In an August 25, 2008 Business Week article, Robert Sutton, professor of management at Stanford and author of The No Asshole Rule, cites the scientifically proven phenomenon that leaders are prone to becoming jerks. Specifically, three things happen when people are put into positions of power: (1) they focus more on satisfying their own needs; (2) they focus less on the needs of underlings; and (3) they act like the rules others are expected to follow don’t apply to them. How do you protect against this? Make sure you have a network of mentors or advisors who will tell you the unvarnished truth about yourself. It helps to have a couple teenage kids, also!

In an August 25, 2008 Business Week article, Robert Sutton, professor of management at Stanford and author of The No Asshole Rule, cites a scientifically proven phenomenon called “emotional contagion.” Basically, most people, regardless of their personality traits, will automatically and mindlessly start feeling and displaying the emotions expressed by the people around them. Combined with explicit peer pressure to “be like us,” this phenomenon transforms newcomers to a group into clones who think and act much like the people they work with. The good side: a really healthy corporate culture tends to change those who aren’t necessarily all that emotionally healthy into acting as if they were, thus preserving the culture. The bad side: an unhealthy culture will suck healthy newcomers into the abyss, making them feel and behave as badly as those they’ve joined. The lesson: if you have a healthy culture, protect it mightily but rest assured that it has a nice immune system built into it. Another lesson: if you have an unhealthy culture, plan on gutting it, really cleaning house, to start to effect positive change. Another lesson, if you are more on the participant, as opposed to the leadership, level: if you find yourself in an unhealthy culture, get out. The statistics say you won’t be able to change it and it will likely change you for the worse.