Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both (6 page)

As we mentioned at the outset, there is a scene from the movie
History of the World, Part I
in which King Louis XVI shoots peasants instead of clay discs during his target practice. While shooting his subjects into the air, he is told that “the people are revolting…the peasants feel you have no regard for them.” King Louis XVI responds with absolute shock, “I have no regard for the peasants??? They are my people…I love them.” The very next moment, he yells “Pull!” and a peasant flies up in the air. King Louis XVI forgot to attend to the people and they ultimately beheaded him. He overestimated their loyalty and suffered as a result.

One modern-day version of King Louis XVI is James “Jimmy” Cayne, who resigned as CEO of Bear Stearns in January of 2008, just two months before the entire firm collapsed. Although he never fired rifles at peasants, he was similarly out of touch with his shareholders and employees. Rather than focusing on the welfare of the company, Cayne spent an inordinate amount of time playing bridge; in fact this is what he was doing the day when two of his firm's hedge funds collapsed and began bankruptcy proceedings. His departure was described as the “Cayne Mutiny” and characterized as “not a fond farewell.” He was later named by CNBC as one of the “Worst American CEOs of All Time.” But Cayne saw the emotions expressed during his departure differently. “When I left on January 4…there wasn't a dry eye. Standing ovation. I was crying…Standing ovation, of the whole auditorium.”

Whether in business, in government, or anywhere else, a lack of attention to others frequently contributes to powerful people's eventual downfall. But like Jimmy Cayne, the powerful never see it coming. Sebastien Brion of IESE Business School has documented this blindness scientifically. He found that the powerful are often overconfident in the support they have from others, and as a result they neglect to tend to those around them. Eventually, they lose the support of their subordinates and ultimately lose their power. Alexander Haig knows just how this can happen.

Alexander Haig liked being in charge. He slowly rose up the ranks of the Army, eventually becoming the vice chief of staff in the early 1970s. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Haig served as the White House chief of staff for the final year of President Richard Nixon's term. Given the immense pressure that President Nixon was facing with the Watergate investigation, Haig essentially ran the government—he was seen as the “acting president,” and special prosecutor Leon Jaworski even called him the “37½ President.”

A few years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed Haig as secretary of state. Just months into his presidency, on March, 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot. On that fateful day, Haig rushed into the briefing room and seized the reins of the presidency. He famously stated, “Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House.”

There was a big problem with the statement: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution states that the line of succession goes from the vice president to the Speaker of the House to the president pro tempore of the Senate, before landing on the secretary of state. There was immense backlash to Haig's seizing of control, and he lasted only another year as secretary of state before resigning. His colleagues, who had long bristled at Haig's exaggerated sense of power, turned on him: “The public beating Mr. Haig received at the hands of the White House was virtually unprecedented.” He became defined by this one moment and most of his obituaries when he passed away in 2010 led with his infamous phrase, “I am in control here.”

When the powerful act selfishly and ignore others, they often veer into hypocrisy. As a leader, this is the last place you want to be. Hypocrisy involves holding a double standard—espousing and demanding strict moral standards for others while violating those same standards in one's own behavior. Indeed, our research with Joris Lammers shows that power increases hypocrisy—power licenses people to break laws and act freely on their desires while creating strict laws for others.

Consider two U.S. governors who made news for their dramatic and tragic downfalls: Eliot Spitzer and Rod Blagojevich. As attorney general, Spitzer targeted any organization with links to prostitution, even travel agencies that he said promoted sex tourism. He also targeted the male customers of prostitutes and signed into law the “anti–human trafficking” bill that increased the penalty for patronizing prostitutes. But on March 10, 2008, Spitzer was famously discovered to be a frequent customer of prostitutes. Two days later, Spitzer resigned as governor of New York.

Similarly, Governor Blagojevich had positioned himself as a reformer and campaigned against what he called a “legacy of corruption, mismanagement and lost opportunities.” It was later discovered that Blagojevich had tried to
sell
the rights to a vacant United States Senate seat to the highest bidder (this was the seat that Barack Obama vacated when he was elected president in 2008 and resigned from the Senate). In recorded comments, Blagojevich said, “I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden. I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing.”

Hypocrisy is Spitzer passing laws that targeted prostitution clients, while patronizing prostitutes himself. It is Blagojevich campaigning as a reformer, condemning corruption in others, while flagrantly violating these standards himself. And it ended badly for both of them.

Hypocrites are intolerable; they boil our blood and leave us salivating at the prospect of revenge. And, often, we get it. This is why hypocrites don't remain in power for very long. It's the combined curses of selfishness and hypocrisy that bring the king down.

Hubris and overconfidence can explain why many powerful people act with selfishness and harshness. But it turns out that powerful people also act badly when they feel threatened and disrespected. In fact, power and low status are a particularly toxic combination. Nearly all of us have suffered at the hands of an official who holds power over us in one domain, but would command little respect in the outside world. These individuals are prone to using their power to make life difficult for others. We call these people Little Tyrants.

A particularly notorious example of this toxic combination involved the American prison guards in the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib. In 2004, these guards were caught on film celebrating their power over inmates. On a smaller scale, consider the sometimes egregious bullying of security guards, DMV officials, reimbursement administrators, or bouncers at nightclubs. Like knowledge, a little power can be a dangerous thing.

