Fearful Power

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Power of Balance – I’m Stephen Barden.

Today I want to talk about the link between power and fear. And I suspect it may not be the link you’re expecting. But before I go any further, it’s probably not a bad idea to say what I mean by power:

I define power as the capacity and ability that an individual or interest block has to act, to do, as well as to increase the effectiveness of those actions in the future. The capacity to act is determined by its context, and the ability by the reinforcing agents it has within that context:  formal authority, alliances, weaponry, finance and so on. 

In essence, we all have power to act. Some have a strong capacity to do so in our families or villages – while having little or no power in any other context. The larger the context and the greater those reinforcing agents, the more power we have. 

If power is the capacity and ability to do. We have to ask - Power to do what?

In very broad terms, it’s either to exercise power-over, or power-with.

Power-over, is the dominance by an individual or group to impose, influence or persuade those in their domain to pursue a particular ideology, vision or process. It can be exercised within the “strong man or woman” model but, in modern society and organizations it can also disguise itself in a “liberal, tolerant” model. It can tolerate gender or racial diversity in the same way that it tolerates, as a corporation say, the use of child labour in a far-off country to get its rare earth metals; or – as a country -the wholesale slaughter of “other” peoples. And it will do so, because “it is good for business “and it’s good for quote unquote “us, our security, our progress.” 

What power-over, however, cannot disguise is its impact: one, usually a small, part of the domain – the country, society or business – will benefit disproportionately from the rest. 

Power-with – is the intention to use authority to enable the talents, skills, opinions and, yes, power of all sectors for the benefit of the domain itself. It does not tolerate diversity; it sees it as necessary. Not, inevitably, because it thinks it’s good and fair and just, but because if you’re working to move the entire ship forward, then you need all hands on deck. Power-with, is focused on the power of relationships. It sees everyone as allies or potential allies -and ideally partners.

Of course, those with the intention to gain power-over, will often use the tactics of power-with, as in “we’re doing this for you. For the good of the company, or the country.” And those going for power-with, may slip into power-over tactics, as in: “Some people are clearly trying to sabotage what we are trying to do. they’re bad. They have to be stopped.” 

But why do some people seek power-over and some power-with? What are the assumptions, beliefs and views that they have built up that gives them this particular world view rather another?. 

I know that the answer can’t be definitive, or even simple. After all, we rarely can trace a direct line between cause and effect. And, of course, human beings seldom, if ever, have either single or unchanging motives for their actions.   

But let’s start with two statements and see how far this takes us: 

The first comes from Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will to Power”: “The desire to rule”, he says, “Has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc)”

The second is from a paper written by Terence and Mark Sewards, in the Journal of Neuroscience and Bio-Behavioural Reviews: 

They say: “Stimuli that elicit fear may also simultaneously activate the power-dominance drive (e.g., the resident-intruder paradigm) and structures activated by such stimuli will include both fear and power dominance representations….” 

So that’s what we have: fear and the drive to power-dominance – what I have called power-over – are very closely related. They light up the same parts of our brain to put it crassly. Nietzsche, who has been misrepresented, as the champion of dominating power, quite explicitly says that those who desire to rule over others are driven by fear.  

The drive to dominate may be disguised – as Nietzsche put it – in “a royal cloak” – in a cover of confidence, self-assurance and entitlement. But what is its skin? 

Fear.  

Fear that they, themselves, will be dominated, or that they will be seen as too weak to dominate – that they actually do have a slave soul.

What we assume about our relationship with our world –where we live and work - about how best we can manage our journey through life - is the result of our experiences in exploring our space as children. Those early first explorations: - finding what we can or cannot do, negotiating how we manage adults, siblings and class mates. And they are our most deeply embedded experiences because they are brand new to us at the time. So, they set up a really powerful foundation about what they learn to assume is the balance of power they hold with their world.  

That’s the model that my research, my book – and this podcast argues.

From that composite of assumptions, emerges what I call either a Partnering Stance or an Oppositional Stance. The person with a Partnering Stance has little or no fear that their world is out to get them. Of course, bad things will inevitably happen but that’s not the world’s purpose. It’s not the enemy. And, in any event, the Partner can reasonably manage what life brings. 

The one with the Oppositional Stance –sees the world as its - at best - competitor and at worst, its enemy. That’s because they have learned to experience the world they operate in, as superior, more powerful and hostile. Or – and this is equally damaging - as inferior, “not one of us”. The balance of power is out of whack. 

The partnering person or block has learned that they and their operating space have a reasonable balance of power and can partner with each other.

