‘The Power Paradox’ by Dacher Keltner – Success Through Empathy (Part 1)
The empowering message of ‘The Power Paradox’ by Dacher Keltner is that malevolence may bring a person power in the short term. But it will very rarely allow them to hold power for long.
 
You can get to power through corruption, coercion, and force. But those things will not keep you there.
 
Power held by a tyrant that nobody likes is brittle. As soon as an enemy (and tyrants have plenty of those) has a chance to take it away, they will. The position of a tyrant is precarious because they are hated. And there will always be plenty of people who are baying for the tyrant’s blood.
 

The Modern World is Hyper-Connected
 
In the modern world, power is not what it used to be. In bygone eras, power could quite easily be held by brute force. If a tyrant had the riches and fire-power, they could pay an army to murder, rape and pillage anyone who challenged their power. Evil, brutish and Machiavellian behavior often did the job.
 
But in today’s world of high literacy levels, rolling 24-hour news and social media – information is readily available. People can see tyrannical behavior for what it is, and word spreads fast. Until relatively recently, information was difficult to come by and spread very slowly.
 
But today most people are clued in and plugged in. Modern tyrants such as Harvey Weinstein and Hillary Clinton have their evil deeds broadcast far and wide. And they become despised. Today, it seems that even the most powerful of people can be brought down when their bad behavior is exposed. And people are no longer willing to allow them to get away with their antisocial antics.
 
Losing the Cloak of Anonymity
When a person is on the way up, accumulating power, they are usually relatively anonymous. And so, they are able to get away with bad behaviors. But once they achieve great power and their reputation grows, they tend to lose their invisibility. Their bad behaviors and indiscretions become apparent to society. And so they can no longer get away with the malevolent behavior that got them to power in the first place.
 
Power Often Corrupts
Sometimes, when people achieve power, their egos grow to be enormous. They imagine themselves to be staggeringly important,