Furthermore, employees high in Machiavellianism may not only target their co-workers but also their supervisors. According to previous study findings, employees high in Machiavellianism may engage in emotionally manipulative behaviors toward their supervisors, especially those low on ethical leadership.
A research paper concluded that employees high on Machiavellianism who experienced the leadership from high Machs showed significantly decreased trust in their leaders. The study found a direct effect of employee Machiavellianism on trust and stress, with an indirect effect of trust on employee stress, but did not find substantial evidence for a conditional indirect effect on unethical work behaviors.Belschak, F. D., Muhammad, R. S., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2018). Birds of a feather can butt heads: When Machiavellian employees work with Machiavellian leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 151, 613-626.
Counterproductive work behaviors Research examining relationships between Machiavellianism, emotional manipulation, counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) used construct replication methodology across two Amazon Mechanical Turk samples. Different measurement instruments across samples showed Machiavellianism positively correlates with CWBs and emotional manipulation. Emotional manipulation was identified as a mediating factor between Machiavellianism and CWBs. Personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, emotional intelligence—emotional control capabilities weakened the indirect effect of Machiavellianism on CWBs through emotional manipulation. Self-reported political skill strengthened this relationship. Emotional manipulation serves as a mechanism for Machiavellianism manifesting in negative workplace behaviors. This relationship can be moderated by personality characteristics and interpersonal skills.
Given the detrimental impact of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) in workplace settings, researchers analyzed how Machiavellianism influences the relationship between role conflict and CWB in Chinese organizations. Data collected across three phases demonstrated that role conflict triggered CWB through emotional exhaustion, with Machiavellianism serving as a buffering factor. Employees scoring higher in Machiavellianism showed a weaker connection between role conflict and emotional exhaustion, ultimately resulting in a reduced likelihood of engaging in CWB when faced with role conflicts.Zhao, J., Xiao, S., Mao, J., & Liu, W. (2018). The buffering effect of Machiavellianism on the relationship between role conflict and counterproductive work behavior. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1776.
Job satisfaction Machiavellianism and psychopathy showed negative correlations with job satisfaction, with perceived competitiveness mediating these relationships.LeBreton, J. M., Shiverdecker, L. K., & Grimaldi, E. M. (2018). The dark triad and workplace behavior. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5(1), 387-414.
Impact on employee satisfaction and well being Being under the leadership of those high on Machiavellianism can negatively impact the performance or productivity inside an organization. A study showed a link between job satisfaction and level of Machiavellianism, in which the higher the level of MACH orientation by upper management and leaders, the higher the chance of employees experiencing lower job satisfaction. In the same study, it was found that managers with high levels of Machiavellianism also reported higher job strain, less job satisfaction, and fewer perceived opportunities for formal control in the work environment.
Research has shown that high levels of Machiavellianism, both exuding the traits and witnessing the traits in the workplace, correlate with higher levels of job strain, lower levels of job satisfaction, and lower levels of overall career satisfaction.
Perceived actions of Machiavellianism can cause significant stress and lead to distrust among employees and leaders. This can be due to the manipulative behaviors, low empathy, and self-focused motives that individuals high in Machiavellianism may exude in their workplaces. As a result of being potential victims of these behaviors, employees may experience a lack of trust, higher levels of stress, and a lower sense of commitment to the workplace.
Bullying in the workplace is another problem that can arise from Machiavellianism and that can contribute to stress levels among workers. A study shows a correlation between workplace bullying experiences and Machiavellianism levels, which usually results in lower job satisfaction among those workers being a victim of workplace bullying.
Career choices and advancement Individuals high in machiavellianism tend to gravitate towards particular careers, especially those that require a high degree of competitiveness needed to succeed. High Machs are ambitious enough to cut corners and use aggressive means if it is necessary to get ahead in their careers. One study found that "Machiavellianism was positively related to leadership position and career satisfaction". Individuals high in machiavellianism are especially drawn to leadership and management positions, which became an important subject in the primary literature. Sales careers also attract dark triad individuals, with one study stating that such individuals are "prevalent" in the industry. One study noted that those who possess high Machiavellianism levels "are more productive but received lower overall managerial ratings", and that "Machiavellianism may in certain circumstances, be somewhat advantageous for long-term sales performance." Machiavellianism was also associated with the use of "hard" (i.e. aggressive and hostile behavior) and "soft" (i.e. joking/kidding, offering compliments) tactics in the workforce. One's political skill in the workplace and elsewhere may even mask the behaviors and characteristics associated with machiavellianism. It was shown that those high on Machiavellianism are more drawn to academic majors like economics, law, and politics, as opposed to the "person-oriented" majors like education, nursing, and social work that were associated with lower Machiavellianism scores.
Workplace success Research examining leaders' Dark Triad traits and their impact on subordinate outcomes revealed that leader Machiavellianism and psychopathy negatively affect subordinates' career success and well-being.Volmer, J., Koch, I. K., & Göritz, A. S. (2016). The bright and dark sides of leaders' dark triad traits: Effects on subordinates' career success and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 413-418. Individuals high in MACH found it easier to obtain leadership positions, and a better salary.Spurk, D., Keller, A. C., & Hirschi, A. (2016). Do bad guys get ahead or fall behind? Relationships of the dark triad of personality with objective and subjective career success. Social psychological and personality science, 7(2), 113-121. Research has shown that one's level of Machiavellianism can be a major factor in situations where workplace manipulation is involved because this trait can have an effect on the ability for an individual to "fit" into a highly political work environment. Research has found individuals with Dark Triad traits are drawn to entrepreneurship. Certain qualities found in the Dark Triad are similar to traits needed for effective entrepreneurship, such as confidence, charisma and risk taking.
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