Why the Most Foolish People End Up in Power – Machiavelli Knew This

Have you ever looked at someone in a position of power and thought, "How on earth did they get there? " We've all witnessed it. People who seem thoroughly incompetent rising to positions of authority while more capable individuals remain stuck in the shadows.

Think of history's Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned. or more recently, corporate leaders like Elizabeth Holmes building a multibillion dollar company on technology that never worked. It's a pattern so common it feels almost deliberate.

But what if it is? What if there's a twisted logic behind why the least qualified often end up with the most influence? Today we're diving into one of history's most misunderstood political philosophers, Nicolo Makaveli, and his brutal insights into why stupidity and power so often go hand in hand.

But this isn't just ancient philosophy. It's a psychological phenomenon that shapes our world today. From corporate boardrooms to political offices, the uncomfortable truth, sometimes being smart is exactly what keeps you from gaining power.

And understanding this paradox might be the key to recognizing the manipulative forces operating in our society or even helping you navigate your own path to influence. In the 16th century, Florence, exiled from the political life he loved, Nicolo Makaveli penned what would become one of the most controversial political treatises in history, the prince. Unlike the idealistic political philosophers before him, Mchaveli wasn't concerned with how rulers should behave in a perfect world.

He focused on how power actually worked in the real one. Everyone sees what you appear to be. Few experience what you really are.

This statement cuts to the heart of Mchaveli's thinking. He understood that perception often matters more than reality when it comes to acquiring and maintaining power. And here in lies the first clue to our paradox.

Appearing competent is often more important than actually being competent. Mchaveli observed that rulers who display too much intelligence often create problems for themselves. Why?

Because intelligence usually comes with certain traits that can be liabilities in power struggles. Traits like nuanced thinking, ethical considerations, and self-awareness. Consider what happens when a genuinely intelligent person enters a power structure.

They tend to see complexity where others see simplicity. They acknowledge limitations where others make sweeping promises. They question themselves where others project absolute confidence.

In settings where bold assertion trumps thoughtful deliberation, these intellectual traits become handicaps. Look at the contrast between someone like Socrates who questioned everything and was ultimately sentenced to death by the Athenian democracy versus populist leaders throughout history who rose to power by offering simple absolute certainties. Socrates's famous I know that I know nothing wisdom made him a philosophical giant but a political failure.

Meanwhile, countless leaders have risen by claiming they alone have all the answers. A controversial 2017 study from the Journal of Management suggested something that might make you uncomfortable. Intelligence correlates positively with leadership effectiveness only up to an IQ of about 120.

Beyond that point, additional intelligence actually becomes a hindrance to leadership emergence. The researchers suggested that exceptionally intelligent people struggle to connect with and influence others who can't follow their complex thinking patterns. Think about that.

Being too smart might actually prevent you from gaining leadership positions in the first place. Whether or not you buy into that study, it challenges us to rethink what kind of intelligence actually helps someone gain power. But raw intelligence isn't the only factor at play.

If intelligence can sometimes be a liability in power games, what qualities actually help people climb the ladder? This brings us to a psychological principle that explains why we so often follow the wrong people. Have you ever noticed how the loudest voice in the room often becomes the most influential regardless of what that voice is actually saying?

This phenomenon has deep roots in our psychological makeup. In the 1990s, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Krueger identified what we now know as the Dunning Krueger effect. The cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge dramatically overestimate their competence while genuine experts tend to underestimate theirs, aware of how much they don't know.

The fool does think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. Shakespeare captured this principle centuries before psychology gave it a name. But Mchaveli would have recognized it immediately as a fundamental truth about power dynamics.

Modern research confirms this bias operates in leadership contexts. A 2020 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals who displayed overconfidence were more likely to be perceived as leaders by their peers regardless of their actual competence. The appearance of certainty was more persuasive than demonstrated expertise.

Consider figures like George Armstrong Kuster, whose supreme confidence led to catastrophic military decisions, yet earned him rapid promotions and devoted followers. Or look at the tech industry, where founders who speak in absolute visionary terms often secure massive funding over more measured, experienced entrepreneurs. We works Adam Diamond exemplified this.

Despite a shaky business model, his unshakable confidence helped him attract billions in investment and a cult-like following. This pattern repeats globally. Japan's Masayoshi son of Softbank lost $70 billion on failed investments while maintaining investor confidence through sheer force of personality.

Russia's oligarchs rose not through competence but through connections and confidence during the postsviet privatization. Singapore, by contrast, built safeguards specifically designed to prevent confidence from trumping competence in leadership selection. In 2012, researchers from Stanford and the University of Houston found that narcissism, not competence, may be the strongest predictor of who emerges as a leader in unstructured groups.

