The Fatal Attraction to Power
Reflections on the attributes of unbridled power
The Situation Right Now?
The recent week’s unfolding consequences of the US regime have left most of us badly shaken, that is, those of us who subscribe to the liberty and the dignity of the individual. Few had imagined that the nation that signed the “Declaration of Independence” in 1776 in rejection of tyranny, would install that again 250 years later, with a person displaying a picture of himself as king and his sidekick making Nazi gestures and swinging a chainsaw. This document contains the famous words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The world is now brimming with people who are convinced that the big and the strong should rule, that “might is right” and it follows that the rulers then will take what they want. It is the abolition of “the rule of law”, instead we get the “law of the ruler” – be it the Moscow or the Washington version. Most of the time this is about the Great Heroic Leader (Russia, USA, North Korea, etc.), sometimes driven by a sense of divine mandate like the radical Islamic movements and a few others.
There is, of course, another threat to the liberty and dignity of human beings, a softer totalitarianism, where a small selection of rather privileged people get to make an ever tighter set of rules and regulations to exercise power over people and coerce them into whatever behavior or way of thinking, they decide for. This is what we suffer from in Europe
A third threat is from the post-post-modern elitist corner, where, it is said, there are no truths and big stories, everything is up to the individual, who makes his or her own rules, no one should have anything to say about how others should live, talk or think. But like the Summer of Love 1967 in San Francisco quickly ended in destruction and violence, so has this neo-anarchy movement turned into a mind control regime of nihilism, where all that matters is the power struggle and claiming rights as a victim. We certainly have that as well in the media and some educational institutions.
So our liberty and dignity are under threat from autocratic forces of either the heroic, the bureaucratic, or nihilistic type. What they all agree on is, that all there is, is power, everything is a null-sum game, there are people who command and people who obey, and where there are winners there must be losers.
Will we have the strength to stem this tide? Will we have the moral foundation to present a viable alternative for governing ourselves personally, in our organizations and institutions – but also nationally and among nations?
The post-WWII order of national and international co-existence and collaboration based on mutually honored agreements and trust existed at least in parts of the world. That is now seriously challenged; we have a pronounced climate of distrust.
The main culprit, seen from my corner, is the incessant craving and struggle for power and the consequences of power being exercised indiscriminately and without checks and balances. So after this rather lengthy prelude, I will try to make the case for some of the characteristics of this unbridled focus on power.
I am operating on the backdrop of everything going on in the US at the moment, but will compare to other historical situations and similar experiences from within organizations.
Under the Law of the Ruler
Whenever the “Ruler” is for all practical purposes unbridled, that is without checks and balances, a number of different characteristics will likely appear, whether the ruler is personal or more a Kafkaesque system. The characteristics listed are overlapping and mutually reinforcing. Whenever these characteristics appear in significant numbers and strength, we are most likely dealing with a case of “The law of the ruler”.
Polarization. Things become black and white, with no shades of grey. There is always a right way, expressed by the Ruler. There is them and us, and much focus on threats, enemies, conspiracies, and fear. The Ruler thrives on fear, also in organizations.
Loyalty over competence. The people being listened to, involved, employed or given leadership positions are primarily selected based on loyalty to the Ruler. The CEO of an organization will often replace influential people with loyalists. “He needs to set his own team!” is the excuse.
Favoritism. It is almost the same as the one above, but often privileges or punishment is dispensed by the Ruler, purely on his or her sentiment on the day. When this becomes really bad, it approaches the territory of psychopathy. By the way, there is a much higher percentage of people with psychopathic traits in management positions than in general populations.
Public display of loyalty. Obsession with the number of admirers on display at meetings, followers online, etc. kicks in. Hitler was obsessed with demonstrating power through numbers, at Nuremberg for example.
Insensitivity. Those with power often develop a reduced empathy with time, they do not see or hear others, and after a while, they don’t care. They are either patronizing or paternalistic. They live upstairs and lose contact with downstairs, this happens very often in organizations.
Entitlement. Loyalists to the Ruler soon feel entitled to privileges without considering the needs of others. Having power, especially for some time, leads to a sense of entitlement and a tendency to be self-serving. In the famous cookie-monster experiment, the person given a leadership role very often took the extra cookie without asking others. Such assholian behavior is normally classified as narcissism.
