Here are some things I wish I’d known at the time:
- Power bends taste. … [because] Power defines what’s normal …
- Power bends accountability. … I started to notice that the thing most strongly correlated to their treatment was their power on the team …
- Power bends meaning. … it can change the meaning of everything you do and say. …
Once I started watching for how newly-acquired power distorts the meanings of everything, I started seeing examples everywhere … To help organize my thoughts, I started abbreviating this phenomenon with a phrase: power bends light.
… the person I continue to need it most for is myself. You often gain power from doing a good job, but power also makes you feel like you are doing a good job — and it makes people around you less likely to tell you differently. … I try to remember to ask myself, what’s my relationship to this person? Do I have power over them somehow? Is power bending light?