How are opportunistic people at work and in life?
Opportunistic people are a constant in all areas of life : work, affective relationships, the political sphere ... However, that does not mean that we can not identify them (or discover one in ourselves) to try to make their influence not become harmful.
Of course, for that, we must first know the characteristics of opportunistic people, the way in which they act. What comes next are its main characteristics.
Typical characteristics of opportunistic people
These are not characteristics that are part of the immutable personality of those who present them: every person can change.
But nevertheless, they do reveal that they have learned to adapt to situations to obtain personal benefits at the expense of others and of the commitments or links established in the past. Opportunistic people do not have to present all these characteristics at the same time, but as a whole they serve to have an "archetype" of this class of individuals.
1. They may present psychopathic traits
A part of 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 to perform actions they believe they do on their own initiative.
People with psychopathic traits are cold and calculating , although they rarely let others see it, and they are ruthless, though not necessarily through direct violence.
The key to his ability to manipulate others is the absence of guilt and empathy and his ability to be charming. In the world of companies, in addition, tend to occupy positions of high responsibility: their proportion in the high positions of the organizational chart could be 1 in 5 individuals.
2. They surround themselves with influential people
Who is opportunistic knows that the people with more power are nodes of relationships, people who know (or have access to) many areas of business with potential. That is why from a friendship position (real or feigned) you can see an overview of the different opportunities that are presented to them to thrive .
Something similar happens beyond work life; Opportunistic people try to maintain contact with influential people with a good image to benefit from the advantages of being close to the point where others fix their attention and cultivate a good public image.
3. Looking for the weakest link in the chain
This is a characteristic that is linked to the previous one. Opportunistic people they observe a network of relationships in which they would like to gain power and concentrate their attention both in its most influential members and in those individuals who, despite being in a situation of power, can weaken and lose relevance in the future.
This allows the opportunist is ready to take on the roles of this person fallen into oblivion.
4. They take advantage of emotional blackmail
Opportunistic people play a lot to inject certain doses of guilt into people prone to quickly take on blame that really does not correspond to them. In this way, it may be the case that a business owner makes his employees believe that keeping them in their jobs is a sacrifice, as if doing them a favor by giving them a job, or that a former partner pretends or exaggerates their discomfort because of the break so that the other person thinks he is responsible for the suffering of this.
The most interesting thing about this type of process whereby opportunistic people become manipulative, emotionally extorting others they are the ways in which they make the rest internalize a discourse based on guilt simply by making things understood, without actually explaining it. This is a way to make others come to embrace beliefs that coldly analyzed 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 decision-making power over her if he implies that he is responsible for her safety, being physically stronger than her, and that is why the indications he gives about where not to go at certain times should be followed or what kind of premises should not be entered should be followed.
Another very fine mode of manipulation is act as if it were taken for granted that someone who goes with us to a first appointment will pay the dinner of both . This puts the other person in the dilemma of whether to become someone bizarre who does not follow the customs or someone who assumes that his value as a person is not enough to be on the appointment, which leads him to assume a position of submission in certain areas.
Of course, manipulators will only play the role of gender roles in the contexts in which they favor them, and not in others. In this way, the man who wants his wife to assume his status as a helpless person who must be protected will not hesitate to ignore the male role if he wants the wife to work the most to maintain a level of income that allows him to buy things for the home.
