Researchers have likened various personality traits and habits associated with psychopaths— including narcissism, manipulation and indifference to emotions—with the workplace interactions and habits of senior executives. There’s even a study that says senior managers are four times more likely to be psychopaths than other professionals.

“People tend to think of psychopaths as criminals. In fact, the majority of psychopaths aren’t criminal,” says Dr. Robert Hare, a pioneer in the study of psychopathy who developed the first diagnostic test for the mental disorder in 1980. “They don’t go out and maim, rob and rape but find other ways to satisfy themselves without doing something necessarily illegal … such as taking risks with someone else’s property or money.”

Read more at CNN.com …

ADP's Brown believes all business starts with a conversation.

De Asa Brown often reminds minority entrepreneurs of the old sports adage: Every time you’re up to bat you might not get a hit but you have to keep swinging. Brown, a 15-year diversity veteran and director of supplier diversity at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), one of the world’s largest business outsourcing solutions providers, believes all business starts with a conversation.

She wrote “Contacts That Lead To Contracts And Checks That Clear!”, a list of 10 tips to help entrepreneurs best position their companies to gain business from major corporations. (For more on ADP’s supplier diversity procurement efforts, go to www.adp.com/supplierdiversity.)

Brown offers a few select pointers that can develop into business-building opportunities:

1. Understand the company you are approaching.

2. Sell the value of your company to the appropriate audiences within the organization you are approaching. (Know that your pitch to procurement will be different from your pitch to the marketing department.)

“As an entrepreneur, you’re always selling your products and services through phone conversations, e-mails, networking, referrals, marketing materials, and Websites but it’s key to know your target audience. Entrepreneurs try to sell their whole company too quickly to the wrong audience. For example, if you’re talking to someone like me that’s in a procurement group, understand the key objective of any procurement group—to save the company money. Sell the value of how your company’s product and services can help save the company’s bottom line.”

3. Understand the organization’s “pain points” (or needs) so you can “ease or eliminate” their pain.

“No one likes pain. Entrepreneurs can find out a company’s pain points externally through researching via the Internet, news articles, trends within the industry, and government or industry mandates. Internally, you want to have multiple contacts inside the organization because if you’re connecting with someone in the IT department, for example, you may find out that a pain point is in technology—a need that you can provide as a service. Through your external and internal research there may be something of value that you can offer to that client through innovation or cost-saving mechanism. Make sure to include that information in your RFP (request for proposal) process.”

4. Know what is unique about your company’s product and service.  Know your brand.

5. At the end of a meeting with an organization, ask for the business and ask for referrals.

6. Under promise and over deliver!

“Any business process should be consistent and repeatable. When you under promise and over deliver, that’s a very positive way of securing repeat business from a client. Let’s say you’ve agreed to produce 10 deliverables as a part of the contract; of course, the client wants those 10 deliverables but there is certainly nothing wrong with giving the client three more for a total of 13 so the client feels as though they are getting something they need but didn’t pay for.”

7. Cultivate relationships at various levels within an organization (from management to C-Suite).

“Networking is critical. Join professional associations or become a member of industry organizations. For example, if you’re looking to do business with ADP, you might want to join the Society for Human Resource Management because ADP is connected with this organization. Or you may want to go to events that ADP sponsors, giving you the opportunity to meet individuals within the organization to connect with. You need to know the decision makers in addition to the influencers that can help you land contracts.”

8. Be careful and always stay focused on the client you are doing business with at that point in time.

9. Stay current and up to date on business events and trends.

10. Reinvest in making your company better. Seek out external resources that can help develop the leadership in your company.

You mention in the book the importance of self-awareness as a key leadership skill set. Why is it so critical?
Self-awareness is one of the first stepping-stones of being a successful leader. As a leader, you need to be clear about who you are and what you bring to the table. If you’re not clear about what I call the good, the bad, and the ugly, you’re like a handkerchief in the wind. For multicultural women, we often leave our race, gender, and culture at the doorstep. You have to understand what you bring to the table is valued and important whether you’re black, Hispanic, or Asian—what I call your spice, that’s your special ingredient, and companies are beginning to appreciate different spices at the table. Self-awareness is also connected to authenticity. People have to know that you’re being real, that you’re honest, and that they can trust you in order for them to give their all to work hard for you.

You can only be authentic if you’re being true to yourself. Too often I see women say, “I want to be CEO.” If you want to be in the executive suite, that is a corporate lifestyle. The question is are you comfortable with a corporate lifestyle, which means living in a certain neighborhood or networking with colleagues beyond work hours. You have to be very relationship-prone. You have to be a strategic visionary and your intimate partner needs to be a part of that. Too often, younger women get excited by the golden handcuffs: I’m going to make X amount of money, I’m going to have the title and status. Women need to think before they jump into a career path about what’s required of that career path. You have to make time to be strategic.

