When I was made redundant from RBS Group, I was told I was “not alpha male enough.”
At the time, I dismissed it as just another piece of corporate jargon.
Looking back, it raises a much deeper question.
What exactly do organisations mean when they reward people for being more “alpha”?
Are they selecting for courage, resilience and leadership?
Or are they sometimes rewarding dominance, reduced empathy and an appetite for power?
More importantly:
Do organisations unintentionally promote people who are best at acquiring power, rather than those best at exercising it?
Leadership or Influence?
Every large organisation wants capable leaders.
Recruitment processes, assessment centres, psychometric testing and leadership programmes are all intended to identify people with the greatest potential.
In theory, these systems should improve decision-making and reduce the influence of personal bias.
But they also reveal something about what organisations value.
Confidence.
Decisiveness.
Competitiveness.
Assertiveness.
Executive presence.
Commercial drive.
None of these qualities is inherently undesirable. In the right balance they are essential.
The difficulty is that they can sometimes resemble the outward characteristics of far darker personality traits.
The ability to dominate is not the same as the ability to lead.
The ability to persuade is not the same as the ability to serve.
The ability to acquire power is not the same as the wisdom to exercise it.
A Question Worth Asking
Recently, former investment banker Geraint Anderson wrote a satirical piece entitled “You don’t have to be psychopathic to work in the City… but it helps.”
The article is clearly written with humour, but beneath the satire lies an important question.
Research into what psychologists call the Dark Triad—narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy—suggests that some of these traits can assist people in emerging as leaders, even though they do not necessarily make them effective or trustworthy leaders.
That distinction matters.
Confidence can attract followers.
Charm can build trust.
Fearlessness can appear decisive.
But none of these qualities guarantees integrity.
If organisations unintentionally reward impression management more than judgement, they may end up promoting people who are exceptionally good at winning influence rather than exercising responsibility.
Can Psychometrics Tell the Difference?
Modern organisations invest heavily in psychometric testing.
The intention is admirable.
Reduce bias.
Improve hiring.
Identify future leaders.
But this raises another question.
Are these assessments genuinely identifying integrity, empathy and judgement?
Or are they primarily measuring confidence, resilience and social dominance?
If the latter, organisations may inadvertently favour candidates who present themselves exceptionally well under assessment conditions, while overlooking qualities that only become visible over years of leadership.
The question is not whether psychometrics are useful.
They undoubtedly are.
The question is whether they are measuring the right things.
Power Should Never Be the Objective
The Academy of Life Planning exists for one simple reason.
To restore human agency.
That means helping people make informed decisions for themselves, rather than becoming overly dependent on institutions, algorithms or experts.
One reason this matters is that no recruitment system is perfect.
No regulator can eliminate poor leadership.
No assessment process can guarantee that every person placed in authority deserves our trust.
Institutions matter.
Good leadership matters.
But citizens also need the confidence and capability to think independently.
The stronger human agency becomes, the less vulnerable society is to poor leadership, manipulation or misplaced authority.
The Better Question
Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question all along.
Instead of asking:
“Who is most likely to become a leader?”
perhaps organisations should also ask:
“Who can be trusted with power?”
Those are not necessarily the same people.
And perhaps each of us should ask an equally important question.
How much of our own decision-making have we delegated simply because someone appeared more confident than we felt ourselves?
Restoring human agency is not about rejecting expertise.
It is about ensuring that expertise informs our decisions rather than replaces them.
Because in the age of AI, technical knowledge is becoming increasingly accessible.
Integrity, judgement and wisdom are becoming increasingly valuable.
Explore Navigator
Navigator helps you think more clearly, ask better questions and make informed decisions without surrendering decision authority.
Because the most important person in your financial life should never be the institution, the algorithm or the expert.
It should always remain you.
Discover Navigator and other free agency-restoring apps in the Academy OS.
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