The oppositional person sees their operating space as a place of contest and potential threat – and therefore fear. You can call it anxiety, angst or apprehension – but it’s fear of various degrees. The more extreme the imbalance, the more extreme the apprehension.

A drive therefore for the oppositional stance is to remove that fear. The question is how. If we believe our world is in opposition to us, we’re probably not going to ask it for help. 

So, what’s left? Again, very broadly, we have three choices: we can dominate the dominating world. We can avoid it - or we can submit. 

All of which, unfortunately, entail fear: 

In dominating, we fear being subjugated by someone more aggressive or more capable. 

In avoiding – in trying to hide - we fear being caught in the dominant’s spotlight and dragged into subjugation or conflict.

In submitting, – we fear the whims of the dominant. Never mind how much we try to please him, her or them, we know that they can turn against us at any stage – and we don’t believe there’s much we can do about it. 

All three have fear in common. But all three also share something else: – the inability to manage their world, to work with it. Managing something or someone is to enter into a relationship of mutual benefit.

If my primary aim is to dominate another, and I assume she is a threat or a rival inside my domain, my main curiosity about her would be to find out those areas that I can exploit. I will have little interest in managing – in doing business – with her; I will have even less interest in seeing how we can complement each other to find the best solutions. Dealing with – managing – requires relationships in which both sides need to reveal their strengths and weaknesses. Something that a fearful dominant is going to be very unlikely to do.

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That’s why those who are driven by the acquisition of power-over, fear opposition or even difference of any kind. It can bring unbearable dread in them. It’s not the logic or the value of the difference that terrorises them – it’s the threat to their citadel of self-worth. And the opposition they most dread, is that from withintheir world. They may be very good at dealing with outside competitors, because they actually don’t threaten that self-worth; the relationship is transactional. It’s those from the inside that are a problem. They don’t need validation from transactional outsiders. They expect outside competitors to oppose them and even to try and do them down. But when it comes to insiders, the people who know them, and have so far been obedient, it’s a different thing. They’re the ones who are supposed to be loyal. And when they’re not, the reaction from the power-over leader can be visceral. 

As I said earlier, what I’m describing here is probably an extreme end of the dominance drive. Although we’ve seen many examples of this historically. Most people will have a mixture of assumptions about their relationship with the world: that they, for example, don’t see their world as the enemy but their experience has shown them that it is unpredictable. Or they assume that their world – their employer or partner – values them only as long as they are useful. So, they’re ready to jump before that happens. That still puts them and their world on opposite sides of the fence. If my world is unpredictable, I will probably want to control my risks as tightly as possible. If my relationship with my world is transactional, then I will jettison it before it can do the same to me. In this less extreme part of the scale, hostility may not be present, but fear and mistrust certainly are.

Because power-over is driven by fear, it may never feel entirely authentic to the dominance-driven leader. It’s their particular form of imposter syndrome. So, they need to keep proving that they are the real deal. They need to perform as if they are good leaders. They perform at driving extraordinary results, they will take larger risks, they move quickly and break things and people. How they look is extremely important. It reminds me of the sentiment repeated again and again in Taylor Sheridan’s television series “Tulsa King”- about American criminal families: “We’ll look weak.  If we don’t hit back, we’ll look weak.”

Much of the way I’ve been describing those with a Power-dominance drive, echoes the behaviour and characteristics of psychopathic leaders. Probably the best-known work on the subject is the book “Snakes in Suits” by Babiak and Hare. In introducing their work, they acknowledge that leaders of major corporations are sometimes seduced by their unfettered power and stray into abuse, extravagance and self-serving greed. They become – as they put it – motivated by “greed and big egos”. But, they point out, there is another, entirely separate, much more destructive group, that has -unfortunately contaminated the realms of leadership. And these suffer from what is now regarded as a clinical disorder, psychopathy. 

In a later paper written by Babiak with another well-known specialist in this area, Cynthia Matthieu, psychopathy is described as “a clinical construct defined by a cluster of personality traits and dispositions, including grandiosity, egocentricity, deceptiveness, shallow emotions, lack of empathy or remorse, irresponsibility, impulsivity, and a tendency to ignore or violate social norms.”

The work done on describing the traits of psychopathic leaders is extraordinarily extensive and detailed. One particular academic paper I researched, even goes into the sub types of psychopathy, where psychopathic leaders have learned to shape or disguise their traits to succeed. One such sub type, displays really high self-control and organisational skills, not generally associated with the chaotic, charismatic and adrenaline-soaked arenas that psychopaths are seen to generate.  

