“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” - an old adage reinforced almost daily, but does the tendency for the vile to get ahead really exist?

New research from Switzerland looked at the corruptive ability of power on leaders.

To investigate Lord Acton’s famous musing; a team at the University of Lausanne used experimental methods to distinguish between the situational and individual corruption, to determine if power itself corrupts, or if corrupt individuals are simply drawn to power.

The team used psychometric tests to measure various individual differences such as honesty, empathy and respect.

Participants then played the ‘dictator game’, where they were given complete control to allocate pay-outs to themselves and their followers.

The leaders had the choice of making prosocial moves for equality, or antisocial decisions which resulted in reduced total pay-outs to the group but increased the leader's earnings.

The results showed that those who measured as less honest exhibited more corrupt behaviour, at least initially; however, over time, even those who initially scored high on honesty were not shielded from the corruptive effects of power.

“We think that strong governance mechanisms and strong institutions are the key to keeping leaders in check,” concluded researcher John Antonakis.

“Organisations should limit how much leaders can drink from the seductive chalice of power.”

Details are available in the following video: