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#08 · Coming soon
Trailer · Planned for Tuesday 20 OctoberKimon Ivanov · Cedric Pots · Jean-Maurice Henkel

When does power corrupt?

“Does power change people, or show who they already were?”

Send us a question before we recordFollow the show on SpotifyBefore you listen ↓Join the book waitlist
What we will argue about

We start from a neutral definition: power is the ability to change things. Power itself isn't bad. The question is what it does to the person who holds it. We disagreed about whether power transforms people or simply reveals them, and we didn't fully resolve it. Our working verdict is that "power corrupts" is a warning, not a law.

Three colleagues, one question, recording soon.
Layer 2 · The questions

Why we're asking this now

Every one of us holds some power: over a class, a team, a budget, a conversation. We wanted to know when that turns into something we'd be ashamed of, and what keeps it from happening.

Follows from #3 What is a strong character?Character is easy to claim when nothing is at stake. Power is where it gets tested.
The main question

When does power corrupt, and can it be exercised without corrupting?

The sub-questions

The questions the conversation is built on.

  1. How would we define power?
  2. Does the will to change things require accumulating power, or can change come about in other ways?
  3. Does power fundamentally alter us, or does it reveal a character that was already there?
  4. At what point does the person who sought power stop existing, and can that be reversed?

Questions for you

To think about on your own, before or after listening.

  1. Which kind of power do you hold right now, even if it's small?
  2. When did you last adjust your message so much that it stopped being quite honest?
  3. Who in your life is still allowed to tell you no?

Questions to discuss

For a coffee, a class or a reading group.

  1. Can a well-meaning concentration of power escape corruption, or only postpone it?
  2. When does adapting your message to an audience become manipulation?
  3. Is tolerance only possible from a position of power, while acceptance requires meeting at eye level?
The ten-year question

If you had been given real power ten years ago, who would you have become?

Layer 3 · The tension

Where the conversation pulls

Tension A

Power reveals

Power tests and exposes what was already there. Knowing your own demons is the best protection: if you know your tendencies, power can't surprise you with them.

The self-knowledge view
Tension B

Power transforms

Many leaders started with good intentions and ended in abuse. The change is gradual and almost invisible. Adjusting your message to every audience slowly turns into manipulation.

The slow-drift view
Tension C

Conditions decide

Power can be held without corrupting if four conditions hold: integrity, real accountability, no self-serving interest, and checks that are never quietly dissolved.

Where we landed
The line we keep returning to

The Ring doesn't force corruption. It amplifies a desire that was already there.

Layer 4 · A first taste

A first taste

Taste 01

Four sources of power

Presence: the ability to command a room just by being in it. Role: authority that comes with a position. Expertise: legitimacy earned through knowledge. Resources: control over money, materials or information. Each source has its own way of going wrong. Soft power, leading through inspiration rather than force, tends to last longer and corrupt less.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
Taste 02

Power wears local clothes

The same act of authority can look decisive in one culture and domineering in another. A consensus culture and a hierarchical one each produce their own kind of failure: one is slow to decide, the other takes risks alone.

Taste 03

A warning, not a law

Absolute power has a strong tendency to corrupt, but the mechanism is about probability, not fate. What tips the balance is the person's character, the strength of the checks around them, and their own awareness of what they are doing.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”Lord Acton, 1887
Layer 5 · Before you listen

Find your own starting point

Before you listen

Which power do you hold?

Before you listen, tap each kind of power you hold today, at work, at home or among friends. Each one comes with its own way of going wrong.

Layer 6 · Ask before we record

Questions for the recording

We haven't recorded this one yet. Answer one of these, or send the question you most want us to argue about. We'll read a selection on air, with your permission.

  • At what point does adjusting the message stop being leadership and start corrupting the relationship?

  • If power only reveals character, how do we explain good people who ended badly?

  • Can someone who has been corrupted by power find their way back?

Before we record

Your question can change the conversation. Send it now and it may become one of our sub-questions, or the opening of the episode.

Questions that make it into the episode will appear here after it's released.
Layer 7 · Go deeper

Keep pulling the thread

Get ready

We'll announce the release in The Minutes and on Spotify. Until then, the questions above are yours to think about.

Get notified

Reading list

  • Letter to Bishop Creighton (1887)Lord ActonThe origin of "absolute power corrupts absolutely".
  • The Lord of the RingsJ. R. R. TolkienThe Ring as a model of how power amplifies desire.
  • The Power BrokerRobert A. CaroHow Robert Moses changed as his power grew.
  • The power cubeJohn GaventaA map of the forms, spaces and levels of power.Read online ↗

Where this question leads

#3 What is a strong character?Power is where character gets tested.
Coming: The art of toleranceIs tolerance only possible from above?
#2 Is perception everything?Does knowledge make us arrogant?

The Minutes. After each episode: the edited notes, the quotes we argued about and the question we couldn't close. One e-mail per episode.

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