Why are the first 90 days on the job the most important?
That’s when they are watching you. You can really stand out and everything around you stands out. When you first enter a new job, it’s important to do a little work in figuring out the workplace. You want to be clear about the culture, the key players, and the informal networks because they will make or break you. That’s through observation and asking a lot of questions.

You also want to be very clear about your first assignment and the resources you need to deliver that assignment. It’s important to say to your manager, “How do you see this assignment looking at the end? What’s the objective here?” You want to make your boss an ally. Too often, women of color want to go in and do it all by ourselves. You’ve got to go in with an attitude that I know my information, I know my material, and I come with a strong skill set. You need positive buzz.

How do you develop organic mentoring relationships?
Mentorship is a developmental relationship. It’s a dance. It’s like any other kind of relationship; you have to get to know someone. The mentor shares his or her wisdom and knowledge. You share your perception of what’s happening in your company from your level. Look for mentors around you. You need allies, colleagues, and peers. Mentors are supposed to support you. That support is circular, not linear.

You must also have a sponsor, someone who can open doors to new opportunities. Usually a sponsor has heard about you via your mentor and the buzz about you. The sponsor has power. It’s a relationship constellation.

This article originally appeared in the April 2010 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

As more companies are downsizing and reducing budgets, now more than ever, companies must understand how invaluable diversity is to its bottom-line, especially the influence black women executives bring to the corporate sector, according to a recent study.

Despite the fact that black women are graduating from college, graduate school, and joining corporate companies at high rates, many are having difficulty moving into senior positions. According to “Black Women Executives Research Initiatives,” a new report from the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) and the Executive Leadership Foundation, “because both their race and gender are beyond the norm in corporate America, black women like other women of color, face the burden of being ‘double outsiders.’ ”

Black women hold just 1% of corporate officer positions at Fortune 500 companies, according to a 2005 Catalyst report cited in the study.

“Companies can’t afford to overlook black women executives,” said Ancella Livers, executive director of the Executive Leadership Council’s Institute for Leadership Development & Research, at a private reception in New York City unveiling the ELC’s report.

The study explains that black women’s inclusion at senior levels can “help heighten the chance for broader and more innovative approaches throughout the organization” because they “champion new viewpoints to companies mired in status quo thinking.”

The report, sponsored by the Moody’s Foundation and J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation and conducted by Springboard, represents a year-long study on the success factors and impediments for black women executives reaching the C-Suite, including relationships, mentors and sponsors, work-life balance, risk-taking, and cross-cultural competence. Seventy-six black women, 18 CEOs, and 38 peers were interviewed.

Some of the key findings include:

Relationships with senior executives need more work. Black women executives suffer the lack of comfortable, trusted, and strategic relationships at the senior level with those who are most different from themselves, most notably white males.

Feedback is alive, but not well. Networks for black women executives do not provide enough strategic feedback about how they are doing and how best to advance.

Experiences that lead to the C-Suite are not visible enough. CEOs are often unaware of the breadth of skills and experience of black female executives. At the same time, the bar is higher for all C-Suite candidates.

Work-life balance means getting your house in order. Being proactive about managing the integration of work and life increases the ability of black female executives to compete at the highest levels.

A new leadership model emerges. The interview data clearly defined a new leadership framework for black female executives based on critical success factors for rising to senior levels in their organizations. The framework provides the foundation for a leadership assessment that black women at all levels can use.

CEOs interviewed for the study believe many black women executives “just say no” to leaving Profit & Loss (P&L) roles too early, seek big operating roles, and spend too little time developing strategic relationships. CEOs say black women executives need to be more visible and increase risk-taking. A CEO interviewed said, “White men don’t have a frame of reference. Most of them don’t know any black women in this setting. Black women need to be aware of this and work on it. The burden is on black women to figure it out.”

Livers and her team hope this report starts a dialogue across corporate America, resulting in actionable steps. The ELC plans to reach out to CEOs and business schools to develop formalized coaching programs for black women executives in route to the C-Suite.

To attain C-Suite status, one participant put it best: “When you’re in the C-Suite, everyone who’s at the table wears the company hat, not just a functional hat. You’re really up at a high enough level where you’re representing and should be able to speak to all aspects of the company. They see you as someone who can embrace change and who knows how to look through the windshield and help lead.”

Further reading: More Minorities in C-Suite is Good for Business