One of the fun/tragic aspects of teaching this topic

is that there's never any shortage of examples.

And in recent years we've had a rash of bad behavior from high status individuals.

So, taking a quote here from Tierney Lab,

a New York Times Publication a few years ago where Mark Sanford and

John Ensign ran into some trouble, politicians Sanford and Ensign.

Nicholas Wade writes, politicians are primates too.

He says, the recent travails of Senator John Ensign and

Mark Sanford are another reminder of how very unfairly,

from a primatological point of view, we treat our politicians.

A young male chimp spends almost every waking hour

plotting how to ascend the hierarchy of his society.

If he makes it to the top he has reached a height from which one cannot

easily descend.

Chimps leave the alpha position when deposed and

usually killed by their successor.

So why take such a risk?

For the sex, of course.

Political power still means sexual opportunity.

The trouble is many politicians don't seem fully aware of the subconscious

urges that contribute to their drive for power.

They spend years climbing the greasy pole,

come at last within reach of the juicy fruit that is their ancient primate reward

and then get their hand slapped for touching.

It's just unfair, like yanking away a rat's reward after it has run its maze.

So Sanford and Ensign, but we can keep on going down the list.

Eliot Spitzer, similar, just added a little hypocrisy to give extra flavor.

Tiger Woods, one of the more prominent examples from the sporting world,

ran into some major marital issues that have contributed

to the premature end of his competitive golf game.

When he came out of therapy, after having had issues in his marriage, he said

something that could've come straight out of the social psychology textbooks.

He says, I stopped living by the core values I was taught to believe in.

I knew my actions were wrong, but

I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply.

I never thought about who I was hurting.

Instead, I thought only about myself.

I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by.

I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to.

I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and

deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.

I felt I was entitled.

Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have to go far to find them.

So Woods found his trouble with marital infidelity.

But that rationale is the rationale underlying many status-driven

violations that we see by people who have had power and become accustomed to power.

One last one, an ancient example just to underscore how long this has been going

on and how it affects even very accomplished people,

very worthy people, Michelangelo's David here, but

of course we're talking about David of the Old Testament.

Let's refresh on David.

So if you don't know anything about David,

you probably know the story of David and Goliath.

This is when David first entered the world stage as a shepherd boy

slaying the giant Goliath.

He went on to write many of the Psalms in the bible.

And he served as king of Israel for a very long time.

But he also had this incident with Bathsheba.

Do you remember The story of David and Bathsheba?

So Bathsheba was a woman he fell in love with.

He saw her bathing on the top of a building next to his.

And, unfortunately for him, well, first, he invites her to his house,

he has an affair with this woman and

unfortunately for her, she is married to one of his generals.

So, what does David do?

What is the David, who writes psalms and is a just king, what does he do?

He conspires to have his general killed.

He brings in the rest of his generals and

he says let's go attack the enemy next to us, put Bathsheba's husband

in the front and when the enemy starts responding, fall back to have him killed.

And in fact, these guys did this, Bathsheba's husband was killed, so

now he could have Bathsheba to himself.

This is David, this is King David.

King David falling prey to the exact same issues,

it seems, that we've been documenting in more recent studies in social psychology.

But people have been grappling with this for millenia, essentially.

And people who are otherwise as worthy as King David was are as susceptible to it.

So it should be a sobering note for us and I want to turn the question to you and

ask, how are you different when you're in power?

This is a good time to reflect a little bit and

think about, you've probably observed that you act a little bit differently when

you're in high power situations than in low power situations.

In what way are you different?

So this is something that we sometimes survey our students on and

I've got a collection here and this is truly just a random sample.

This is a random sample of survey responses from our full time MBAs

on ways in which they are changed by power, so this is just self report.

So let's take a look at these, and you'll see a wide range of them.

Some of which are echoed in the social psychology we've been talking about.

Some of which may be a little bit different, but

you hear people talking about being more extravagant.

Speaking their mind more freely.

Using hard power.

I become more outspoken.

The less power I have, the more I avoid conflict.

These are all honest reflections on the ways people are changed by power.

And these are on average 27 year olds, they might have had a little power, but

they are not having the kind of power that they will in the next 10 years,

20 years, 30 years.

They haven't had a decade or

two decades to adapt to the kind of status that they might.

This is only the beginning of the changes.

This is what we want to stay in touch with.

This is what we want to have our eyes open about.

This is what we worry about whenever we tool you up to develop and

cultivate status and power.

Because this is what can trip you up.

This, in fact, these are the seeds, power carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Power brings this change, and then these changes can undermine your power.

So it's very important that we are honest with ourselves about it.

That we admit and accept the fact that we are susceptible just as David, and

Tiger Woods, and Eliot Spitzer have been susceptible.

And hopefully, that we take steps to try to mitigate it.

So in the next section, we'll start talking about some of those steps.

Notable Examples

Influence

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