The groups led by narcissists didn't perform better. They just thought they did. Why does this happen?

Our brains use mental shortcuts when evaluating others. Confidence signals competence. Decisiveness suggests clarity of thought.

These shortcuts served our ancestors well in straightforward environments, but become problematic in our complex modern world where genuine expertise often involves acknowledging uncertainty. This confidence illusion explains how incompetent individuals might initially rise to power. But there's something even more insidious at play.

A mechanism that helps them entrench their position throughout entire organizations. Mchaveli observed something crucial about power structures. Incompetent leaders tend to surround themselves with even less competent subordinates.

In the prince, Mchaveli wrote, "The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. " What Mchaveli understood was that weak leaders deliberately select weaker subordinates to ensure they never face threats to their authority. This creates a cascading effect where incompetence becomes institutionalized.

Dr Totoma Kamuro Premuseic an organizational psychologist describes this as competence threatening. Insecure leaders feel threatened by competent team members who might expose their limitations or eventually replace them. Instead of selecting for talent, they select for loyalty and non-threatening personalities.

Think of it as a competence drought that spreads outward from central leadership. In Emperor Comeodus' court, capable administrators were systematically replaced by flatterers and entertainers, accelerating Rome's decline. In contemporary Brazil, the Centrome political system institutionalizes this dynamic where incompetent political appointees secure positions through personal connections rather than merit.

African nations like Zimbabwe under later Mugab saw systematic replacement of capable administrators with partisan loyalists. Devastating economic consequences following. This creates what organizational scientists call homopy, the tendency of individuals to associate with similar others.

In power structures, this means incompetent leaders create islands of incompetence around themselves, insulated from conflicting viewpoints and constructive criticism. Ask yourself, have you ever worked in an organization where asking questions was discouraged? Where raising concerns was labeled as not being a team player?

These are symptoms of this network effect in action. Yet, even knowing all this, we still find ourselves drawn to leaders who offer simplistic answers. This vulnerability helps explain why incompetence continues to thrive despite our best intentions.

Why do we often choose leaders who offer simple answers to complex problems? The answer lies in cognitive psychology and our fundamental need for certainty in an uncertain world. Genuine expertise is almost always accompanied by nuance.

Real experts understand the limitations of their knowledge. They recognize complexity. They acknowledge tradeoffs.

But these intellectual virtues can be profoundly unsatisfying to our psychological needs. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are. When Makaveli wrote these words, he identified something fundamental about human psychology.

We crave certainty even when certainty isn't possible or realistic. Consider what happens in times of crisis or uncertainty. People rarely rally behind the leader who says this is a complex situation with no easy answers that will require careful thought and inevitable trade-offs.

Instead, they follow the person confidently proclaiming, "I alone can fix this. " The solution is simple. Look at how actual environmental scientists speak about climate change with careful caveats, ranges of possibilities, and nuanced policy recommendations versus how popular figures on both sides frame the issue with absolute certainty.

The scientific approach, while intellectually honest, struggles to compete with the psychological comfort of simple narratives or consider healthcare debates. Actual medical experts acknowledge complex trade-offs in any system, while political figures offer simplistic solutions that promise everything with no downsides. Which approach typically wins public support?

The simple certain one, regardless of feasibility. In a particularly jarring 2017 experiment, Yale researchers discovered something disturbing about how we process political information. When subjects were presented with mathematically complex policy problems and solutions, their ability to correctly interpret the data was directly affected by whether the results aligned with their political beliefs.

Even more striking, the most mathematically skilled participants showed the strongest bias, using their intelligence not to reach the correct answer, but to justify their preferred conclusion. Cognitive psychologists call this cognitive closure. Our desire for definite answers rather than continued ambiguity.

Studies show that when people feel threatened or uncertain, their need for cognitive closure increases dramatically. They become more receptive to black and white thinking and more willing to follow authoritarian leaders who project absolute certainty. This creates a dangerous dynamic.

The more complex and frightening our world becomes, the more susceptible we become to simplistic thinking and the leaders who pedal it. It's like a psychological immune system failure. Precisely when we most need nuanced thinking, we become most vulnerable to intellectual shortcuts.

Ask yourself, have you ever found yourself drawn to an explanation precisely because it was simple and definitive, even when part of you suspected the reality was more complex? That's this principle at work in your own mind. While our psychological comfort with simplicity explains part of this dynamic, there's an even more troubling dimension to consider.

