Who could be more rational than a neuroscientist with a doctorate from Harvard? Dr. Amy Bishop, who has the aforementioned credentials, is accused of shooting and killing three of her faculty colleagues at the University of Alabama because she felt slighted. You can read about the case in this article entitled “For professor, Fury Just Beneath the Surface.” It is alleged that Dr. Bishop’s actions were set off when she discovered that her colleagues had decided not to award her tenure.
This is yet another example that shows how emotions affect behavior, even the behavior of individuals who have learned to appear rational at times on the surface. In our work, we implore leaders to be intentional about developing both task excellence and relationship excellence. Measurement, accountability and intervention are necessary elements of a process, a system, that brings intentionality to developing relationship excellence. No organization drifts toward relationship excellence so intentionality is essential. Systems that help develop relationship excellence make it less likely that individuals with mental health problems — e.g. narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathology — go unnoticed and unaddressed.
