What are opportunistic people like at work and in life?

Individuals who do not miss the opportunity to get ahead in any area of life.

Opportunistic people are a constant in all areas of life: work, relationships, politics...Work, emotional relationships, the political sphere? However, this does not mean that we cannot identify them (or discover one in ourselves) to try to prevent their influence from becoming harmful.

Of course, for that we must first know the characteristics of opportunistic people, the way they act. What follows are their 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.

However, they do reveal that they have learned to adapt, they do reveal that they have learned to adapt to situations for personal gain at the expense of others. and of the commitments or links established in the past. Opportunistic individuals do not necessarily present all these characteristics at the same time, but together they serve to have an "archetype" of this kind of individual.

1. They may exhibit psychopathic traits

Some opportunistic individuals may exhibit psychopathic traits. The reason for this is that people with this trait do not experience empathy and have the ability to offer a seductive and charismatic side that allows them to manipulate other people to perform actions they believe they are doing on their own initiative.

People with psychopathic traits are cold and calculating, yet they rarely let others do their own thing.They are cold and calculating, although they rarely let others realize this, and they 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 facility to be charming people. In the corporate world, moreover, they 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 relationship nodes, people who know (or have access to) many areas of business with potential. That is why from a position of friendship (real or feigned) they can see a panoramic view of the different opportunities that are presented to them to prosper..

Something similar happens beyond work life; opportunistic people seek to maintain contact with influential people with a good image in order to benefit from the advantages of being close to the point where others focus 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 observe a network of relationships in which they would like to gain power and focus their attention both on its most influential members and on those individuals who, despite being in a position of power, are in a position of power. both on its most influential members and on 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 take over the roles of this person who has fallen into oblivion.

4. They take advantage of emotional blackmail

Opportunists play a lot at injecting certain doses of guilt in people who are prone to quickly assume blame that does not really correspond to them. Thus, it may be the case that a company owner makes his employees believe that keeping them in their jobs is a sacrifice, as if he were doing them a favor by giving them work, or that an ex-partner feigns or exaggerates his discomfort because of the breakup so that the other person thinks that he is responsible for the other person's suffering.

The most interesting thing about this type of process whereby opportunistic people become manipulative, extorting emotionally from others, are the ways in which they make are the ways in which they make the others internalize a discourse based on guilt by simply implying things, without actually explaining it directly. This is a way of making others come to embrace beliefs that coldly analyzed would seem absurd.

5. They play on 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 of decision for her if he implies that he is responsible for her safety, being physically stronger than she is, and that therefore the indications he gives about where not to go at certain hours should be followed or what kind of premises not to enter should be followed.

Another very fine way of manipulation is to acting 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.. This puts the other person in the dilemma of whether to become someone outlandish who does not follow customs or someone who assumes that their value as a person is not enough to be on the date, leading them to assume a submissive position in certain areas.

Of course, manipulative people will only play the gender role cardboard in contexts where it favors them, and not in others. Thus, the man who wants his wife to assume her status 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 who works harder to maintain a level of income to buy things for the house.