One that reveals why intelligence alone doesn't guarantee effective resistance to manipulative power. Here's where Mchaveli becomes truly unsettling. He suggested that moral considerations often handicap intelligent people in power struggles.

In what might be his most infamous passage, he wrote, "It is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity. While intelligent people typically develop more complex moral reasoning, this can actually impede their ability to compete for power against those unbburdened by such considerations. In any competitive environment, the person willing to cross ethical lines has access to strategies that morally constrained competitors do not.

They can make promises they have no intention of keeping. They can undermine rivals through deception. They can exploit fears and prejudices that others refuse to touch.

Consider the contrasting fates of Cicero versus Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. Cicero, brilliant and principled, ultimately lost the power struggle to Caesar, who had no qualms about crossing the Rubicon, literally and figuratively, breaking norms his opponents felt bound to respect. In modern contexts, we see ethical candidates struggling against opponents willing to employ deception and character assassination.

In organizational contexts, University of British Columbia researchers found that psychopathic traits like lack of empathy were positively associated with rapid advancement when combined with social charm. This pattern appears cross-culturally from China's shenu ruthless businesswoman archetype to Nordic companies where studies show that despite cultural emphasis on collaboration, manipulative leaders often outpace their more ethical peers in advancement speed. This creates what game theorists call a race to the bottom.

When unethical tactics prove successful, others face pressure to adopt similar approaches or be left behind. Over time, this can transform entire systems, making unethical behavior the norm rather than the exception. Understanding these dark dynamics might make the situation seem hopeless.

But not all environments equally reward incompetence and unethical behavior. By recognizing which conditions favor stupidity and power, we can begin to design systems that select for genuine merit instead. Mchaveli understood that different environments reward different qualities.

Some contexts naturally select for competence while others create fertile ground for incompetence to flourish. What determines which type of environment develops? Several structural factors.

First, feedback loops and accountability structures. In environments with clear, immediate feedback about decisions, incompetence is quickly exposed. Think of a surgeon whose patients consistently die or a bridge engineer whose structures collapse.

These fields tend to select for genuine competence because failure is obvious and consequential. But in environments where feedback is delayed, indirect, or easily manipulated, incompetence can thrive indefinitely. political systems where outcomes can be blamed on predecessors or external factors.

Corporate hierarchies where results can be obscured through creative accounting or media landscapes where being entertaining matters more than being accurate. These are all fertile grounds for the incompetent to rise. Second, institutional design and power distribution.

Centralized power systems with weak checks and balances create conditions where incompetence flourishes. The Soviet Union's collapse was accelerated by a system that concentrated decision-making and unaccountable hands. Conversely, Germany's dual board corporate governance structure which separates management from oversight provides structural resistance to incompetent leadership.

Third, information asymmetry and complexity. When success is easily measured and compared, merit tends to win. But when goals are ambiguous or success is subjectively evaluated, style often trumps substance.

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. What Mchaveli recognized here is that most people evaluate others based on surface impressions rather than deep understanding, especially in complex domains where few have the expertise to make informed judgments. Fourth, economic incentive structures.

Systems that reward short-term performance over long-term outcomes create fertile ground for incompetent leadership with superficial charm. The 2008 financial crisis exemplified how incentive structures rewarding immediate profits regardless of risk fostered leadership that prioritized appearance over substance. Ask yourself in your own life which environmental factors promote competence and which enable incompetence to thrive.

Understanding these structural forces can help you navigate your own path and recognize when systems are vulnerable to manipulation. Even in well-designed systems, incompetent leaders can still rise by employing specific psychological tactics that allow them to manipulate perception and neutralize opposition. Incompetent leaders don't maintain power by accident.

They deploy specific psychological tactics to solidify their position. Tactics Mchavelli would have recognized immediately. First, they exploit tribalism and identity politics by creating clear in-groups and outgroups.

They transform substantive criticism into perceived attacks from enemies. This shields them from accountability while strengthening their supporters emotional investment. Psychologists call this identity fusion.

When a leader successfully links their personal identity to followers group identity, once this fusion occurs, challenging the leader feels like an attack on the group itself and by extension on followers own identities. Consider how cult leaders like Jim Jones or authoritarian figures throughout history cultivated us versus them mentalities. In Malaysia, former Prime Minister Najib Razak exploited ethnic divisions to maintain power despite corruption scandals.

Brazil's polarization under Bolsinaro demonstrated how tribal identity can override factual reality. Second, they leverage cognitive load and information overwhelm by constantly generating chaos, crises, and controversies. Incompetent leaders overwhelm our cognitive resources.

