Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [83]
Sociologist Hanna Papanek described women’s frequent response to the demands of their husbands’ occupations as the “two-person single career.”12 Wives contribute to their husbands’ success by providing advice and support, entertaining colleagues, and relieving husbands of many of the routine tasks of daily life. Although it is most often women who fill this role, men can and do so also, as I have already described. I have heard many professional women say that they “need a wife,” meaning they need someone to help them in their quest for success. Two talented people working on a single career bring more time and resources to bear, enhancing the odds of success. Because of these career dynamics, studies of the graduates of leading professional school programs in law, medicine, and particularly business document the fact that most women 15 years after graduation have dropped out of the labor force, at least temporarily, at some point in their work lives.
The trade-offs between having a successful career and a family, and the fact that the social policies in most industrialized countries don’t provide much help navigating this situation, is one reason why virtually every advanced industrialized country with the exception of France has a below-replacement-level birth rate. Research shows that being married and having children has either no effect or a positive effect on men’s careers, while most studies show a negative impact on the careers of women from being married and having children.13
Put simply, you can’t have it all, and the quest for power entails trade-offs, including in one’s personal life. Men also confront the choice of how to spend their time, and for them, too, there are only 24 hours in a day. Being successful exacts a price for men also. I recall Jack Valenti, who ran the Motion Picture Association of America for 38 years, expressing his concern that his ambition had been a “dark thread” throughout his life that had taken him away from his family, and he worried, still keeping a busy schedule into his eighties, that he had not spent enough time with his children. Valenti had a house in the Washington, D.C., area and also an apartment in Los Angeles. His wife had not wanted to move to California and in any event, the arrangement worked well given his job. The studio heads and much of the movie industry were mostly in Los Angeles, while the lobbying of both U.S. and other governments occurred in Washington and overseas, so being bicoastal, although hard because of the travel involved, was very helpful for Valenti’s ability to do his job.
Getting and keeping power takes time away from friends and family. This is a price that some people are willing to pay. But it is an inevitable cost of pursuing powerful, high-status positions that require time, energy, and focus for success.
COST 4: TRUST DILEMMAS
Here’s a simple truth: the higher you rise and the more powerful the position you occupy, the greater the number of people who will want your job. Consequently, holding a position of great power creates a problem: who do you trust? Some people will be seeking to create an opportunity for themselves through your downfall, but they won’t be forthcoming about what they are doing. Some people will be trying to curry favor with you by telling you what they think you want to hear so you will like them and help them advance. And some people will be doing both.
Gary Loveman, the former Harvard Business School professor who is now the CEO