It is a leadership truism that CEOs and presidents are arrogant psychopaths. Recent studies have found that half of U.S. Presidents experienced some kind of mental illness, with many of them (and U.K. Prime Ministers) suffering from "Hubris syndrome."

    But it may be those illnesses that make these leaders persuasive, charming, and focused in the first place. As author Kevin Dutton writes in his book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths (reviewed here in Fortune), "Psychopaths appear, through some Darwinian practical joke, to possess the very personality characteristics that many of us would die for."

    But how did they get that way, and how can the countries and companies they lead channel their psychopathy to noble ends?

    In their recently published book, titled Som una espècie violenta? (Are We a Violent Species?),David Bueno i Torrens, a professor of genetics at the University of Barcelona, and five other members of the Barcelona-based interdisciplinary neuroscience group known as the "Cervell de Sis" ("Brain of Six" in Catalan) emphasize the role of biology in aggressiveness and psychopathy, and, in the process, offer insight into what these qualities mean to organizations and leaders.

    The group put together the book after noting that, despite all the effort being put into addressing the social causes of violence, incidence rates of social ills like domestic violence were barely budging. "We thought that social aspect was one side of the coin, but lacked the biological aspect," Bueno says.

    Bueno draws a distinction between violence, which implies an understanding that one is inflicting harm on someone else, and aggressiveness, which is an emotion. "Aggressiveness is a response to a particular situation," he says. "When we find ourselves is a dangerous situation, we have three responses: to flee, to freeze, or to defend ourselves. This third is aggressiveness. Without aggressiveness, no species can survive."

    Aggressiveness is not only necessary for survival, he notes, but also to become a leader. "Human systems inspire pyramids, and to get to the top requires competition," he says. "That implies a certain amount of aggressiveness."

    The predisposition to aggressiveness is mixed with that for creativity and impulsiveness -- more than 30 genes that affect aggressiveness have been identified, Buenos says -- thus creating the classic profile of the leader

    But the brain is not static. Once people with a leader's mix of aggressiveness, creativity, and impulsiveness get to the corner office, power actually does corrupt them -- physically.

    "Many leaders adapt to power, and the parameters change. There are studies where one can see changes on the neural-hormonal level. And the leaders get colder, more distant, less empathetic," Bueno says.

    This loss of empathy is not necessarily bad for a leader, to a point. Diminished empathy -- one definition of psychopathy -- allows a person to makes decisions without worrying about every constituent or employee's feelings.

    人们经常说首席执行官和总裁都是心理不正常的自大狂。近期研究发现，一半的美国公司总裁都有某种精神疾病，而且其中许多人（和英国历任首相一起）患上了“傲慢综合症”。

    但可能正是这样的心理疾病让这些领导者变得有说服力、魅力十足而且备受瞩目。就像凯文•达顿在他的著述《神经病有大智慧》（The Wisdom of Psychopaths，点击这里查看《财富》对这本书的评论）中所说的那样：“借助某些进化过程中的恶作剧，精神不正常的人似乎拥有我们中许多人梦寐以求的性格特质。”

    但他们为什么会变成那样呢？他们领导的国家和企业又是怎样让这种不正常心理变得高贵起来了呢？

    最近出版的《我们是暴力物种吗？》（Som una espècie violenta?）一书着重谈到了生理因素对好斗性格和不正常心理的影响，同时探讨了这些特质对组织机构和领导者意味着什么。这本书由巴塞罗那大学（University of Barcelona）遗传学教授大卫•比诺•托伦斯和另外五个人合著；他们六人在巴塞罗那建立了一个跨学科神经系统科学团体，人称“加泰罗尼亚的六个大脑”（Cervell de Sis）。

    这个团体在这本书中指出，虽然人们下了很大力气来寻找暴力的社会成因，但暴力事件等社会问题出现的几率几乎没有发生变化。比诺教授说：“我们认为社会因素只是一个方面，生理因素这个方面却一直没有人提起。”

    比诺教授认为暴力和好斗存在区别——使用暴力的人知道自己正在伤害别人，而好斗是一种心理。他认为：“好斗是在特定情况下的一种反应。当我们发现自己身处险境时会有三种反应：逃之夭夭、呆若木鸡或者奋起自卫。第三种反应就是好斗。如果没有它，任何物种都无法生存。”

