The Link Between Power and Corruption

A student in UWCSEA calls for quiet, he is the leader of his G.C. Once everyone has quieted down, he begins the session by asking everyone whether or not they have any ideas for fundraising. First he writes his own idea on the board, then adds everyone else's. There are some really good ideas, but in the end, he goes with his own. Is it the best? No, but who can challenge him?

This is just one example of power affecting someone into making the wrong decision. This is because power, the one thing everyone wants in their life, is corruptive. Power is corruptive because, once you have power, you go up a step in life. You have gained authority over someone and with this authority you can go on and make them do what you want, when you want.

Iain Mclaughlin, head of Coca-Cola in Southeast Asia, when asked about this issue, revealed other examples of people being corrupted by power, “They force people in the organization to do things that aren’t necessarily in the best interests of the company. Or they use their position power to make unreasonable demands on people which impacts their lives.” The two examples above exposes the concept that, with power comes an ability to affect our the people around us, our environment, in a negative way and implies a sense of people changing because of power, which the Guardian researched further in a experiment.

They gave participants scenario’s with two choices, the social choice or the anti-social choice. In the beginning, before the scenarios started, they asked the participants what choice they would go with and 97% of the participants said they would choose the social choice. However, once the experiment started and they got actual power, the clock started ticking. The pressure of making a decision kept on rising and rising, and in the end everyone made the anti-social choice.

This experiment shows that power makes people change, but why does this happen? When asked this question, Iain Mclaughlin replied. “Power makes things easier, the more power you have the easier it is to get things happening and get things done.” The idea that power makes things easier is significant because it gets to the heart of why power is so wanted and so corruptive. With power you suddenly have this ability to do more, do things that might have been out of reach before, and this new ability can make life much simplier. Whether or not this new found ability is positive or negative depends on situation and the person.

But, what can we do about this. What can be done to stop this corruption. Iain Mclaughlin answered this question in his interview. “To stop corruption there has to be safeguards, checks and balances, to stop people corrupting.”

There have to be checks and balances. One example of these might be asking your friends, the people you knew before your new role, your new power, whether they have noticed anything different about you. Another check might be asking your boss or one of your peers to watch you while you work and see if they find negative use of power. An example of a balance could be spreading your power out evenly to the people around you. Try and give everyone around you a say, endeavour to make your environment as democratic as possible.

There is a link between power and corruption and this link will change the people around you, create corruption were there wasn’t any before. However, don’t let this link affect you. Try and check in regularly with the people around you, and balance out your power as evenly as possible. Make sure your sense of integrity always stays intact and rely on those around you to keep it that way. To stay whole even though you have power will become harder and harder as time goes on. Temptation will start to slide in, the benefits of what you could get if you only just did one thing wrong will show. But, in the end that will mean you’ve let power change you. That would mean you’re a worse person than who you were originally, all because of a concept, an idea, something that isn’t even real.


Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/17/does-power-lead-to-corruption-research-testosterone

Iain Mclaughlin