One afternoon, years ago, when I was going in to pick up my now college-bound daughter from daycare, the girls were seated at a dwarf-sized table. A leader in the group had already emerged sputtering out the rules to the game underway. I was fascinated that the quest for power showed up at such a young age.
But since then, I’ve noticed that as soon as a few folks cluster, a power player emerges from the shadows. Sometimes it is a most unlikely candidate. And it’s a good thing too as many of these jobs are not of the high-profile glamorous types.
When the PTA needs a notes taker-secretary for their meetings. The gala needs a group to go out and hit up the businesses for donations. The youth basketball association needs a tournament director. Lots of work, no pay. What you do get is to have the final say and a little bit of recognition for pulling it off.
Insecure power-seekers (PS) are not so nice. They are often self-appointed directors of social events who like to manipulate who can come and who gets left out. Often casual get-togethers serve the same function as rounds of golf for businessmen: it’s a time where some voice concerns or needs and others step in with solutions or resources.
Often PS’s are not the best at anything specific. They have instincts on how people congregate. They have skills in re-direction. The talented ones are really good at people. The untalented ones are annoying.
What I’m trying to get around to saying is that people who enjoy and work the power levers are at all levels of society. Any model built to represent the infrastructure of cooperative interactions must take this into account.
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