Does power drive you crazy?

We call it the psychosis of power, because it actually brings loss of contact with reality. Many of the despots in our world, which are at the helm of the wicked states, businesses, cults, religious sects, terrorist cells and criminal organizations, share this kind of typical self - deception. In fact, decades of studies have shown that many of us in power, the rich, the famous, the powerful, the politically independent, and those in positions with high authority tend to become increasingly vulnerable, from various forms of power psychosis.
Here's how it works: The longer people stay in power, the more they process information in an abstract way, perceive other people in instrumental terms and stereotypes, gain more and more self-confidence and become more self-depressed, make choices with more risk, and their capacity for complex social reasoning and moral judgment is reduced more and more. They also become less inclined to adopt someone else's viewpoint, are less accurate judges of others' emotions, and their information about subordinates is increasingly incorrect.

They even start to view others as smaller and physically.
In time, the powerful develop a sense of superoptimism, a form of self - pride that they feel they can do or say whatever they want, often they commit scandalous offenses because they believe they cannot be caught or punished. Of course, this happens within the cultures, institutions, and standards that allow them to do all of this, uncontrolled. When Ruling Ones Find themselves in Conflict With OthersThat's where their illusions take more lives. People who have too much power feel very comfortable, when they fit a dominant style in a conflict, and often lose the ability to react in other ways. They monopolize the time of their speech and speak in a row, they are much more inclined to express their own private thoughts and their true behavior, and they are far less susceptible to the behavior of others, or to the efforts of obedience. They also pay less attention to those with less power, overestimate their power, and underestimate the power of others, fail to understand enough the disputes in which they are located, and are more prone to violation of rules and laws.

In a study conducted in high-level international negotiations, researchers concluded that negotiators of the most powerful countries usually neglected to think about the differences of power. If they did, they usually acted under the assumption that their superior power was sufficient to allow them to prevail in negotiations, and as a result, they paid very little attention to specific types of maneuvering space that could put their opponents with less power to action. As a result, those who have more power often lose in negotiations and conflict they don't get what they want, spend time, and fail to create values. They get stuck in negotiations of type “Take it or leave it”, or “take it or suffer. ”

In contrast, many of the world's best - known leaders have learned to swim against it. Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Haveli, Angela Merkel, Mary Robinson and Nobel winners, Lemah Gbowee and Aung San Kyi, for example, have shown greater adaptability to the conflict. Instead of clinging to the “approach, take it or suffer,” they reacted to various differences, with different strategies, in ways that fit the situation, and they knew that they would refrain from confrontation or dominate, when it was really necessary. In other words, they had what we call IQ high in conflict. They read situations more carefully, consider the short-term and long-term goals, and then implement a variety of different strategies in order to increase the chances of success for their agenda. They knew the difference between a temporary dispute and a long - term struggle. They knew when to stay on the road and when to change strategies. In a series of studies published in the Organising Conduct Journal, we found that leaders and managers with great adaptive abilities have higher levels of self-efficiency and well-being at work, measured by overall satisfaction indicators, with fellow workers, with labour-related well-being, as well as the lowest goals of quitting.

It has been concluded that the biggest problems arise when leaders are obsessed with a single approach to conflict [such as dominance], or when their chronic strategy conflicts with changing demands or situations. Even being overly sympathetic during the conflict against subordinates can damage authority, cause moral decline, and leave the staff confused and unmotivated.

Today, peoples of North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe, and Ukraine continue to suffer from the rule of despots seized by psychosis of power. Forbes recently wrote that the “Planet remains filled with dictators, able to obscure the days of millions, with one finger lift.” Now the world needs a new generation of appropriate leaders, raised with a steady diet of integrity, flexibility, skills, and compassion for the needs and interests of others. When it joins state government and an international community able to provide the controls and balances needed to stem the madness of power, with signs that the world will become a better place.

Huffington Post World.al