The Puzzling Paradox of Power
Have you ever watched someone wildly incompetent rise to a position of authority and thought, “How on earth did they get there?”
We’ve all seen it happen. The loudmouth who knows the least somehow becomes the team leader. The executive who makes terrible decisions keeps getting promoted. The politician who can barely string together a coherent thought somehow wins election after election.
It feels almost… deliberate. And here’s the uncomfortable truth: it might be.
What if there’s a twisted logic behind why the least qualified often end up with the most influence? What if, sometimes, being smart is exactly what keeps you from gaining power?
This blog explores one of history’s most misunderstood political philosophers, Niccolò Machiavelli, and his brutal insights into why stupidity and power so often go hand in hand. But this isn’t just ancient philosophy – it’s a psychological phenomenon that shapes our world today, from corporate boardrooms to political offices.
Understanding this paradox might be the key to recognizing the manipulative forces operating in our society – or even helping you navigate your own path to influence.
Why Intelligence Can Be a Liability in Power Games
The Curse of Nuanced Thinking
Imagine two colleagues competing for a promotion at work:
Alex carefully analyzes problems from multiple angles, acknowledges limitations of proposed solutions, and presents thoughtful recommendations with appropriate caveats.
Jordan speaks with absolute confidence, offers simple explanations for complex issues, and promises guaranteed results with no downside.
Who do you think typically gets promoted?
Unfortunately, it’s often Jordan. Why? Because intelligence usually comes with certain traits that can be liabilities in power struggles: nuanced thinking, ethical considerations, and self-awareness.
Consider what happens when a genuinely intelligent person enters a power structure. They tend to:
- See complexity where others see simplicity
- Acknowledge limitations where others make sweeping promises
- Question themselves where others project absolute confidence
In settings where bold assertion trumps thoughtful deliberation, these intellectual traits become handicaps.
The System 1 vs. System 2 Connection
This dynamic perfectly illustrates the tension between what psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1” and “System 2” thinking.
System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional. It makes snap judgments based on familiar patterns. System 2 is slow, deliberate, and logical. It examines assumptions and weighs evidence carefully.
Here’s the key insight: System 2 is lazy. It requires effort and energy. We default to System 1 whenever possible because it’s easier.
This explains why we often prefer leaders who provide simple, confident answers (appealing to our System 1) rather than those who acknowledge complexity and uncertainty (requiring our effortful System 2).
Interestingly, emotions seem more connected to System 1 than System 2. When we feel disgusted, afraid, or excited, these emotions arise instinctively through System 1, not through careful System 2 deliberation. Leaders who trigger emotional responses often bypass our critical thinking entirely.
The Power Paradox in Action
A controversial 2017 study from the Journal of Management suggested something that might make you uncomfortable: Intelligence correlates positively with leadership effectiveness only up to an IQ of about 120. Beyond that point, additional intelligence actually becomes a hindrance to leadership emergence.
The researchers suggested that exceptionally intelligent people struggle to connect with and influence others who can’t follow their complex thinking patterns.
Think about that. Being too smart might actually prevent you from gaining leadership positions in the first place.
The Dunning-Kruger Leadership Effect: Why We Follow the Wrong People
The Confidence Illusion
Have you ever noticed how the loudest voice in the room often becomes the most influential, regardless of what that voice is actually saying?
This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect. This cognitive bias, identified by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in the 1990s, occurs when people with limited knowledge dramatically overestimate their competence, while genuine experts tend to underestimate theirs, aware of how much they don’t know.
As Shakespeare wrote centuries before psychology gave it a name: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
The Psychology of Misplaced Trust
Our brains use mental shortcuts when evaluating others:
- Confidence signals competence
- Decisiveness suggests clarity of thought
- Certainty feels more reassuring than nuance
These shortcuts served our ancestors well in straightforward environments but become problematic in our complex modern world, where genuine expertise often involves acknowledging uncertainty.
Real-World Example
Let me tell you about two startup founders I know:
Emma has 15 years of experience in her industry. When pitching to investors, she carefully explains market challenges, outlines reasonable growth projections, and acknowledges potential obstacles.
