Take your lead: The pleasures of power in universities and beyond

摘要

Ken Parry once asked me why I wanted to take the lead on a particular initiative. This paper summarises the answer I'd like to have given him. Taking the lead is pleasurable in three principle ways: it affirms or modifies self-concept, confirms a degree of control over the external world and promises self-transcendence through relationship with others. The paper proposes three categories: identity, influence and interaction, as the basis of an analytic framework for further research into the pleasures of power.