How do we gain and maintain power - through coercion or cooperation? What does it do to our behaviour? And what makes us lose power? In twenty revolutionary 'power principles', renowned psychologist Dacher Keltner turns everything we thought we knew about influence and status upside down, redefining power for our times.
This revolutionary new book shows us that everything we thought about power is dead wrong. It is not gained, as the Machiavellian view says, through coercive force. Influence comes instead to those who are socially intelligent and empathetic - but ironically the seductions of power make us lose those very qualities that made us powerful in the first place. Dacher Keltner illuminates this 'power paradox', revealing how both power and powerlessness distort human behaviour, affecting whether or not we will have an affair, break the law, suffer from depression or find our purpose in life.
By redefining power as the ability to do good for others, Keltner turns everything we know about influence, status, and inequality upside down.
About the Author
Dacher Keltner is Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, he has received numerous prizes for his research, which has been covered in The New York Times, Newsweek, the BBC and CNN. He is the bestselling author of Born to Be Good and has served as a consultant to Google, Facebook, and on the award-winning Pixar film, Inside Out. In 2008, the Utne Reader listed him as one of the fifty visionaries changing the world.
Industry Reviews
There cannot be many business school academics with a hotline to Hollywood. But Dacher Keltner has become something of a go-to guy for Tinseltown since advising on Inside Out ... Prof Keltner is in demand for his work on decoding emotions, which has culminated in a book explaining how people gain and lose power, based on the studies of executive behaviour he has undertaken over 20 years * Financial Times *
Lively and intriguing ... 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 * Prospect *
The Westminster old guard sat all around him may not realise it, but Dacher Keltner and his ideas may pose a severe challenge to their way of doing business. And it gets worse: as he and his cohorts render them obsolete, they will rub it in by being nice to them -- Archie Bland * Guardian *
Dacher Keltner is the most interesting psychologist in America. He's busy changing the minds of Americans about how power works, how inequality works. It's only a matter of time before his ideas spread everywhere. And unlike most psychologists I know, he's not a weirdo -- Michael Lewis, author of 'The Big Short', 'Flash Boys', and 'Boomerang'
The Power Paradox brings clarity to our confusion, brimming with evidence-based insights into powerlessness, the selfish uses of power, and the best kind: power that furthers the greater good. Dacher Keltner's brilliant research gives us a lens that lets us see afresh hidden patterns in society, politics, and our own lives. No doubt this will be one of the most significant science books of the decade -- Daniel Goleman, author of 'Emotional Intelligence' and 'A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama's Vision for Our World'
Keltner shares insights into many aspects of power, including afternoon tea in Britain and how Lincoln won the presidency ... Provocative and intriguing -- Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of 'Half the Sky: How to Change the World'
That power is not taken but given is true for most human relations today. It has ancient roots in primate behavior. Dacher Keltner applies a lifetime of research to this topic, offering a lively description of how true power is like a return on a social investment in others -- Frans de Waal, author of 'Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?'
With personal insight and the latest science, Keltner is both realistic and idealistic: The Power Paradox sheds light on human power's dark side, as well as its redeeming qualities. Everyone can learn from this wise book -- Susan T. Fiske, Professor of Psychology at Princeton and author of 'Social Cognition'
Dacher Keltner's focus on power as doing good for others is a refreshing change from a Machiavellian perspective and helps us to better understand what the - much more fulfilling - target of ambition should be -- Kate Pickett, co-author of 'The Spirit Level'
