The Dark Triad in crisis management

By David Honour

Introduction

Crisis management requires the ability to quickly assimilate situational information and develop an appropriate strategic response, with decisive, clear, and rapid decision-making.

Leadership styles and personality traits play an important role in the success – or failure – of crisis response; and the pressured environment of crisis management can bring out personal characteristics that are normally hidden and controlled.

One set of traits that are more prevalent in senior leaders than in the wider population are those included within the Dark Triad: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

First coined by Paulhus and Williams (2002), the Dark Triad describes socially aversive traits that nonetheless convey advantages in competitive or high-stakes environments. Paulhus and Williams state: “Despite their diverse origins, the personalities composing this ‘Dark Triad’ share a number of features. To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behaviour tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness.”

In crisis management, these traits can be paradoxical: enabling decisive action, but also fuelling disruption, ego, or ethical risk.

As difficult as it might be to accept, these traits often assist people to gain success, and it is possible that your crisis management team contains people with higher than average levels of them.

This article explores what the Dark Triad looks like in reality, the advantages and disadvantages that these traits bring, how to identify leaders who exhibit them, and how organizations can both leverage and contain them.

Positive Dark Triad traits

Although normally seen by society as negative traits, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy can bring positive benefits to organizations as well as individuals. The main areas of positivity are summarised as follows.

Narcissism

Research by Grijalva and Harms (2013) found that narcissistic leaders can bring energy to organizations. They also found that narcissism is positively related to charisma, visionary boldness, risk-taking ability, and inspirational leadership.

Judge and colleagues (2006) found that narcissism was positively related to transformational leadership.

Narcissistic leaders show charisma, self-confidence, strength, and energy. They are extrovert, will easily lead discussions, excel in group situations, and attract and inspire followers (Heinitz 2018).

Heinitz also asserts that in times of crisis and change, narcissistic leaders can be effective and thrive. Narcissistic leaders often exhibit confidence, vision-setting, and decisiveness that can be especially beneficial during crises. They can appear inspirational and energising in turbulent times.

Machiavellianism

Machiavellians are good administrators. They have good negotiation skills and are self-controlled (Heinitz 2018).

Machiavellian leaders are adept at anticipating obstacles, manipulating circumstances, and developing strategies to achieve goals. They excel in complex environments where careful manoeuvring is required (Jones & Paulhus 2009).

Machiavellians tend to be pragmatic and outcome-driven, cutting through sentiment to achieve objectives, says Kessler et al. (2010). They are less distracted by moral dilemmas or interpersonal conflicts when decisive action is needed.

Leaders with Machiavellian traits can keep a ‘cool head’ and adapt quickly, says Wilson et al. (1996). Machiavellians remain emotionally detached in difficult situations, aiding performance.

Psychopathy

Leaders with psychopathic traits tend to remain calm under pressure, making rapid decisions without being paralysed by stress. This can be beneficial in crisis management or high-risk environments where hesitation is costly. They may also show ‘fearless dominance’, which correlates with stress resilience (Lilienfeld et al. 2015).

Many individuals with psychopathic tendencies exhibit superficial charm and charisma, which can be powerful in leadership contexts. They can inspire followers in the short term, attract attention, and gain buy-in for bold visions. Babiak & Hare (2006) describe how psychopathic charm aids in climbing organizational hierarchies.

Psychopathic leaders can use their communication skills well, says (Heinitz 2018).

Manifestations of the Dark Triad in crisis situations

It is clear from the above that there are advantages to making use of the skills that people with Dark Triad traits can bring to crisis management, but people with these traits come with difficulties that need to be managed. Things to look out for include:

Ego-driven over-confidence: narcissists may ignore expert warnings, believing that they do not need external guidance and that their understanding, beliefs, and decisions are certain to be right.
Manipulation and distrust: Machiavellians can undermine cohesion by playing people off against each other.
Ethical and legal exposure: psychopathic risk-taking may cross policy or regulatory boundaries, generating secondary future crises.
Cultural damage: all three traits can create toxic environments, with bullying, aggression, lack of empathy, and lack of consultation among issues that can arise in crisis management teams where Dark Triad traits are evident.

Working with Dark Triad leaders

Harnessing the strengths of people with Dark Triad characteristics while containing their risks requires intentional structures. These include:

Use boundaries: constrain decision rights into specific and clear areas, while limiting their involvement in other areas.
Role pairing: assign co-leaders who have skills in empathy. Lack of empathy is at the core of many of the downsides of the Dark Triad, so ensuring that an empathetic sounding board is available is extremely important.
Use break points: build structured review stages into crisis management processes to moderate impulsivity, ego-driven choices, corner-cutting, and inappropriate decisions.
Enable team ‘whistleblowing’: create an anonymous whistleblowing process where crisis team members with lower levels of authority can safely and quickly report issues that Dark Triad leaders may be creating.
Maintain psychological safety: ensure that all crisis management team members feel psychologically safe by providing formal and informal check-in points. Encourage open and honest sharing of feelings, and act immediately on any issues that are developing.
Set red lines: create policies that define non-negotiable ethical, legal, and reputational boundaries that cannot be overridden. Set clear disciplinary actions for if red lines are crossed and ensure that these are supported by top management and followed through where necessary.
Focus on team rather than individuals: reinforce that the crisis management team is a collective with everyone playing their part. There are no individual heroes. Reinforce this in after-action reviews by focusing praise and recognition on teams and groups rather than individuals.

Context is important

An important consideration is that the effectiveness of the Dark Triad traits is highly dependent on the crisis context itself. For example:

High-velocity crises: in a fast-moving, high-stakes crisis like a natural disaster or an active cyberattack, the psychopathic trait of making rapid, unemotional decisions might be extremely effective.
Reputation-based crises: in a public relations or reputational crisis, the Machiavellian or narcissistic tendencies to manipulate information or ignore public sentiment could be disastrous, leading to greater long-term reputational damage.

Conclusion

The Dark Triad traits – narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy – represent a paradox in crisis management. They offer the capacity for composure, decisiveness, and strategic agility, which can prove vital in a crisis, yet without boundaries and controls, they risk eroding trust, destroying teams and culture, and making impulsive and risky decisions that create their own long-term impacts.

The question is not whether Dark Triad leaders appear in crisis teams – they inevitably do – but whether organizations are equipped to channel their strengths and contain their shadows. Through identification, structured boundaries, ethical anchoring, and vigilant oversight, organizations can gain the advantages that Dark Triad leaders offer in crisis situations, while controlling the associated risks and toxicity.

And you?

Knowing your own traits in this area might be an eye-opening exercise! Like most things in life, the Dark Triad is expressed as a spectrum. Subclinical or ‘healthy’ levels of these traits might exhibit some of the positive aspects without the most damaging behaviours. For example, a leader with high but non-pathological narcissism might have great vision and self-confidence, while a leader with pathological narcissism would be more likely to ignore expert advice and make reckless, ego-driven decisions.

The self-assessment test at https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/SD3/ provides a quick and reliable way to identify if you are higher or lower on the spectrum for narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Understanding yourself in this area, and sharing the results across your crisis management team, could be a strong starting point for a wider discussion and honest exploration.