Since Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince was published in 1532, it has shaped our understanding of how political power is won—namely through cunning and coercion. The treatise has been so influential that Machiavelli’s name has become synonymous with cut-throat modern politics—both in the real world (Peter Mandelson) and the fictional (Frank Underwood in House of Cards). But what if there were another way to gain power and influence people?
Dacher Keltner is an expert in the evolutionary origins of human emotions and a professor of psychology at Berkeley in California. The Power Paradox, his lively and intriguing new book, sets out to explain how our understanding that power comes from coercive force “cannot make sense of many important changes in human history.” He attempts to redefine what it means to have power, shifting the emphasis towards altruism and generosity, where real empowerment in an organisation comes from the idea that you are “making a difference in the world” and “acting in ways that improve the lives of others,” rather then dominating them.
The Power Paradox delivers a much- needed dose of positivity in the study of how managers and leaders can get the best out of their workers and populations. But Keltner admits that even though power might be gained through cooperation, “the very experience of having power and privilege leads us to behave, in our worst moments, like impulsive, out-of-control sociopaths.”