Research we have done with Nathanael Fast of the University of Southern California has shown that when we put people in positions that are not well respected but command power over others, those people become prone to turning into Little Tyrants. In one study, for example, we gave everyone a chance to assign tasks to another person. When participants had power but felt disrespected, they were almost twice as likely to assign tasks that were particularly demeaning to others, like having someone repeat “I am filthy” five times or bark repeatedly like a dog. These Little Tyrants demean others to compensate for their own wounded egos.

Power is precious but precarious. Whether it is hubris and hypocrisy or low status and threat, there are many paths people can take to abuse their power. When the powerful demonstrate little concern for those around them, they make themselves vulnerable to losing their power. So how can a king hold on to his crown? The key is finding a way to capture the benefits of having power without falling prey to the temptations that lead to the loss of power.

As we've seen, power acts almost like a wonder drug, giving you agency and confidence and optimism. But it's important not to get
too
high on your own power. For these benefits to emerge, you need to know your place in the power hierarchy and act accordingly. Those who act as if they have more power than they do, like Alexander Haig did, get ostracized. And this is bad news for the powerful, for as we saw in our introduction, the greatest form of torture is social isolation.

So, how do we reconcile these two points—the fact that power can be primed and lead to power, and the finding that if you act too powerfully for your position you will be socially punished?

To resolve this seeming contradiction, we need to understand two truths about power and social behavior. First, for each person at any point, there is a
range
of acceptable power that you can display relative to the actual power that you have. If you exceed that range, you are likely to be punished, but within the range, you can express more power than you actually have…but only up to a point. That is, you have some latitude, but don't get too cocky.

Second, we need to recognize that confidence and deference are not mutually exclusive, and it's usually a lack of deference rather than excess of confidence that gets powerful people into trouble. Take the job interview—the most successful candidates are those who display confidence but
also
show appropriate deference to the interviewer. Thus, the key is to be confident but also deferential. You need to find the right balance.

We mentioned that power is a psychological accelerator that encourages people to speed down the highway; it makes us more confident and optimistic, and helps us reach our destination faster. But to accelerate without endangering ourselves and others, we also need some mechanism for keeping our egos in check and preventing us from careening off the road. We need a steering wheel.

Our steering wheel is something we call perspective-taking, which is simply the ability to see the world from the perspective of others. Indeed, as we will discuss later in this book, our research has shown that the ability to take another's perspective is a critical ingredient for managing both our friends and our foes.

A crucial element to finding this balance is to know and consider the perspective of your audience. Take the power pose: Standing in front of your boss with a power pose may not go over so well; your boss may feel threatened and feel as though you are challenging their authority. This is why the power pose is best done
before
the interaction. It gives you a dose of confidence while still allowing you to appear deferential.

The ability to take the perspective of others helps the powerful see the others on the highway and fosters more cooperation from those with less power. Thus, the ability to see the world through the eyes of others can help the powerful stay in power—and be effective as well.

Research we have done with Joe Magee of NYU has established a number of benefits of combining power and perspective-taking. For one, it helps us solve problems more effectively. We have found that when the powerful member of the team is primed with an exercise in perspective-taking, it increases the team's ability to share critical information. In one study, when we gave the powerful a dose of perspective-taking, these individuals led their group to make better decisions by increasing the amount of information the team discussed and shared.

Just as a car needs both acceleration and a steering wheel to reach its destination, people need power
and
perspective-taking to be successful…and to hold on to their throne.

So how can we get the powerful to become more effective perspective-takers? One way is to direct their attention toward team objectives. Leigh Tost of the University of Michigan found that she could get the powerful to integrate and consider the perspective and advice of experts when she directed their attention toward the team goal of making the best decision. When powerful individuals focus on team goals rather than their own selfish goal of retaining power, they are more likely to realize that others have something unique to contribute.

Another method is to hold the powerful accountable for their decisions, to make the powerful explain their policies and articulate their rationale behind their actions. Indeed, our research has found that accountability steers the powerful to consider the perspectives of important stakeholders.

One final tip for harnessing power without its side effects of hubris and selfishness is to select leaders who already have a pretty good psychological steering wheel. An old piece of advice for those on first dates comes into play here: Watch how your date treats the waitstaff at dinner. They may be on their best behavior with you, but how they treat those with less power can portend their treatment of you when you are weak or vulnerable. Indeed, Roos Vonk of Radboud Universiteit found that people who kiss up but kick down are considered to be the slimiest of them all.

This kind of test is especially important when selecting leaders because it helps to expose who is most prone to abusing power. Because the powerful are less dependent on and less constrained by others, how they choose to use their power reveals their true nature. A quote by Robert Green Ingersoll when describing Abraham Lincoln eloquently captures this point: “If you want to test a man's character, give him power.” With power, the constraints that normally govern how we act and behave recede and we become the truest form of ourselves.

So yes, it is good to be the king. And it is good to remain the king. Our research suggests that when the powerful develop the ability to see the world through the perspectives of others, they are more likely to retain their throne. Power paired with perspective-taking leads to stronger and more enduring kingdoms.

Here, we have considered how power influences our behavior at the individual level. Next, we turn to the question of power in groups and explore when having a steep hierarchy wins…and when it kills.