What Are Opportunistic People Like At Work And In Life?
Opportunistic people are a constant in all areas of life : work, emotional relationships, the political sphere… However, that does not mean that we cannot identify them (or discover one in ourselves) to try to ensure that their influence does not become harmful.
Of course, to do that, you first have to know the characteristics of opportunistic people, the way they act. What follows are its main features.
These are not characteristics that are part of the immutable personality of those who present them: every person can change.
However, They do reveal that they have learned to adapt to situations to obtain personal benefits at the expense of others and the commitments or links established in the past. Opportunistic people do not have to present all of these characteristics at the same time, but together they serve to have an “archetype” of this class of individuals.
1. They may present psychopathic traits
Some opportunistic people may present psychopathic traits. The reason for this is that people who present this characteristic do not experience empathy and have the ability to offer a seductive and charismatic facet that allows them to manipulate other people into carrying out actions that they believe they are doing on their own initiative.
People with psychopathic traits are cold and calculating although they rarely let others see this, and are ruthless, although not necessarily through direct violence.
The key to their ability to manipulate others is the absence of guilt and empathy and their ease of being charming people. In the business world, they also tend to occupy positions of high responsibility: their proportion in the top positions of the organizational chart could be 1 in 5 individuals.
2. They surround themselves with influential people
Those who are opportunistic know that the people with the most power are nodes of relationships, people who know (or have access to) many business areas with potential. That is why From a position of friendship (real or pretend) they can see an overview of the different opportunities that are presented to them to grow
Something similar happens beyond working life; Opportunistic people try to maintain contact with influential people with good image to benefit from the advantages of being close to the point where others focus their attention and cultivate a good public image.
3. They look for the weakest link in the chain
This is a feature that is linked to the previous one. opportunistic people They observe a network of relationships in which they would like to gain power and focus their attention both in its most influential members and in those individuals who, despite being in a position of power, may weaken and lose relevance in the future.
This allows the opportunist to be already prepared to assume the roles of this forgotten person.
Opportunistic people play a lot at injecting certain doses of guilt into people who are prone to quickly assuming blame that does not really belong to them. In this way, it may be the case that a company owner makes his employees believe that keeping them in their jobs represents a sacrifice, as if he were doing them a favor by giving them work, or that an ex-partner fakes or exaggerates his discomfort due to the breakup so that the other person thinks that they are responsible for their suffering.
The most interesting thing about this type of process by which opportunistic people become manipulative, emotionally extorting others They are the ways in which they make others internalize a discourse based on guilt by simply implying things, without actually explaining it directly. This is a way of getting others to embrace beliefs that, if analyzed coldly, would seem absurd.
5. They play with the gender roles that favor them
Gender roles are a good alibi for many opportunistic people. A man can make his wife believe that he has the power to make decisions for her if he implies that he is responsible for her safety, being physically stronger than her, and that therefore the indications he gives about why where not to go at certain times must be followed or what types of premises not to enter must be followed.
Another very fine way of manipulation is act as if it is taken for granted that someone who goes with us on a first date will pay for dinner for both of us In this way, the other person is put in the dilemma of whether to become someone bizarre who does not follow customs or someone who assumes that his value as a person is not enough to be on the date, which leads him to assume a position of submission in certain areas.
Of course, manipulative people will only play the gender role card in contexts that favor them, and not in others. In this way, the man who wants his wife to assume her condition as a helpless person who must be protected will not hesitate to ignore the male role if he wants the wife to be the one to work harder to maintain a level of income that allows her to buy things for the family. home.
