There’s a new line of thinking in psychology: power reveals, writes "Give and Take" author and LinkedIn Influencer Adam Grant.

1. By LinkedIn Influencer Adam Grant
Wharton Professor and Author of “Give and Take”

2. Frank Lloyd Wright is often touted as the greatest
architect in American history, but he is also
remembered as a man corrupted by power. Before
he became famous, Wright was the head draftsman
for the renowned architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan
tasked him to create drawings for the Charnley
Cottage, a picturesque waterfront house in
Mississippi, as well as a Charnley house in Chicago.
Sullivan was the designing partner, and most
experts assumed that he was responsible for the
buildings. In 1897, Charnley Cottage burned down.
“Sullivan, who had fired Wright by this time, rebuilt
it in the same character,” notes architecture expert
Jay Pridmore, “suggesting that Sullivan regarded the
original design as his own.”

3. Four decades later, in 1932, Wright wrote in his
autobiography that he was responsible for the
Charnley work. Critics assumed that he was only
claiming responsibility for the drawings, not the
designs. After another seventeen years, in 1949,
Wright took credit for designing the house.
Pridmore was suspicious: “Despite the property's
obvious Sullivanesque elements, Wright claimed
that design as his own.”
Architecture professor Paul Sprague agreed: “When
the cobwebs of misunderstanding are finally
cleared away, the evidence confirms Louis Sullivan
as the author of the Charnley house.”

4. Earlier in his career, before he achieved eminence,
Wright was more generous in giving credit. He
called Sullivan the Master, describing himself as a
“good pencil in Sullivan’s hand.” According to
biographers, Wright “repeatedly acknowledged the
positive influence that Sullivan had on his life and
architecture.” Why did Wright end up taking credit
for the Charnley designs later on? How could he rob
his mentor of at least partial credit?
The natural answer is that power corrupts. As
people gave Wright credit for his brilliant ideas,
perhaps the fame and fortune went to his head.

5. This may be true, but there’s a new line of thinking in
psychology: power reveals. Rather than turning Frank
Lloyd Wright into a credit hog, it may well be that being
drunk on power simply freed him up to reveal his true
colors.
To illustrate, imagine that you’re escorted to an office.
You sit down, and you learn that you and a partner will
need to complete ten tasks. Since your partner is running
late, it’s up to you to pick five tasks for yourself. You get to
delegate the other five tasks to your partner. Some of the
tasks are very short. Others will require much more time.
Will you act like a taker, claiming the short tasks for
yourself and leaving your partner stuck with the long
ones? Or will you be a giver, doing the time-consuming
work and letting your partner off the hook?

6. It depends on where you’re sitting. In a fascinating
study led by the psychologist Serena Chen, people
filled out a survey to determine whether they
tended to approach interactions like givers or
takers. When they arrived for the study, they were
ushered into either a powerful or powerless seat.
The powerful seat was a chair behind an imposing
desk. The powerless seat was a guest chair in front
of the desk. When sitting in the powerless seat, the
takers acted like givers. They pretended to be
generous, volunteering for the time-consuming
tasks and leaving the short tasks for their partners.
In daily life, this is a strategy that takers use for
impressing those above them, in the interest of
gaining authority and influence.

7. When they were sitting in the powerful seat, the takers
revealed their true colors. They grabbed the shortest
tasks, sticking the givers with the lion’s share of the work.
Power frees us from the chains of conformity. As a team
of psychologists led by Adam Galinsky finds, “power
psychologically protects people from influence.” Because
powerful people have plenty of resources, they don’t
need to worry as much about the negative consequences
of expressing their values. For givers, power is associated
with responsibility to others. This means that power
often grants givers the latitude to help others without
worrying about exploitation by takers or sheer
exhaustion. For takers, on the other hand, power is a
license to advance their own interests.

8. Frank Lloyd Wright may have had taker tendencies
all along, which were amplified as he gained power.
Early on, these leanings were visible in his
relationship with his son John, whom he refused to
pay a regular salary for his work. When John asked,
Wright presented him with a list of the total
amount of money that John had cost him over his
entire life. When John deducted a reasonable salary
from a commission, Wright fired him.
As Wright gained power, he had fewer reasons to
kiss up and more opportunities to kick down. He
began insisting that his apprentices list him as head
architect on all documents, regardless of his role. By
the time he reached the pinnacle of

9. the architectural ladder, he felt entitled to claim sole
credit for collaborative work. Sprague suggests that
Wright “wanted the world to believe that his first mature
style did not have its origins in Sullivan’s work.”
Perhaps gaining power doesn’t cause people to act like
takers. It simply creates the opportunity for people who
think like takers to express themselves.
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power,”
wrote Robert Green Ingersoll, reflecting on the legacy of
Abraham Lincoln. “Most people can bear adversity. But if
you wish to know what a man really is, give him power.”

10. For more on givers, takers, and power,
see Adam's new book Give and Take: A
Revolutionary Approach to Success.
Photo: Frank Lloyd Wright. Credit: Fred Stein Archive/Archive
Photos/Getty Images

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