Tyler has zero industry experience but exudes boundless confidence. He describes his vision in absolute terms, dismisses potential problems, and promises revolutionary success within months.
Guess who secured funding more easily? Tyler raised $5 million on his first round, while Emma struggled to raise $1 million despite her superior experience and more realistic business model.
Two years later, Tyler’s company collapsed after burning through all its funding. Emma’s company grew steadily and eventually became profitable. But for a while, everyone thought Tyler was the genius.
The Network Effect: How Incompetence Spreads
The Competence Drought
Machiavelli observed something crucial about power structures: incompetent leaders tend to surround themselves with even less competent subordinates.
In The Prince, Machiavelli wrote, “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” What Machiavelli understood was that weak leaders deliberately select weaker subordinates to ensure they never face threats to their authority.
Why Smart Leaders Hire Smarter People (But Weak Leaders Don’t)
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an organizational psychologist, describes this as “competence threatening.” Insecure leaders feel threatened by competent team members who might expose their limitations or eventually replace them.
Instead of selecting for talent, they select for loyalty and non-threatening personalities.
The Spreading Pattern
Think of it as a competence drought that spreads outward from central leadership. I’ve observed this in action at a tech company I consulted for:
The VP of Engineering (let’s call him Mark) was technically mediocre but politically savvy. He systematically replaced skilled senior engineers with junior developers who would never question his decisions.
When the company faced complex technical challenges, Mark’s team lacked the expertise to solve them. Projects fell behind schedule, quality suffered, and eventually, the company lost key clients.
Meanwhile, a competitor with technically superior leadership thrived by cultivating talent at all levels. Their CTO often said, “If I’m the smartest person in the room, I’ve failed at my job.”
This creates what organizational scientists call homophily, the tendency of individuals to associate with similar others. In power structures, this means incompetent leaders create islands of incompetence around themselves, insulated from conflicting viewpoints and constructive criticism.
Our Craving for Certainty: The Cognitive Closure Effect
The Uncomfortable Truth About Expertise
Genuine expertise is almost always accompanied by nuance. Real experts understand the limitations of their knowledge. They recognize complexity. They acknowledge tradeoffs.
But these intellectual virtues can be profoundly unsatisfying to our psychological needs.
As Machiavelli wrote, “For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”
The Simplicity Appeal
Consider what happens in times of crisis or uncertainty:
People rarely rally behind the leader who says, “This is a complex situation with no easy answers that will require careful thought and inevitable trade-offs.”
Instead, they follow the person confidently proclaiming, “I alone can fix this. The solution is simple.”
The System 1 Connection (Again)
This preference for certainty connects directly back to System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 craves certainty and simple narratives. System 2 can handle complexity and ambiguity, but it requires effort.
When we’re stressed, frightened, or overwhelmed, our capacity for System 2 thinking diminishes. We revert to System 1 and become more susceptible to those offering simple certainties.
This creates a dangerous dynamic: The more complex and frightening our world becomes, the more susceptible we become to simplistic thinking and the leaders who peddle it.
A Common Scenario
Consider how this plays out in a typical workplace:
A company faces declining sales. The VP of Marketing presents a nuanced analysis identifying multiple contributing factors including market shifts, product issues, and competitive pressures. She proposes a comprehensive strategy that will take time to implement.
The next day, a charismatic director offers a simpler explanation: “Our sales team just isn’t pushing hard enough. I’ll implement a new incentive structure that will fix everything in 30 days.”
Who typically gets more support from the executive team? Often the person with the simpler explanation and more confident promises – even when that approach is doomed to fail.
The Moral Handicap: When Ethics Limits Power
The Uncomfortable Advantage of Amorality
Here’s where Machiavelli becomes truly unsettling. He suggested that moral considerations often handicap intelligent people in power struggles.
In what might be his most infamous passage, he wrote, “It is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity.”