Exploitation. Sooner or later the next step is taken, and it is now OK to exploit or even abuse those with less power. It is OK to commandeer another country’s resources, steal from a supplier by not paying, or in some cases sexually assault subordinates. In organizations, I have sometimes observed a whole power hierarchy of abuse of those below you.
Symbols. Symbols of loyalty or superiority become important to the Ruler. The environment is designed to support this. Executives have corner offices - big ones, and drive Mercedeses. Others have red caps and ties. Italian fascism always had a strong display of symbols, although in a slight comical variant as in an operetta. The Nazi and communist symbols were more menacing, the Islamic ones are likewise today.
Control of information. The Ruler controls what is being said, advertised, and published. People expressing non-loyalist views are threatened, silenced, or fall out of windows.
Disregard for truth. It typically follows that a complete disregard for truth develops, and an echo chamber around the Ruler emerges. In the beginning, facts are green-shifted, then gradually more distorted, and in the end any correlation to reality is abandoned. Only what the Ruler says counts. By every definition of the words, the American president would be classified as a pathological liar, but his followers just smile and say something like “He is just ruffling your feathers”. Goebbels in Nazi Germany went out of his way to claim things so outlandish that people thought “No one can lie this badly, there must be something about it”. It works in 2025 as well.
Control of money. Since power is closely correlated to money, the Ruler always controls the money, in fact, traditional management is often geared around financial control, sometimes as the only instrument together with the next one. A new imperial CEO entering an organization will very often bring a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) with him to ensure control over the money. Companies often struggle with ever-increasing demands for control over money. In our rather authoritarian public bureaucracy, the citizens are controlled and coerced through money: benefits, grants, fines, taxes, reporting, and so on.
Managing through decrees. There is no coherent set of rules and rights, the Ruler can change them at a whim, and no one is safe. Many CEOs think it is their prerogative if not duty to govern this way, they must display omniscience and determination.
Control in general. Every autocratic regime, whether in countries or in organizations, must forever increase the measures of control, as the Ruler of course cannot operate on trust, and after a while typically starts to see enemies within everywhere - a form of self-induced paranoia.
Managing through fear. The ultimate situation is when everybody is driven by fear of discovery, random punishment, or worse. Unfortunately, I have met my share of people in organizations who primarily operated on controlling by fear, often the fear of the unpredictable nature of the Ruler. Our tax system qualifies for this category from time to time.
Epilogue
Accumulation of unchecked power in a few people, oligarchy, or even worse in one person, a dictator, tyrant or despot is not at all compatible with the well-being, liberty, and dignity of people and their pursuit of happiness, as mentioned above.
It is not good for the people either in countries or in organizations, it should be resisted, and I believe that we should focus on building and preserving the freedom and dignity of the individual in organizations, these dark days, so that they can participate in freedom also in society.
If power is all there is, then there is no right or wrong, and no universal ethical principles exist. We must go back to our roots to find that bedrock of values to build civil society and liberating organizations on, where people can engage in freedom, product value, and flourish. In my case, it is the Judeo-Christian foundation of human rights instituted in the covenant of Mount Sinai and ratified in detail in the Sermon on the Mount.
Let us end with the preamble of the Swiss Constitution as a reminder of something to strive for:
In the name of Almighty God!
The Swiss People and the Cantons, mindful of their responsibility towards creation, resolved to renew their alliance so as to strengthen liberty, democracy, independence and peace in a spirit of solidarity and openness towards the world,
determined to live together with mutual consideration and respect for their diversity, conscious of their common achievements and their responsibility towards future generations, and in the knowledge that only those who use their freedom remain free, and that the strength of a people is measured by the well-being of its weakest members,
adopt the following Constitution:
[1] Declaration of Independence: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
[2] The law here means those common agreements that human interaction is based on, the constitution or the covenant if you will.
[3] Summer of Love: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love
[4] An expression used by James Madison, one of the founding US fathers: https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/james-madison-federalist-no-51-1788
[5] Cookie Monster: https://bigthink.com/the-learning-curve/gaining-power/
[6] Green-shifting is a term coined by Scott Ambler to illustrate the tweaking of information toward the more acceptable (brighter green) as information travels up a reporting chain in an organization: https://scottambler.com/green-shifting/