Here is one of leadership’s great ironies: the qualities that help you earn influence can be weakened by having it.
You rise because you can read the room, understand people, build trust, and inspire action. Then you gain authority. Fewer people disagree with you. Fewer people challenge you. Fewer people tell you the unvarnished truth.
Over time, it can become harder to see the world through anyone’s eyes but your own.
That does not mean every powerful person becomes uncaring. It does mean power can quietly change what leaders notice, whose perspective they consider, and how accurately they read the people around them.
Does power reduce empathy?
Research suggests that it can, at least in certain situations.
In one series of studies, people who felt more powerful were less likely to take another person’s visual or informational perspective. They also had more difficulty identifying other people’s emotional expressions. The researchers concluded that power was associated with a reduced tendency to understand how other people see, think, and feel.
Another study found that people induced to feel powerful showed lower levels of motor resonance while watching someone else act. Motor resonance is the activation of similar motor systems when we perform an action and when we observe another person performing it. It is one way researchers study the brain’s mirroring response.
A third study found that people with a greater sense of power reported less distress and compassion when listening to another person describe a painful experience.
These findings do not mean that leaders literally lose mirror neurons or suffer permanent neurological damage. Most of the experiments examined temporary experiences or perceptions of power. The more useful conclusion is simpler: power can make it easier to remain inside your own point of view.
Why leadership success can create a connection problem
Power changes the social environment around you.
As your authority grows, people have more reason to manage what they say. They may protect you from bad news, soften disagreement, or wait for your opinion before offering their own. Your calendar fills with people who want a decision, approval, access, or reassurance.
None of this requires bad intentions. It is a predictable consequence of hierarchy.
The danger is that a leader can become more confident at exactly the same time they are receiving less honest information. The room may feel increasingly aligned while becoming increasingly careful.
This is why empathy in leadership is not merely a personality trait. It is a discipline. Leaders have to create conditions that help them keep seeing and hearing other people accurately.
Insightful Vulnerability™ helps leaders reconnect
One practice I use with leaders is what I call Insightful Vulnerability™.
Think of a time when you:
- felt powerless;
- failed at something that mattered;
- felt foolish or deeply uncertain; or
- nearly gave up.
Then ask yourself:
What did that experience teach me, and who could benefit from the lesson?
When the story is relevant and genuinely processed, share the whole arc: what happened, what it felt like, what you learned, and how it changed the way you lead.
This is not vulnerability for attention. It is not a confession. And it is not asking your team to take care of you.
Vulnerability without insight can feel like unloading. Insight without vulnerability can land like a lecture. The combination creates a shared human experience.
It lets other people receive a hard-earned lesson without having to endure the same experience. It also reconnects you with the moments that shaped your own humanity.
Four practices that protect leaders from the isolation of power
1. Invite the disagreement before giving your opinion
If you speak first, people may unconsciously organize their thinking around your position. Ask what you may be missing. Invite the strongest case against the preferred plan. Let the room think before it learns what you think.
2. Reward the person who brings you difficult information
Your first response teaches people whether honesty is safe. If you punish discomfort, even subtly, the information around you will become cleaner and less useful. Thank people for the truth before deciding what to do with it.
3. Stay close to experiences where you are not the expert
Power narrows perspective when every room reinforces your competence. Put yourself in situations where you have to listen, learn, ask for help, and tolerate uncertainty. Humility is easier to practice when it is built into your environment.
4. Turn a hard experience into a useful leadership story
Choose one experience that changed you. Find the lesson inside it. Then shape the story so the gift belongs to the listener, not the storyteller. That is the difference between performing vulnerability and practicing Insightful Vulnerability.
A question for leaders with real authority
Power itself is not the enemy. Leadership requires the authority to decide, act, protect standards, and move people toward a meaningful result.
The question is whether your authority is helping you remain connected to reality or quietly insulating you from it.
What story from a time when you had less power might help you use the power you have now more wisely?
If you are leading at a level where people are becoming increasingly careful about what they say to you, an outside perspective can be especially valuable. Executive communication coaching can help you strengthen trust, clarity, and connection without asking you to become someone else.
Research referenced
- Galinsky et al., “Power and Perspectives Not Taken”, Psychological Science.
- Hogeveen, Inzlicht, and Obhi, “Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- van Kleef et al., “Power, Distress, and Compassion”, Psychological Science.
Frequently asked questions
Does power literally damage the brain?
The research cited here does not show permanent brain damage. It shows that feeling powerful can temporarily reduce perspective-taking, emotional accuracy, compassion, or motor resonance in certain experimental settings. “The brain damage of power” is a provocative metaphor, not a clinical diagnosis.
Why can power make leaders less empathetic?
Power can increase attention to a leader’s own goals and point of view while reducing the social need to attend closely to others. Hierarchy can amplify the effect because people may disagree less openly or filter what they share with a senior leader.
How can leaders protect their empathy?
Invite disagreement before stating your own position, reward candor, stay in situations where you must listen and learn, and use Insightful Vulnerability™ to reconnect with experiences that shaped your humanity.