The Uneven Playing Field
In any competitive environment, the person willing to cross ethical lines has access to strategies that morally constrained competitors do not. They can:
- Make promises they have no intention of keeping
- Undermine rivals through deception
- Exploit fears and prejudices that others refuse to touch
The Everyday Impact
You’ve probably seen this dynamic in action. Think about the last time you witnessed a workplace competition:
Pat works diligently, helps colleagues, and focuses on quality results. Alex takes credit for others’ work, spreads rumors about competitors, and focuses on creating the appearance of success.
Who gets noticed by upper management? Often Alex, until their pattern of behavior becomes too obvious to ignore – and sometimes not even then.
Environmental Factors: When Systems Reward the Wrong Behaviors
The Power of Context
Machiavelli understood that different environments reward different qualities. Some contexts naturally select for competence while others create fertile ground for incompetence to flourish.
What Determines Which Type of Environment Develops?
Several structural factors influence whether a system selects for competence or not:
- Feedback loops and accountability structures
In environments with clear, immediate feedback about decisions, incompetence is quickly exposed. Think of a surgeon whose patients die or a bridge engineer whose structures collapse.
But in environments where feedback is delayed, indirect, or easily manipulated, incompetence can thrive indefinitely.
- Institutional design and power distribution
Centralized power systems with weak checks and balances create conditions where incompetence flourishes.
Conversely, distributed power with robust oversight provides structural resistance to incompetent leadership.
- Information asymmetry and complexity
When success is easily measured and compared, merit tends to win. But when goals are ambiguous or success is subjectively evaluated, style often trumps substance.
As Machiavelli noted, “Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you.”
- Economic incentive structures
Systems that reward short-term performance over long-term outcomes create fertile ground for incompetent leadership with superficial charm.
Tale of Two Teams
Consider two software development teams I observed:
Team A worked in an environment with:
- Clear metrics for code quality and customer satisfaction
- Regular peer code reviews
- Objective performance evaluations
- Long-term success incentives
Team B operated under:
- Subjective evaluation by a single manager
- Emphasis on hours worked rather than output quality
- Rewards for short-term deliverables regardless of technical debt
- No peer accountability
Over time, Team A cultivated genuine technical excellence, while Team B devolved into a political environment where appearance mattered more than substance.
Psychological Tactics: How Incompetent Leaders Maintain Power
The Dark Playbook
Incompetent leaders don’t maintain power by accident. They deploy specific psychological tactics to solidify their position – tactics Machiavelli would have recognized immediately.
The Common Strategies
- Exploiting tribalism and identity politics
By creating clear in-groups and outgroups, incompetent leaders transform substantive criticism into perceived attacks from “enemies.” This shields them from accountability while strengthening their supporters’ emotional investment.
Psychologists call this identity fusion. When a leader successfully links their personal identity to followers’ group identity, challenging the leader feels like an attack on the group itself.
- Leveraging cognitive load and information overwhelm
By constantly generating chaos, crises, and controversies, incompetent leaders overwhelm our cognitive resources. When we’re busy processing an endless stream of outrages, we have little mental energy left for critical analysis or organized resistance.
- Employing “doublethink”
George Orwell described doublethink as the ability to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously. By constantly shifting positions and rewriting history, incompetent leaders create an environment where truth feels subjective and accountability becomes impossible.
- Exploiting economic precarity
When people are struggling economically or feel insecure about their future, they become more susceptible to leaders who promise simple solutions to complex structural problems.
Workplace Example
I once worked with a department head (let’s call him Steve) who was remarkably effective at maintaining power despite poor performance. His tactics included:
- Creating an “us vs. them” mentality regarding other departments
- Starting a new initiative every week before the previous one showed results
- Taking credit for successes while blaming failures on external factors
- Keeping team members in constant fear of restructuring
Despite mediocre results, Steve maintained his position for years while more competent managers were let go during cutbacks. His political skills compensated for his leadership deficiencies.
Individual Strategies: Applying Machiavellian Insights Without Losing Your Soul
The Strategic Intelligence Approach
This is where we can flip the script and use these insights to our advantage. How can intelligent, ethical people navigate environments that often reward the opposite?
The Dual Strategy
The key insight is this: You can be a nuanced thinker internally while strategically simplifying your external presentation.
