It’s no secret that the best leaders among us – the most driven, dedicated, and outside-the-box thinkers – are wired a bit differently from the rest. In fact, it’s been suggested that a decent chunk of the “ C-Suite” crowd may have more sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies than the general population.
These traits, which ideally fall not too far into the realm of pathology, are thought to be the very qualifications that propel an individual into stardom in the first place. But there’s another comorbidity that’s also more common in the high-powered achievers: The likelihood for substance abuse. And most experts agree that this overlap is also quite logical, and it’s readily explained in psychological, molecular, and neurological terms. How to handle it in the office is a little less clear-cut.
David Linden, PhD, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine and author of The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, has spent some time analyzing the addiction research and has argued that the traits that make a good CEO – risk-taking, strong drive for success, obsession, dedication, novelty-seeking – are precisely what make a “good” addict.
He says that the pleasure derived from success, and in particular from risky or novel business ventures, is borne of the very same brain pathways that make substance use so irresistible to some. It’s all about pleasure-seeking and reward, but the mechanics of this push-pull system are not exactly what you might guess.
“The general idea is counterintuitive,” says Linden. “When you wonder what would make someone an addict, you might think, ‘if a person gets above-average pleasure from smoking or gambling, then they’d do it more.’ This is completely reasonable. But it’s completely, explicitly, 180 degrees wrong. The genetic variations that predispose a person to being an addict seem to be mutations that dampen the dopamine system.”
This can be any number of variations – to dopamine synthesizing enzymes, transporters, or receptors. “So what happens, then, is people seek set point of pleasure: A normal person can go to the tavern and have a couple of drinks for an effect, but my friend who has an addiction risk has to have ten to get to the same place.”
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