Imagine a group of strangers wash up on a desert island. It wouldn’t take long for a hierarchy to emerge, with a few leading and the rest following.
Imagine a group of strangers wash up on a desert island. It wouldn’t take long for a hierarchy to emerge, with a few leading and the rest following.
Society naturally evolves into power structures, as individuals exert their authority over others, writes Brian Lowery, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford. There are six sources of power, first described by social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven:
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Reward and coercion may be the most easily understood, but are the least efficient, Lowery says. You can only force people to do your bidding if they have reason to fear you, which requires surveillance. Rewards work only as long as incentives are aligned; paying someone by the hour can result in work being done slowly.
As individuals increase their power, they lose perspective over how they wield it. They can view others as tools, and become overconfident of their own judgment. Lowery says powerful need to surround themselves with people who can keep them in line:
“What I would strongly suggest is, as your power grows, you have people to help you check your own behavior. Don’t rely on yourself as a good person to check your behavior because you could end up missing what’s going on.”
The more powerful someone is, the more dangerous the implications of lacking perspective. ”Think of [power] as fire,” Lowery says. “It’s useful, but it’s also dangerous.”
