There has been no dearth of high-octane examples of the dark and insidious relationship between authority, power and corruption. For us business leaders, there is a deep need to better understand how power sometimes corrupts and how to avoid it. The proverb, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, is supposed to mean that whenever a person has power over other people or things, it makes him or her corrupt. The original statements go thus: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He was stated to have said in parliament that “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”, which is closest to the phrase, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