Think of it as being bilingual in the languages of power and truth. You maintain your intellectual integrity while learning to communicate in ways that resonate with how others make decisions.
Practical Tactics
- Strategic simplification
Present complex ideas in simpler packages. Begin with clear conclusions before adding nuance. Use concrete examples rather than abstract principles.
- Confidence calibration
Practice expressing conviction even when acknowledging uncertainty. Instead of saying “I’m not sure but maybe…”, try “Based on what we know now, this approach makes the most sense, though we should remain flexible as new information emerges.”
- Emotional intelligence
Recognize that decisions are often made emotionally (System 1) and justified rationally (System 2). Appeal to both by pairing logical arguments with emotionally resonant examples or narratives.
- Intellectual humility as a private practice
Maintain rigorous thinking behind the scenes while simplifying your public presentation. Never compromise on the quality of your thinking, just on how you package it.
The Ethical Balance
Is this approach manipulative? Not necessarily. It’s about translation, not deception. You’re translating complex ideas into formats that can be more easily processed by others.
The key ethical distinction: Are you simplifying to clarify or to mislead? The former is good communication; the latter is manipulation.
Collective Solutions: Designing Systems That Reward Competence
Building Better Environments
While individual strategies can help navigate existing systems, the real goal should be creating environments that naturally select for genuine competence.
Key System Components
- Robust accountability mechanisms
Design structures that deliver honest feedback regardless of a leader’s charm or persuasive power. Examples include:
- Independent boards with genuine oversight authority
- Regular, objective performance reviews with clear metrics
- Systems that track decisions and outcomes over time
- Cognitive diversity requirements
Foster the inclusion of differing perspectives in decision-making. Diverse teams aren’t just socially desirable – they’re empirically more accurate. They challenge assumptions and reduce blind spots.
- Transparency rules
Implement requirements that prevent complexity from becoming a shield for incompetence. Examples include:
- Open decision-making processes
- Clear documentation of reasoning
- Accessible explanation of complex topics
Company Example
I advised a startup that built these principles into their structure from day one:
- They implemented “decision journals” where leaders recorded their reasoning before making important choices, creating accountability for outcomes
- They required that all major decisions receive input from team members with different backgrounds and thinking styles
- They conducted regular “assumption audits” to identify and challenge unstated beliefs affecting decisions
The result? They avoided many common startup pitfalls and built a culture where the best ideas won regardless of who proposed them.
Applying The Machiavellian Paradox in Your Life
Personal Assessment
Consider your own environment:
- Does it reward appearance or substance?
- Are feedback loops tight or loose?
- Is power centralized or distributed?
- Does it value certainty over accuracy?
Understanding these structural forces can help you navigate your own path and recognize when systems are vulnerable to manipulation.
The Balanced Approach
The most effective strategy combines:
- Internal complexity (maintaining nuanced thinking)
- External simplicity (communicating with clarity and confidence)
- Ethical boundaries (simplifying without misleading)
- System awareness (recognizing and navigating power dynamics)
This approach allows you to maintain intellectual integrity while effectively navigating environments that might otherwise penalize it.
Conclusion: Intelligence with Impact
Machiavelli has been misunderstood for centuries. He wasn’t advocating for the dark patterns he described – he was exposing them. By understanding how power actually works rather than how we wish it worked, he believed we could create better systems of governance.
“It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.” This profound observation reminds us that authority itself deserves no inherent respect. Power must be earned through worthy use, regardless of who holds it.
The intersection of Machiavellian political philosophy and modern psychology reveals uncomfortable truths about human nature and social systems. But uncomfortable truths are precisely what we need if we hope to create better futures.
The path forward isn’t pretending these dynamics don’t exist. It’s understanding them deeply enough to transcend them. It’s designing systems that account for human vulnerabilities rather than exploiting them. It’s developing personal practices that strengthen our resistance to manipulation.
Most importantly, it’s recognizing that while stupidity may sometimes gain power, intelligence – coupled with strategy and moral courage – remains our best hope for creating societies where merit truly matters.
What dynamics have you noticed in your own communities? Have you seen instances where these patterns played out? Have you found effective ways to navigate them? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below.