Say what you will, you have to admit he’s fascinating. I mean, how many people have you met like this guy? Even a little bit?
Well, maybe we’ve seen some of this before. Ever had a boss who seemed clueless? Maybe someone who thought they were always right?
In his book, Kidding Ourselves (published before Trump’s rise), author Joseph T. Hallinan nails what’s behind this guy’s bizarre behavior. The chapter “Drunk with Power” describes the common tendencies we humans exhibit when we have (or even feel we have) power, even just a little.
The core difference between the powerless and the powerful is:
… for the powerless, being alert to their surroundings is critical. But for the powerful, not so much. They stay tuned to their inner feelings.
Most of us understand the need to be alert to our surroundings. It’s how we navigate through life. We pay attention to our parents, teachers, friends, spouse. We adjust our behavior to accommodate people and the social situation. We listen to advice from experts. Not so much for the powerful.
… this reluctance to take advice varied according to the degree of the manager’s power: the more powerful the manager, the less likely he or she was to take advice.
Trump grew up with power, and gained even more power later in life. He is steeped in, completely saturated with, power. And it shows in the way he presents himself, the way he thinks, what he says, what he does, and what he values.
Powerful people are willing to throw their weight around in order to get what they want, whether that means firing employees on a whim or indulging in a weekend bunga-bunga.
We’ve seen powerful people do stupid things before (examples of public scandal abound).
During the primary Trump’s behavior reeked of someone throwing “their weight around in order to get what they want”. He bullied and lied his way through every potential rival.
And that kind of persona is one he’s been perfecting for years: he turned firing people into public sport, a game.
The powerful … are given a free pass. So it’s little wonder they so often develop an exaggerated sense of their own importance.
It’s not something most of us ever experience. So, it’s hard for us more normal human types to take this to the next logical step — but the truly powerful live it. Trump lives it.
They come to believe not only that they control things they do not control; even worse they come to believe that they control things that cannot be controlled.
And while you’re there, soaking in that feeling of omniscience and control, well, little things like political correctness just wouldn’t fit into your world view.
Social norms, other people’s opinions, convoluted deliberations — for the powerful, constraints like these fall away. Powerful people tend to see fewer obstacles in the world, and to think about problems in less complicated ways, often employing stereotypes to make their decisions.
Hallinan makes strong points, backed with results of studies and experiments, to paint a complete picture of the brain of truly powerful people. They’re out of touch with reality on many levels. None more so than their belief that they are truly and deeply admired for their greatness — that they are beloved by their underlings (and for someone like Trump, everyone is an underling).
...most of all, gaining power appears to jam our human radar, allowing us to go on believing that we accurately track the world around us when in fact our screens have gone blank. Corporations abound with powerful people who labor under this delusion
An example Hallinan points to is a CEO who thought his underlings were heartbroken and gave him a standing ovation during his farewell speech. Instead, according to those who worked for him, he was so reviled that a common theme was that they were “not coming back for another year of this shit” if the CEO did not leave.
The final point in the chapter discusses negotiating skills. In studies of negotiating tactics it has been shown that “angry people get their way”. But that doesn’t necessarily work against a powerful person because they don’t care what the other person does or wants.
… powerful people are able to zero in on what they want and not be distracted by irrelevant information — or at least, information they consider to be irrelevant — such as other people’s feelings. … Powerful people don’t care about the other person’s emotions; they care about their own emotions.
So that’s the secret to Trump’s “art of the deal”: he only cares about what he wants. So, he may be right that he is good at negotiating. The problem is that his vision is limited to what he feels in his gut — his uncomplicated, stereotypical view of America. His edge as a negotiator is blunted by his lack of understanding, his inability to listen to advisors, and unbending need to follow his gut.
Trump’s claim that his meeting in Mexico was a major success is one example of a powerful person’s self-delusion. Oh, and let’s not forget his claim in the CIC Forum that he knows the intelligence community is really pissed with Obama, Clinton, and Kerry because “I’m really good at body language”. Given what we understand about powerful people like Trump, it is clear he has no clue what other people are feeling.
If just a little power can distort our judgement, imagine being steeped in it — for your entire life. Imagine the level of delusion about your abilities (huge, tremendous, great, the best) that you would feel. Imagine your negotiating prowess. Imagine your willingness to trust your gut, your unshakable belief that you know better than anyone else — your inability to take advice. Imagine your hyper-inflated sense of control and your extreme willingness to act decisively based on your own narrow vision.
Then imagine where all this would lead our country if Trump were president.
Unfortunately, the man can’t help who he is. He was born into it. We just need to make sure we protect ourselves and the world from where his presidency could lead. But there’s no reason to demonize or hate him — just be sure to vote.