When we're busy processing an endless stream of outrages, we have little mental energy left for critical analysis or organized resistance. Third, they employ what George Orwell called double think, the ability to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously. By constantly shifting positions and rewriting history, they create an environment where truth feels subjective and accountability becomes impossible.

The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar. When Mchaveli wrote these words, he wasn't displaying contempt for ordinary people. He was acknowledging a psychological vulnerability we all share.

Our cognitive architecture evolved for a simpler world, making us susceptible to manipulation in complex information environments. Fourth, they exploit economic procarity and systemic vulnerabilities. When people are struggling economically or feel insecure about their future, they become more susceptible to leaders who promise simple solutions to complex structural problems.

In post-industrial regions worldwide, economic anxiety creates fertile ground for incompetent leadership that offers easy scapegoats rather than honest analysis. Consider your own media consumption. How often do you find yourself chasing the latest outrage rather than focusing on deeper, more consequential issues?

That's this principle at work. Recognizing these dark patterns is essential, but not enough. We need concrete strategies to protect ourselves and our communities from their influence.

At the individual level, awareness is our first line of defense. By understanding the hidden forces that shape thought, we become less susceptible to them. This defense rests on three essential practices.

First, we must cultivate intellectual humility, the ability to recognize the limits of what we know. Research shows that intellectually humble people are better at evaluating ideas based on evidence, not confidence. Intellectual humility functions like a cognitive immune system.

It helps us resist manipulation and false certainty just as our physical immune system protects us from infection. Second, we need to develop media literacy, the skill of discerning depth from spectacle. This means deliberately choosing information sources, questioning presentation, and filtering for quality over quantity.

Warren Buffett once said, "Really successful people say no to almost everything. Apply that to information. Wise thinkers reject most noise and focus on clarity and insight.

Third, we should embrace philosophical reflection, the practice of stepping back from the daily storm to examine deeper principles. " Ancient Stoics recommended daily reflection to guard against emotional reactivity. In Bacon's words, the wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Reflection empowers us to become active agents in shaping our mental environment, not just passive consumers of it. At the collective level, institutional design is critical. Systems can be structured to reduce bias, deception, and incompetence.

Here too, three pillars emerge. First, we need robust accountability mechanisms, structures that deliver honest feedback regardless of a leader's charm or persuasive power. Contrast a company with an independent board to one where the board rubber stamps executive decisions.

The Boeing 737 Max crisis revealed what happens when engineers concerns are ignored in favor of profits. Accountability was absent and tragedy followed. Second, institutions must foster cognitive diversity, the inclusion of differing perspectives in decision-m.

Diverse teams aren't just socially desirable. They're empirically more accurate. They challenge assumptions and reduce blind spots that homogeneous groups tend to miss.

Third, we must enforce transparency, rules that prevent complexity from becoming a shield for incompetence. Sunshine laws in government or conflict of interest disclosures in medicine make it harder to hide behind jargon or secrecy. Education ties these threads together.

It's not enough to teach technical skills. We must prioritize critical thinking and ethical reasoning. Athens created the academy.

Florence nurtured the humanists. Great civilizations don't just teach, they cultivate wisdom. So ask yourself in your community, which of these protections are present, which are absent?

And if we redesigned our systems around competence, humility, and truth, what kind of world might we create? As we reach the end of this exploration, we return to the man who inspired it. What would Mchaveli say about our modern predicament?

Mchavelli has been misunderstood for centuries. He wasn't advocating for the dark patterns he described. He was exposing them.

By understanding how power actually works rather than how we wish it worked, he believed we could create better systems of governance. It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles. This profound observation reminds us that authority itself deserves no inherent respect.

Power must be earned through worthy use regardless of who holds it. The intersection of Mchavelian political philosophy and modern psychology reveals uncomfortable truths about human nature and social systems. But uncomfortable truths are precisely what we need if we hope to create better futures.

The path forward isn't pretending these dynamics don't exist. It's understanding them deeply enough to transcend them. It's designing systems that account for human vulnerabilities rather than exploiting them.

It's developing personal practices that strengthen our resistance to manipulation. Most importantly, it's recognizing that while stupidity may sometimes gain power, intelligence, coupled with moral courage remains our best hope for creating societies where merit truly matters. What dynamics have you noticed in your own communities?

Have you seen instances where these patterns played out? Share your thoughts in the comments below. And if you found this exploration valuable, consider subscribing and sharing with others who might benefit from these insights.

Until next time, remember, understanding the darkness doesn't mean surrendering to it. It means gaining the power to create light.