I think the problem is that Trump is just a little bit of a sociopath. That’s not a huge criticism — most highly successful leaders score relatively high in sociopathy. It makes sense. One of the thing leaders must do is make decisions that are good for an organization but bad for an individual employee (or in the military, necessary for victory but bad for an individual soldier). It takes a bit of sociopathy to make those kinds of decisions, accepting the idea of hurting another person as the cost of success.

What this means is that sometimes these people will do things that seem OK from a tactical perspective without really giving full weight to the effect it might have on an individual. The feeling is that if it’s not a killer, it’s just not that big a deal, and any damage to the relationship can be cleaned up later. And if it’s not cleaned up, then the object didn’t deserve the consideration.

It’s easy for people like this to view others strongly in terms of usefulness and as assets rather than some sort of emotional relationships. And, outside of a small core group, everyone is an asset. People who work for and with these folk often misinterpret their relationship with the sociopath. Because they feel so little,sociopaths are masters at understanding and manipulating people, often giving the impression of being more invested in the relationship than the are.

That doesn’t mean that Trump doesn’t have good ideas. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have principles. But it means that he will use people and abuse them as he feels necessary. He’s been successful with these “mean tweets” in the past, so there’s no reason to stop as long as he gets a response.

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