Turns out that power and even the proximity to power can be intoxicating and, ultimately, addictive. Moreover, turns out that power and even the proximity to power account not only for the behavior of many leaders, but for that of many followers.
Yesterday I posted a piece titled “Leaders Who Dodder.” The point was that some cling to power or at least to positions of power long after they should have had the intelligence and grace to give it up. Though I didn’t name her in the post, the widely revered Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the quintessential example of such a leader. Precisely because she clung to power, her seat on the Supreme Court, too long, her replacement on the Court was named not by her political and judicial ally, President Barack Obama, but by her political and judicial nemesis, President Donald Trump.
Why did Ginsburg insist on clinging to her position years after it was clear her health was in decline? Why did Senator Dianne Feinstein do the same? Why do others fall into the same trap? Why is it that, as Annie Karni writing in the New York Times put it, “History littered with lawmakers who have stayed around well past their primes?” * Karni’s answer is the attractions of power, and the perks of power are so great they make it very hard to give it up.
What is it about power that makes it so addictive? The feeling that you are important. The feeling that you are making a difference. The feeling that you can get others to do what you want them to do. The feeling that you are part of a group. The feeling that you are acting on what you believe in. The feeling that your experience makes you smarter and better than any successor. The feeling that your power is your life.
Then there are the perks, the small but significant rewards that add up to a big difference. Recognition and admiration; private planes and good seats at good restaurants; a reserved parking place and speedy service; and a staff to smooth and soothe your way in life, to remove the wrinkles the rest of us are left ourselves to iron out.
What makes this list of incentives for leaders to keep leading especially interesting is that it precisely mirrors the list of incentives for followers to keep following. I am thinking especially of enablers – of followers who continue to follow leaders even when they are manifestly ineffective or unethical or both. When a senator such as the now servile Lindsey Graham follows a leader like Donald Trump – who previously he had denigrated and dismissed – Graham is not doing so because he’s lost his mind. He’s doing so because he has calculated that the benefits of staying close to Trump are greater than the costs. Put differently, the addiction to power is not just about being rewarded – who gets to play golf at Mar-a-Lago – it is also about being punished. About who gets distanced from power. In Graham’s case, though he has already served in the Senate for over twenty years, he is clearly plenty worried about losing his seat. Not only because of the advantages it bestows but because without it, he seems to fear he will be lost.
Followers, as is common in these matters, are a knottier problem than leaders. What then to do at least about the leadership class? To ensure a leadership class that is not geriatric, to ensure that younger generations get to hold the levers of power alongside older ones. As I suggested in “Leaders Who Dodder” the matter is urgent. Because average life spans have dramatically increased, so will the number of leaders who are ailing or failing. Even now the average age of U.S. Senators is what used to be the age of retirement – 65.
Since power is addictive, we cannot count on leaders themselves to give it up. We must then take matters into our own hands. We must demand and eventually effect term limits. Limit the amount of time any leader – in business, for example, as in government – is permitted to hold a particular post. How long should this time be? How about 12 years? Long enough to have the benefit of experience; short enough to steer clear of getting sclerotic. In the U. S. Congress this would mean two terms for members of the Senate, and six terms for members of the House. You got a problem with that?
*https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-older-lawmakers-senate.html