The Cost of Power

Lately I've been thinking about power. More to the point, I have been thinking about its use by leaders and the cost of their using it. For me this week has been a lesson in what happens when leaders sell themselves on the idea that they know best. This story hits close to home. In fact, it is about home.

I live in a neighborhood that is governed by a homeowners association. Mark Twain famously said, "When God decided to make fools, he first practiced by making boards of education." I do not believe it. He first practiced by making homeowner association boards.

Wherever I have lived that has been governed by a HOA, I have gotten myself elected to the board. In part, this has been a self-serving gesture, the result of which has been to protect me and my family from, well, fools. So it is right here, right now. I have proof.

There is an individual (let's call him Jack) who serves with me and three other people on a five-person board where we live in Midtown Raleigh. From his behavior, it would seem that Jack believes he has been elected to rule rather than serve.

Whatever the State of North Carolina has determined is within our jurisdiction, Jack argues that we unilaterally do it. A ten percent increase in homeowners fees, do it. A special assessment, do it. Borrow money, do it.

Jack reasons that by electing us, homeowners empowered the board to do that which is difficult and sometimes against any one homeowner's interest. According to Jack, we serve the greater common good by making decisions without input from homeowners.

Call me naive, but building a consensus, creating ownership, and developing community, although difficult, is exactly what elected officials should be about. Anything short of that is dictatorship, not leadership. The two are easily discriminated from each other. The former leaves in its wake anger and ignorance while the latter illuminates and instructs.

Can elected officials advance an agenda absent the instructive work of leadership? Of course they can. At the first opportunity, however, those whose interests were marginalized seek to right the scales of justice. So the pendulum swings from the dispossessed to the empowered and back again. The cost of power is awfully high.