Many writers have said that the reason a disproportionate number of psychopaths are in leadership positions is because they are driven by a need for dominance. But in all my scouring, I have yet to come across a remotely satisfying answer as to why they have this need. Some will talk about genetic reasons – but then, they will carefully note that there are always exceptions. Others point to environmental and social origins – but, again, there are exceptions. 

My question here is, are psychopaths an entirely separate group or are they in fact individuals whose need for dominance is driven by extreme fear? 

After all, they certainly share some of the characteristics of power-over leaders: Grandiosity, egocentricity, lack of empathy and remorse and a tendency to ignore or violate social norms. These are not exactly historically rare in very powerful leaders – who are not seen as psychopaths. 

But whereas, the average Power-over leader may display some of those traits, psychopaths actively use them as weapons. While, power-over leaders are driven by degrees of fear and apprehension, psychopathic leaders are the extreme of the extreme and are compelled by abject terror. They are so terrified by their world, that they will do anything to subjugate it. And the traits that they display are actually tools to terrorise and demolish the world that terrorises them. 

Panic stricken people and groups cannot, I believe, empathise with others, if they believe that those others are out to get them. And if their entire world is the enemy, then everything is justified: deception, cruelty, destruction anything.

To be clear: I’m not saying that every, or any, power-over leader is psychopathic. What I am wondering is whether they are all on an axis of imbalance: some, many of us, have learned to regard their world with apprehension, some with fear – and some have been so traumatised that they are in absoluter terror of it.  And what they feel about that world they will make their world feel. 

The tool of a power-driven leader against resistance is to instil fear; the weapon of a psychopath to resistance is to instil terror. And they will go on doing so until – and unless – the underlying cause, is addressed and healed.     

I’d like to end off by coming back to the Power-with Leader – those who have learned to assume that they and their world are valued partners. Make no mistake, Power-with leaders will also seek authority and power. But not, in my experience, for its own sake. All of the finest leaders I have researched understand that the more influence they can wield the more effective their leadership can be for their entire domain. 

One of my favourite leaders, a Jamaican-born man living in a still significantly racist Britain decided, at the age of 29, after only 2 years of teaching,  that he wanted to be a Deputy Head Teacher”. He was so determined that he applied 49 times before he was given a job at that level. Why? Because he wanted to shape things and thought, as he put it,  “if I was further up the food chain, my impact would be that much greater.” 

Then, he went on to become an extraordinary and treasured educator. When he became a head teacher, not only did he turn around one of the most notorious schools in the country, but he created and sustained a model for how schools and communities with very high immigrant populations should and could succeed far beyond their boundaries and expectations. And, a central characteristic of his model was that he included everyone – students, teachers, parents and the entire community. Did he make tough decisions? All the time. Did he remove teachers who were not committed – yes. Did he maintain zero tolerance on any kind of violence? Absolutely. But above all he knew that success could only be achieved if all the stakeholders both owned and actively worked towards that success. If they understood that this was their school – and it was precious. 

I also worked with another leader  who was extrordinarily successful both  commercially and organizationally. Even at his height he was not seen as a Power-with leader; in fact he was regarded as having too much power because of he market he controlled. Within his organiztion I believe he was a power-with leader. He loved his product, he gave his companies  huge power to build and create while maintaining values and a level of behaviour that were consistent and open. And the business thrived and never stopped learning. It was only when he started to love the power he could exert externally – particularly over politicians – more than his organization, that things started to fall apart; that the behaviour of his lieutenants turned to power over as well.

It’s not absolute power that corrupts: It’s power over that corrupts.    

My plea is – and has been for some time: learn where our leaders come from, learn how they view their world – and particularly, how they learned to assume their balance of power and value with it. Do they regard their world as “other” or do they see it as their valued home? 

When selecting or promoting leaders, don’t just check their references.. Don’t for heaven’s sake just carry out personality tests that look at types, and traits, behaviours and preferences. Dig deep into where they come from; where their assumptions, their world view, their relationship with their world were first formed. 

And, if -as a shareholder, voter, manager or politician – you’re wondering why we have so many authoritarian leaders, ask what it is that we as a society are doing to encourage them? 

Why do we not only tolerate – there’s that word again – but admire corporate leaders who create cultures of fear and internal rivalry?  What do we fear about our world, what power imbalance do we feel with it that drives us to vote for authoritarian leaders in growing numbers? What’s our relationship with our world? 

I’m Stephen Barden. This has been another episode of The Power Of Balance. 

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