Leadership Between Risk and Trust
When selecting executives, companies are increasingly aware that leadership is not only about skills and experience, but also about personality traits. Research in personality psychology highlights two contrasting concepts: the Dark Triad and the Light Triad. The Dark Triad captures traits that can drive competitive and sometimes risky leadership, while the Light Triad emphasizes ethical, cooperative, and people-oriented behaviors. Both sets of traits can create value, but their impact depends heavily on the organizational context, industry, and culture.
The Dark Triad:
In leadership contexts, Dark Triad traits tend to manifest in distinct behavioral patterns. The three core traits include:
- Narcissism, characterized by inflated self-confidence, a desire for admiration, low empathy, and a tendency to use others to achieve personal goals.
- Machiavellianism, marked by strategic manipulation, a pragmatic view of people as means to an end, and independence from conventional ethical norms.
- Psychopathy, which includes impulsive, risk-taking behavior, emotional detachment, and a lack of remorse, combined with high resilience under pressure.
Some personality research suggests that aspects of the Dark Triad, such as narcissism and Machiavellianism, are associated with more independent self-views — a psychological orientation often linked with individualistic cultures — while their expression varies significantly across cultural contexts and countries (Paulhus & Williams, 2002).
While these traits are not clinical disorders, they represent amplified personality tendencies present in roughly 5–10% of the population.
Risks and Challenges
From an organizational perspective, leaders high in Dark Triad traits can create significant challenges. Teams may experience reduced collaboration and knowledge sharing, compliance issues, short-term decision-making, limited error culture, and even toxic work environments. Employee wellbeing can suffer, with stress, burnout, and higher turnover rates.
Potential Advantages
At the same time, Dark Triad traits can deliver certain benefits, especially in specific contexts. Leaders with charisma and decisiveness can inspire teams and drive performance in the short term. Machiavellian tendencies may allow for strategic advantages in competitive industries, while risk tolerance can accelerate growth in early-stage or high-pressure environments. Emotional resilience enables leaders to navigate crises effectively.
In essence, the advantages of the Dark Triad are situational and often short-term, whereas the risks can have longer-lasting organizational consequences.
The Light Triad
In contrast, the Light Triad highlights ethical, cooperative, and people-centered leadership, valued in industries where trust, sustainability, and social responsibility are central. Examples include healthcare, education, HR management, and senior leadership roles requiring strong collaboration.
The three core traits are:
- Humanism: treating all people with respect and goodwill.
- Belief in the Goodness of People: trust in others’ intentions.
- Kantianism: acting in ways that respect others as ends in themselves, not merely as means.
Leaders with strong Light Triad traits generally foster higher employee satisfaction, teamwork, cooperation, and engagement. They are perceived as supportive, and their presence can reduce turnover and increase long-term organizational commitment.
Watch Points
However, overly strong Light Triad traits can have downsides. Leaders may take on too much responsibility for others, risk being exploited, or make overly optimistic assumptions about people’s intentions. In practice, executive search must balance Light Triad traits to avoid a “too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect.
Implications for Executive Search
When creating candidate profiles, recruiters must assess the appropriate mix of traits for the company and role. For Dark Triad traits, the question is how much ambition, decisiveness, and risk-taking the organization can accommodate. For Light Triad traits, the focus is on maximizing collaboration and trust-building.
A practical approach in interviews is to ask candidates to describe a situation in which collaboration within or outside their team did not fully succeed. Individuals with higher Dark Triad traits may deflect responsibility or focus on positive aspects, whereas candidates high in Light Triad traits are more likely to acknowledge setbacks and take responsibility, offering insights into their leadership style.
General rules of thumb for companies:
- Dark Triad: “As little as necessary, as much as tolerated.”
- Light Triad: “As much as possible, without tipping into excess.”
Takeaways
Leadership traits shape not only team performance but also organizational culture and long-term stability. The Dark Triad can provide short-term performance boosts but carries significant risks. The Light Triad supports sustainable, ethical, and collaborative leadership. As Executive Searchers, we must carefully balance these traits according to company culture, industry context, and strategic objectives.
Co-written by Laurent Schwander & Yanik Zurkinden, CFR Global Executive Search Switzerland
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