Good Morning!  

Please provide me with some of your throughs on how people handle themselves when they have to much power over the lives of others!  You know, people like Pastors, bosses, military commanders and others.

Also please note my personal comments which will be Highlighted in BLUE!

ChatGPT:

Good morning, Colonel. This is a subject I think you’ll appreciate because power doesn’t simply reveal character—it also puts character under pressure.

People such as pastors, military commanders, executives, coaches, correctional leaders, teachers, judges, and even parents can reach a point where their decisions significantly affect other people's lives.

The danger begins when authority slowly becomes identity.

What too much power can do

There’s a pattern I’ve seen described repeatedly in leadership psychology and history:

1. Success can distort feedback. When a leader repeatedly succeeds, people start questioning them less. Eventually the leader may conclude:

“Nobody challenges me because I’m usually right.” During my ROTC time at VA State University and during my first assignment as an Infantry Officer at Fort Hood Texas, it seemed that I could do no wrong!  On one occasion I fired one of my Top NCO's because I through he was a "Yes Man!"  Later I realized that I had made a mistake.  It seems that I was almost always right and therefore there was no reason for him to challange me. Firing him was a mistake and one that could not be corrected.  I was sad about that!

But another explanation may be:

“Nobody challenges me because challenging me has become costly.”

Think of it this way:  If the leader has ever done anything of a personal nature for you or anyone, or more of his followers, such as giving them gifts, doing any business of a financial nature with them, or whatever, it invokes a feeling of the reciprocity norm, a social rule where people feel a strong urge to return a favor or kindness after someone helps them.

You may also think of it this way:  President Donald Trump announced on September 10, 2026, that every American adult would receive a $5,000 "Trump Dividend" check if Republicans keep control of Congress in the November midterm elections.  The President knows that this promise may invoke an advance feeling of (anticipatory reciprocity). In layman's terms, it means, “I am doing something for you, and I expect to get your vote later!

Those are radically different situations.

2. People start managing the leader instead of advising the leader.  Subordinates learn what the boss wants to hear. Congregations learn what the pastor wants to hear. Staff officers learn what the commander wants to hear.  

That creates an information bubble around the person with power.

Ironically, the more powerful the leader becomes, the more important honest information becomes—and the harder honest information can be to obtain.

3. Authority can become entitlement.
A healthy leader thinks:

“I have been entrusted with responsibility.”  

An unhealthy leader gradually thinks:

“I have earned special treatment.” My exprience as an officer leades me to think we all go through this!  Our only hope is not our training as officers but Our Values and Integrity as a Man or Woman!  In other words, it's what you take from home.

That's a dangerous transition.

4. Loyalty can become confused with obedience.
A strong leader can tolerate:

“I disagree with you.”

A leader becoming corrupted by power begins interpreting disagreement as:

“You are against me.”

Once disagreement becomes disloyalty, organizations become intellectually weak.

5. The leader can become surrounded by enablers. Sometimes the leader isn't the entire problem.

The people surrounding powerful leaders may reinforce bad behavior because they benefit from proximity to power.  They may become stake holders (someone who receives a personal benefit from), the success of their leaders!  

That produces what I call a power ecosystem:

Leader → Inner Circle → Rewards → Loyalty → Silence → More Power

And eventually nobody wants to be the person who says:

“Sir, this is a bad idea.” - I have personally seen this happen many times during my military career.  In 1988 I was having a talk with one of the other four guys graduated from VSU as a Distinguished Military Graduate (DMG) who told me that they had had all agreed that I was would be the first to get passed over for a promotion.  I asked him why did they thank that.  He said, "because I was too strong and too opinionated and did not know how to keep quiet."  I told him that may be the reason why I was the one who continued to get promoted.  I told him that personally, I like strong people around me.  My response almost brought tears to his eyes.

The military actually provides a powerful lesson

One of the smartest concepts in professional leadership is that rank and leadership aren't the same thing.

Rank can compel compliance.

Leadership earns commitment. - This is the key!  

A commander can order soldiers to perform certain lawful duties because the position carries legitimate authority. But the truly effective commander develops something much more valuable.

Soldiers who perform when the commander isn't standing there.

The same principle applies to pastors, managers and bosses.

A pastor who needs constant personal loyalty isn't necessarily building a strong church.

A CEO who must approve everything isn't necessarily building a strong company.

A commander whose organization collapses when they leave hasn't necessarily built a strong unit.

Great leadership should eventually make the organization less dependent upon the leader, not more dependent.

There are warning signs I would watch closely

When someone has substantial power over others, I'd become concerned when several of these appear together:

• Criticism becomes unacceptable.
• Questioning decisions is treated as disrespect.
• Loyal insiders receive privileges.
• Rules apply differently to leadership.
• Information is tightly controlled.
• People fear retaliation.
• Financial decisions become less transparent.
• The leader increasingly surrounds themselves with agreeable people.
• The organization becomes centered around the leader's personality.
• People begin saying, “Don't let the boss/pastor/commander know I said this.”

That last sentence is particularly revealing.

When good people become afraid to tell leadership the truth, the organization has developed a leadership problem whether the leader realizes it or not.

But here's the part that fascinates me most

The solution isn't simply finding good people and giving them power.

Good people can become distorted by power too.

The better solution is creating systems where even good leaders are constrained, questioned, audited, advised, and periodically replaced.

Healthy organizations therefore build guardrails:

Authority + Accountability + Transparency + Independent Oversight + Honest Dissent

Remove accountability and authority becomes dangerous.

Remove transparency and misconduct becomes easier.

Remove dissent and leaders become intellectually isolated.

Remove independent oversight and leaders eventually start policing themselves.

And human beings generally aren't very good at policing themselves indefinitely.

One question tells you a lot about a leader

“What happens to the person who respectfully tells this leader NO?” If I had completely ignored my subordinate military advisors, I would have definitely fail as a military Commander!

If nothing bad happens—and the leader genuinely considers the objection—you probably have a reasonably healthy leadership culture.

If that person is humiliated, isolated, transferred, fired, ostracized, preached about, threatened, or branded disloyal...

you've learned something important about how power operates in that organization.

Leaders!  One of the greatest tests of character isn't how you behave when someone has power over you. It's how you behave when you have power over them.  See godowdy.com/fight