The night of my 21st birthday, so many years ago, I was with friends in the Big City near my college. One of us had borrowed a car to get the group into town. Around 1:30 am, as we were about to go home, it conked out. The handful of us were standing around, wondering what to do, in a daze, while our responsible friend handled the tow and whatnot. It was taking a long time, it seemed to me in my addled state.

I knew what was wrong. “Listen,” I announced emphatically. “The problem is I want to be home, and I am not home. Get me home.” I am told they obliged in some fashion. Eventually, I woke up the next morning in my own bed, with some calls of apology to make.

Reading the wiretap transcripts from dead-duck Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, I recalled that episode. You can see that same ego run riot in his rants about how “f-ing valuable” his ability to appoint a new U.S. senator was and how he wanted more than just “appreciation” in return for it.

I guess lots of us have a little tiny bit of that lurking within us.

Reading over those transcripts, I also realized that over the decades I had been hearing various versions of the same thing from many organizations I have worked with. They were rarely as brazen as Blagojevich has been, but were clear nonetheless. There was the boss who informed me that a particular top-level staffer was the boss’s “personal slave.” There was the boss who walked away from millions of dollars in needed investment over a perceived slight.

No, they weren’t all corrupt and venal. Just . . . driven.

What’s going on here?

I think in order to rise to the top, you’ve got to have a very healthy sense of self worth. It’s a prerequisite; otherwise you’d be happy with some other rank. Most of us are able to tamp down some of the uglier manifestations of this trait.

But sometimes we get into situations where those restraints are short circuited. (Recall my 21st birthday evening, when all restraint had floated away.) I believe that, as one rises and gains power, at some point it’s easy to lose one of the built-in restraints that most of us go through our daily lives with: the disapproval of others.

At some point, the power that people have accumulated forces those around them to, mostly, just tell them what they want to hear and enable them in their pursuits. This can happen in small organizations, large corporations, with celebrities, and in political offices. It does not happen on purpose – I think it is built into how people interact with those who hold power over them.

Regardless, the outcome is sad: When you stop worrying what those close to you will say, it’s a short hop from there to believing that just because I want something, it must be right.

Something to think about, as we climb various ladders of rank.

[UPDATED to fix some grammatical problems and for clarity.]