Terrible Trio -Personalities to Avoid

The terrible trio of personality types, may lead to some rather dark experiences in your life. Having worked for many years within corporations, I have encountered these personality types to varying degrees throughout my career, let’s see if you recognise these too?

The unifying factor amongst these personality types is the wish to do harm to others in terms of violence or manipulation.

They sit on high and have little regard for moral codes or the impacts of their goals on others. In their world, everyone else only exists to serve them and their purposes.

They have a distinct problem in relating to others and completely mis-align their sense of self-importance and reality. This leads to the manipulative mindset common to the three.

They are disagreeable and cannot see things from a different perspective, so sympathy and empathy are not in their vocabulary. They are argumentative, and prone to callousness.

They have no conscience about manipulating and exploiting others, particularly those that they have authority over in any sphere of life

Research into these personality types is ongoing but there are some tactics we can use, let’s describe them in more detail so we can better understand what we are dealing with.

At this point these are not diagnosable psychological conditions but we can see them, by the ‘fruits of their manifestation.’

Narcissists

This first type will defend their ego against any attack, never admitting they are wrong and always displaying selfish and self-indulgent behaviour.

Anyone or anything that is an obstacle to what they want or the image they would like to portray is an attack on their self-esteem, which is very high.

Conversations with these types of people will focus on their achievements and successes and their financial prowess. These types of people defend their image, because it is extremely important if not imperative in their minds that you see them as the person their image portrays them to be. That means attractive, successful, ambitious, visionary, a powerful leader, whatever their own warped sense of ‘magnified self’ they have decided on.

They would say things like the below:

‘Have you seen my car? Best in class and I negotiated a discount, the dealer said he had never encountered such a strong negotiator in his 30 years of selling cars’

‘I invested in this property and it has now tripled in value in a year, I knew exactly what to buy and when, those real estate so called gurus don’t know what they are on about.’

‘When I joined this company, we were struggling to make money now look under my leadership what has happened. I drove change and success, because I know what I wanted to do and how to lead’

Note in the above that everything is about ‘I’ what ‘I’ did not what we achieved as a team… Look out for this. Also look out in conversation with someone who just talks about themselves and is not concerned about your opinion, you are basically there to reinforce them and praise them, you are merely there to stroke their ego. They will not ask about you, your life or opinion, because it is all about them.

Narcissists may portray elements of antisocial personality disorder, and common would be a blatant disregard for authority, including the law and the rights of other people. They lie, behave aggressively, and engage in illegal behaviour. I think I have just described most politicians, and this personality trait definitely resonates with an inflated sense of self, once again, many politicians seem to be narcissists, this is the first personality type that is one leg of the ghastly trio.

Although the terrible trio are three, they seem to be linked, to each other, with similar traits that make it hard to distinguish between them.

The distinction needs to be drawn between the personality types that are more emotionally manipulative and those that are more closely related to physical violence.

Understanding the trio can highlight whether they hurt victims feelings, or steel from victims as in loss of property, or they cause physical harm.

With narcissists they have entitlement expectations and image of grandiosity.

Narcissism, previously linked to overcoming low self-esteem, often I would read about how narcissists were actually outwardly showing a different persona to hide their real inward feelings of low self-esteem.

However, later studies show that narcissists can be vulnerable, and if they cannot be vulnerable, they may have an overlap with psychopathy.

Psychopaths

The second leg of the terrible trio and probably the most dangerous is psychopaths.

Psychopaths have no empathy or sympathy and are indifferent about causing physical harm to someone else, they are more prone to activities like bullying and trolling others. Revenge highly motivates them.

Psychopaths break the rules and don’t care, they are driven by a ruthless selfishness, and exploitation of others is part of the modus operandi.

Machiavellian

The third personality type of the terrible trio is Machiavellianism. This is one of the most calculating of the three.

This personality type has a more long-term aim, an agenda they want to pursue, sex and or emotion rarely factors as a motivation for them. They have an agenda and want to see it through and achieve it, through manipulation.

I remember working with a guy, who seemed nice until I discovered he was lobbying people in the corporation to achieve a specific outcome for a close family member, a family member who would then secure him a higher position within the corporation. He had these traits as he was very patient and was working out his longer-term objectives through tactics and corporate politics. Manipulating directors of the company to ‘buy in’ to his vision.

People mean nothing, their agenda is everything and anyone who is in the way of their agenda, needs to be manipulated, or removed from their position.

They thrive on deception, and are less impulsive, but will lie, steal and or cheat if it advances their agenda, particularly where there is little chance of being caught.

Most people stop themselves from morally questionable behaviour like lying or stealing, etc. These types do not. When it advances their agenda, their conscience takes a back seat.

If we look through the traits of the terrible trio, many of us have low levels of some of these traits too. So it is difficult to identify if someone is part of the terrible trio type, also there is some overlap between the different personality types.

The best way to identify these is by looking at the harm the person has done, and then do something tactical to fight against the terrible trio

So how do we deal with them?

What I have researched is that it is better to work around them and manage them rather than trying to change them, which we will not be successful in doing.

People with higher levels of narcissism are more prone to interpersonal conflict, when compared to those with lower levels.

When dealing with a narcissist (if you have to) make sure that you never give feedback that gives the impression that you are attacking them personally, rather use more general terminology and use words such as ‘we’ rather than ‘you’ unless of course the news is positive, because credit they will obviously accept. But avoid outright flattery, as that can come across as patronising and false too.

When dealing with a Machiavellian seek alternative sources of information to substantiate what they are saying is true.

When dealing with a psychopath, rather avoid them completely or find a new job, etc.

The blanket strategy for all three if possible is to limit contact or completely avoid them if you can.

Remember, it is very difficult to diagnose these personality types, but always remain vigilant and respect yourself, you are worth more than diamonds, even red diamonds. (most valuable gem I know.)

My disclaimer, I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist but have an interest in organisational psychology and industrial psychology as I studied it as part of my commerce degree.

Let me know what you think?