Leadership and Psychopathy: The Case for Conceptual Discipline

This paper examines the conceptual and epistemic problems arising from the increasing use of psychiatric terminology—particularly "psychopathy"—in leadership and management discourse. While such language reflects genuine concern with organizational harm and abusive leadership, its uncritical application risks conceptual misplacement and diagnostic drift, whereby clinical constructs migrate into non-clinical contexts while retaining the appearance of scientific authority. Drawing on psychology, leadership studies, the sociology of diagnosis, and recent work on epistemic fragility, the paper traces how distortions arise through secondary academic interpretations, professional summaries, and practitioner discourse. By distinguishing clinical pathology, personality traits, motivational orientations, and reflective awareness, the paper advances the Motivation-Excess-Awareness (MEA) framework—a spectrum-based understanding of leadership dysfunction that avoids diagnostic reductionism while preserving accountability. The framework offers concrete operationalization guidance for assessment, development, and governance interventions, along with testable hypotheses for future empirical research. Rather than denying severe personality pathology, the analysis calls for greater conceptual discipline and epistemic humility in leadership research and practice.