The MacLeod organization is dysfunctional and does not apply to all companies. This series of essays is about how not to get a MacLeod pyramid. It turns out to be a complicated topic not amenable to quick solutions. The short answer is... no, you're not a sociopath just because you own the business.
Rank culture (valuing subordinacy above all) is the one with the most pronounced and rigid MacLeod structure. Tough culture (valuing dedication, often to extremes) tends to exist when the company gets a hard-on about culling low performers and Loser/Clueless stability breaks down... but a new proto-Sociopath set uses the enhanced performance standards to take and give bribes and run extortions and they become the new holders of rank.
There are two good cultures-- guild and self-executive-- that don't have MacLeod tiers.
I like the D&D concept of alignment. There's a moral spectrum (good, neutral, evil) and a civil one (lawful, neutral, evil). So there are 9 possible alignments. Most people and especially most organizations are true neutral (meaning neutral in both) in ideology, even if they tend toward the rank culture's lawful evil over time.
The ideal "Organization Man" is morally neutral, and civilly neutral with regard to the greater society's laws, but lawful with respect to the organization's laws. Most organizations can find something to do with lawful and civilly neutral people, but have no idea how to handle the chaotic.
MacLeod Losers tend toward civil neutrality. They're not chaotic enough to feel a need to break rules, but not lawful enough to care about rising in the company, unless they can get the hard currencies (compensation, more freedom, career progress) that actually matter. Lawful people, however, see important positions as a validation in themselves and seek them.
MacLeod Clueless tend to be lawful. Some are lawful good, some are lawful evil; most are lawful neutral.
MacLeod Sociopaths are the people who don't fit: they find the comfort of the Loser world to be false, and the delusions of the Clueless to be laughable. They tend to be chaotic, which creates an up-or-out time pressure on their organizational trajectories.
This doesn't mean they're bad people. Chaotic good are the white-hat "good Sociopaths", and chaotic neutral tend to be gray-hatted but will usually try to be decent.
Chaotic people rise in organizations because they have no other choice. They either need to get into an executive sinecure, or into a special, high-creativity role where their outsized talents (see: convexity) are an asset that overcomes their social deficits.
However, evil people also rise. Neutral evil are the most capable, because they're fluent in law and chaos and have no strong pro- or anti-organizational bias. They can be chaotic when out of power and lawful when in it. However, lawful evil is perhaps the most virulent, because while neutral and chaotic evil can indulge in non-ambitious sadism, lawful evil are driven.
So, organizations end up being run by a chaotic-or-evil set that needs to make itself look like something else, and society doesn't much like or understand them and calls them "sociopaths", but the most interesting subset (chaotic good, chaotic neutral) are not bad people.
Rank culture (valuing subordinacy above all) is the one with the most pronounced and rigid MacLeod structure. Tough culture (valuing dedication, often to extremes) tends to exist when the company gets a hard-on about culling low performers and Loser/Clueless stability breaks down... but a new proto-Sociopath set uses the enhanced performance standards to take and give bribes and run extortions and they become the new holders of rank.
There are two good cultures-- guild and self-executive-- that don't have MacLeod tiers.
I like the D&D concept of alignment. There's a moral spectrum (good, neutral, evil) and a civil one (lawful, neutral, evil). So there are 9 possible alignments. Most people and especially most organizations are true neutral (meaning neutral in both) in ideology, even if they tend toward the rank culture's lawful evil over time.
The ideal "Organization Man" is morally neutral, and civilly neutral with regard to the greater society's laws, but lawful with respect to the organization's laws. Most organizations can find something to do with lawful and civilly neutral people, but have no idea how to handle the chaotic.
MacLeod Losers tend toward civil neutrality. They're not chaotic enough to feel a need to break rules, but not lawful enough to care about rising in the company, unless they can get the hard currencies (compensation, more freedom, career progress) that actually matter. Lawful people, however, see important positions as a validation in themselves and seek them.
MacLeod Clueless tend to be lawful. Some are lawful good, some are lawful evil; most are lawful neutral.
MacLeod Sociopaths are the people who don't fit: they find the comfort of the Loser world to be false, and the delusions of the Clueless to be laughable. They tend to be chaotic, which creates an up-or-out time pressure on their organizational trajectories.
This doesn't mean they're bad people. Chaotic good are the white-hat "good Sociopaths", and chaotic neutral tend to be gray-hatted but will usually try to be decent.
Chaotic people rise in organizations because they have no other choice. They either need to get into an executive sinecure, or into a special, high-creativity role where their outsized talents (see: convexity) are an asset that overcomes their social deficits.
However, evil people also rise. Neutral evil are the most capable, because they're fluent in law and chaos and have no strong pro- or anti-organizational bias. They can be chaotic when out of power and lawful when in it. However, lawful evil is perhaps the most virulent, because while neutral and chaotic evil can indulge in non-ambitious sadism, lawful evil are driven.
So, organizations end up being run by a chaotic-or-evil set that needs to make itself look like something else, and society doesn't much like or understand them and calls them "sociopaths", but the most interesting subset (chaotic good, chaotic neutral) are not bad people.