Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

by Jeffrey Pfeffer

Research shows that attitudes follow behavior—that if we act in a certain way, over time our attitudes follow. For example, if we act friendly toward an adversary whose help we need, we will come to feel more friendly as well. There are many theoretical mechanisms that account for this effect. One holds that people infer their own attitudes from their behavior—or as Michigan professor Karl Weick put it, “I know what I think when I see what I say.” Another is Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance, which argues that people seek to avoid inconsistency, and one way of accomplishing that is to adjust their attitudes to be consistent with their behaviors.20 What this implies is that if we interact with powerful people because we need them to do some task or to help us in our career, over time we will come to like them more or at least forgive their rough edges. And in choosing who we will associate with, usefulness to our career and job loom as important criteria.