Why Do The Worst People Keep Ending Up in Charge?
You’ve definitely seen it happen.
The promotion goes to the narcissist.
The mic is handed to the loudest guy with the firmest handshake and the vaguest values.
The one who never says, “I don’t know,” somehow becomes the CEO, senator, or life guru with a merch line.
And you, the thoughtful one…the one who actually reads the meeting agenda or worries about the consequences of your decisions…are left wondering:
“Why do bad people always seem to win?”
Let’s explore.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Confidence > Competence
Let’s start with the Dunning-Kruger effect, aka the “People who know the least often think they know the most” phenomenon.
Named after psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, this cognitive bias explains why people with lower ability at a task tend to overestimate their ability, while high performers underestimate themselves because they actually understand how complex things are.
Translation:
Clueless people rise faster because they think they’re ready.
Competent people hesitate because… they know better.
In a world that rewards confidence over reflection, guess who gets the job?
Power Corrupts, But Also… Attracts the Already Corruptible
Philosopher Bertrand Russell said it bluntly:
“The fundamental concept in social science is Power.”
And power, as we’ve learned, is a double-edged ego booster.
Research by Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley shows that power literally changes your brain. It dampens empathy, increases impulsivity, and lowers concern for social consequences. It’s like someone injected your prefrontal cortex with Red Bull and moral detachment.
People who are already low in empathy, high in manipulation (a.k.a. the Dark Triad traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), are drawn to power positions like flies to a garbage fire.
A 2010 study in Personality and Individual Differences found that leaders often score higher in narcissism and Machiavellianism than the general population.
Translation: power-hungry people are usually... already kind of the worst.
The Loud Get Rewarded
Democracy, capitalism, corporate structures, influencer culture—-they all tend to reward visibility, not virtue.
We like the charismatic one. The confident one. The one who makes big promises, even if they’re clearly lying (*cough cough…Donny J…).
Socrates saw this coming 2,400 years ago when he ranted about demagogues in The Republic. He warned that people would vote for whoever told them what they wanted to hear, even if that person had no wisdom—just swagger.
And spoiler alert:
He was so annoying about this point that they killed him.
The Problem with Being Good
Here’s the painful part.
Good people (the self-aware, empathetic, morally conflicted) often don’t seek power. They’re too busy weighing consequences, considering ethics, wondering if they’re qualified, or just trying to stay hydrated and emotionally available.
Philosopher Iris Murdoch wrote, “Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
Now imagine trying to climb the corporate ladder while deeply believing that. It’s hard to weaponize your empathy in a system that rewards detachment.
So... Are We Doomed to be Ruled by Douchebags?
Not necessarily.
Awareness is the first rebellion.
Studies show that organizations led by emotionally intelligent leaders have higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover, and better long-term outcomes (Harvard Business Review, 2018). The problem is, those leaders often don’t rise unless someone pulls them up. Because they’re not self-promoting in the same way.
We don’t need to wait for bad people to fail (although karma’s fun when it works). We need to actively support the good ones. Vote for them. Promote them. Share their work. Back them up in meetings. Tell them they are enough. Sometimes they just need a nudge, because their hesitation is integrity, not incompetence.
In Conclusion: Let’s Overthrow the A**hole Meritocracy
If it feels like the worst people keep winning, it’s because systems were built to reward bravado, not wisdom. But systems are built by people, and they can be torn down and rebuilt.
In the meantime, if you’re the kind of person who struggles with self-doubt, feels too much, and worries whether you're part of the problem…
Congrats.
You’re exactly the kind of person who should be in charge.
Just promise us this:
When you get there, stay weird, stay kind, and treat people like people.
Sources:
Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134.
Keltner, D. (2016). The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence. Penguin Press.
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563.
Socrates (via Plato). The Republic.
Goleman, D. (2018). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review.