Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [87]
If you manage to get to a position of power, it would be nice to keep it for a while. Although each case of lost power has its own peculiarities, there are some common factors that you need to avoid. While it is inevitable that everyone will lose power eventually—we all get old and leave our positions—it is not inevitable that people will lose power as often or as quickly as they do. Jack Valenti ran the Motion Picture Association of America for almost 40 years—and he reported to the major studio heads, not necessarily the nicest or best bosses in the world. Willie Brown was speaker of the California Assembly for more than a decade and would probably still be in the job if term limits had not forced him from the legislature. Alfred Sloan was CEO of General Motors for 23 years and chairman of its board for 19, and Robert Moses held dominion over New York’s parks, bridges, and public works for almost 40 years, outlasting numerous powerful and flamboyant mayors and governors. Holding on to power is difficult and becoming more so, but it is not impossible.
OVERCONFIDENCE, DISINHIBITION, AND IGNORING THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS
The old saying “Power corrupts” turns out to be mostly true, although “corrupt” is probably not quite the right word. Berkeley social psychologist Dacher Keltner and his colleagues talk about power leading to “approach” behavior—in that people more actively try to obtain what they want—and diminishing “inhibition,” or the tendency to follow social rules and constraints that might limit what people do to obtain their goals.6 Such behavior is a logical consequence of what happens to people in power. The obsequious and less powerful flatter the powerful to remain on their good side. Those with power have their wishes and requests granted. They get used to getting their way and being treated as if they are special. Although the powerful may be conscious that the special treatment comes from the position they occupy and the resources they control, over time these thoughts fade. As a friend who works at a senior position in British Petroleum and has observed its CEOs at close range told me, “No matter what the original intentions and aspiration, eventually power goes to everyone’s head.”
Studies of the effects of power on the power holder consistently find that power produces overconfidence and risk taking,7 insensitivity to others, stereotyping, and a tendency to see other people as a means to the power holder’s gratification. In a study all too reminiscent of what goes on in workplaces every day, David Kipnis put research participants in a simulated work situation with a subordinate. Some people in the managerial role had little formal control over resources and had to influence through persuasion, while others were given the power to reward and punish those working for them. The more control participants had over levers of power such as pay increases or decreases, the more attempts they made to influence their subordinates. Moreover, those with more power came to see their subordinates’ job performance as resulting from their control and less from the efforts or motivation of those they were supervising. And because the supervisors with power saw themselves as superior to those they were supervising, they evidenced less desire to spend time with their subordinates and wanted to distance themselves from those less powerful—even though in this experimental study who was a supervisor and how much power that person had was randomly determined and temporary.8
One lesson from the growing number of studies on the effects of power is how little it takes to get people into a power mind-set where they engage in all kinds of disrespectful and rude behavior. Just having them think about a time when they were