Dark Triad Traders: the need for risk that can make or break a bank

You may or may not have heard about the Citigroup Trader in the news who has been fired for allegedly stealing sandwiches from the work canteen. This sentence is made more unusual due to the fact the 31-year-old Trader is believed to be earning over £1million a year.

You may think this is unusual behaviour and most likely think to yourself… "why would you do something like that when you have so much money?" I, however, am not surprised at all. The reason for this is because I've spent years studying the personalities of those who work in financial services; specifically, those with a concoction of Psychopathy, Narcissism and Machiavellianism.

These people are called Dark Triads and they have very particular personality traits and behaviours which I can see a mile off, and within one square mile in particular. That's because these personalities are drawn to the City and Financial Services. There are roles within Financial Services where cunning, impulsivity and grandiosity are hailed. These roles attract Dark personalities, and they need them too, because these roles are highly stressful and intrinsically require risk. The problem is that these personalities also have other traits which aren't desirable in the workplace.

Some of these traits include a lack of empathy, little remorse, pathological lying, poor impulse control, irresponsible behaviour and a tendency towards criminal behaviour…you now might realise why I wasn't shocked to hear about the sandwich stealing Trader!

There was a well-known case in 2014 of a Blackrock Asset Management MD being fired and banned from the financial services industry for fare dodging over years, having discovered a loophole at the ticket barriers saving £47,000. He knew what he was doing was illegal, but he did it anyway. This element of cunning, risk taking and impulsivity is ideal for some job roles within Financial Services but not seen so favourably in everyday life.

Banks, hedge funds and any other institution that attracts and relies upon these personalities need to be wary of allowing disagreeable behaviours to be swept under the rug. When these people are repeatedly rewarded for their "dark" behaviour, they are encouraged to push more boundaries and take more risks, with little sense of remorse and a heightened grandiosity.

My advice would be not to let the "little" things go unnoticed; for every sandwich that is stolen and every train ticket that is dodged, imagine what hidden behaviour is happening within your organisation.