    他还谈到，好斗不仅是生存的需要，也是成为领导者的必要条件。“金字塔的灵感就来自人类体系，要到达顶端，就得和别人竞争。这就意味着一定程度的好斗。”

    好斗倾向和创造以及冲动倾向混杂在一起，从而产生了领导者的典型性格。比诺教授指出，已经发现了30多个影响好斗特质的基因。

    但大脑并非一成不变。一旦具有领导者特质，也就是好斗、有创造力和冲动的人坐上了管理位置，权力确实会腐蚀他们——而且是从肉体上腐蚀。

    比诺教授说：“许多领导者都变得适应权力，他们的生理特征也会改变。研究显示，可以看到他们的神经以及荷尔蒙层面都出现了变化。这些领导者会变得更无情、更冷漠、而且不那么近人情。”

    从某种角度而言，失去同情心对领导者来说未必是件坏事。同情心下降——这是心理不正常的定义之一——可以让他们在作出决定时不必顾及每一位选民或者员工的感受。

    "Being less empathetic is a means of adaptation. If you have to lead a group, you never lead in a way that everyone likes," Bueno says. "If you allow those who do not agree with you to affect policies that benefit a majority, you're not good.

    "A certain grade of psychopathy can help a leader in the sense that he's not always asking the same questions to keep the whole world happy."

    The problem is that when such behavior reaches an excessive level, psychopathy leads to the kind of arrogance that defines fallen, once-great leaders, like the heads of banks who kept ill-thought policies in place -- despite contrary evidence and advice -- in the run up to the 2008 financial collapse.

    "Over time, you perceive the desires of the people you are leading less," Buenos says.

    So how does a nation or company avoid the dangers of tone-deaf leaders? For Bueno, it's as simple as making finite the time that leaders spend close to power's flame. In other words: term limits.

    "That's why many constitutions -- even if it was done in an unconscious form -- have a limit of two consecutive terms [for presidents]," he says. "That's one way of limiting those changes, so a person doesn't end up being excessively arrogant."

    Some companies, like Deloitte, do impose time limits on their CEO and chair roles (at Deloitte's, those roles are limited to two consecutive four-year terms). Whether that model would work at other companies is open to debate, but considering the damage wrought by hubristic leaders during the recent financial crisis, it's worth considering.

    "It's good to not be so many years in one leadership post," says Bueno. "No one should be eternal in power."

    比诺教授指出：“变得不那么有同情心是一种适应方式。如果你领导着一个团队，你的领导方式就决对不可能让所有人都感到满意。如果让那些与你意见不合的人影响有利于多数人的政策，你就不是个好领导。”

    “一定程度的不正常心理可以帮助领导者，因为这样他就不必为了取悦所有人而不停地问同样的问题。”

    但问题在于，如果这样的行为出现得过多，心理层面的不正常就会导致狂妄自大，而这正是英名扫地的领导者所具有的特征。就像2008年金融危机爆发前，尽管出现了与之对立的迹象和建议，有些银行的主管仍然继续采用那些思路有误的政策。

    比诺教授说：“长此以往，你就会发现，人们不想继续听你的指挥。”

    那么，一个国家或者一家公司怎样才能避免领导者陷入刚愎自用的危险境地呢？对此，比诺教授觉得很简单——只要把他们掌权的时间确定下来就行了。换句话说，就是固定任期。

    他指出：“正是出于这样的原因，许多宪法都规定（总统）只能连任一次，就算人们不清楚为什么要这样规定。这是限制上述问题的一种途径，这样一个人就不会变得过于自大。”

    德勤（Deloitte）等公司确实限制了首席执行官和董事长的任期（在德勤，CEO和董事长只能连任一次，每届任期为4年）。这种模式对其他公司是否有效尚无定论，但考虑到本轮金融危机期间那些目中无人的领导者所造成的损失，这种做法值得考虑。

    比诺教授认为：“不在一个领导岗位上待那么多年是件好事。任何人都不应该永远手握大权。”（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie