Power degrades. It turns good men
into bad men and bad men into worse men.
As Samuel Butler has it, “Authority intoxicates,”
The fumes of it
invade the brain,
And make men giddy,
proud, and vain.
“Power tends to corrupt,” Lord
Action said. “And absolute power
corrupts absolutely.” Nietzsche said
that “Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this
impulse, which is called freedom.” But
what is power anyway? It is a question
I asked myself as I saw a corpse of a colonel in my cousin’s funereal parlor, a
man who once commanded a thousand men but who today is clay. It is not a title. The bank I once worked for had forty grades
and 300 assistant vice presidents. It
was much easier to give a title than a raise.
It is not the appearance of power—the Mercedes 600 with the chrome
painted black and the windows tinted and the corner office and the aides and
secretaries and man servants and foot servants with their brief cases and cell
phones. It’s not walking with a swagger
or talking in whispers so that people bow to you as you talk. This is just the illusion of power, and illusion
that has no more or less meaning that what you choose to give to those
illusions.
The essence of power is to cope with the demands of life. Power is the ability to say no and make it
stick. Power comes from within, from
your character, from your vision of what can be, and your ability to work for
that vision. Lawrence of Arabia, who led
the revolt of the desert from the Red Sea port of Jeddah to the gates of
Damascus, said “Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses pf their minds
wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but dreamers of the day are dangerous
men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” Before there are leaders, there must be a
purpose. Before there was Moses, there was a people waiting to be led across the desert. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “I must follow
the people. Am I not their leader?” Biographies of such men as Franklin Roosevelt
and Robert Moses are also textbooks for using power effectively. There is much that can be learned from
people who are not in the mainstream of life, such as leaders of street gangs,
prison uprisings, wildcat strikers, guerilla bands, organized criminals, and
terrorists.
In times of national fervent, we look for leaders. But I believe that our country doesn’t need
great leaders, so long as we have the constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ends of leadership can be no greater than
the means to that end—the leaders themselves.
The Chinese Emperor Ka-Tsu, who founded the
Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC, and the Roman Emperor Augustus
each gave millions unity and peace that lasted because their polices
were based on moderation, which won consent.
They repaired the breakdown of the coercive unity briefly imposed by
their unsuccessful predecessors, Shih Wang-ti and
Julius Caesar.
I believe that leaders are born not made. They are misfits, nonconformists, the lunkhead who doesn’t know the
forks, the odd man out, the rebel to every plump major that as strode through
the halls of the army’s bureaucracy.
Natural leaders must be allowed to command. Leadership is like art and pornography—easy
to identify but hard to define. What
leadership is not is exuding poise,
confidence, and charm, looking good, conforming, and never questioning. The military, which is supposed to be the
great incubator for leadership, produces very few leaders—people that are
willing to take genuine stands against the prevailing tide of sentiment. The reason is simple. The leadership principle—that orders are
orders—is so ingrained that any effort to challenge authority or work outside
of the chain of command is crushed.
There is a penalty for leadership.
The Cadillac Motor Car company published this ad in the