When there's a scarce resource people want, they'll fight over it, even if you don't see them fighting.

Imagine you are a very powerful person.

Everyone would love to get your attention and be in your good graces.

Most of that jockeying for position will be completely outside your view.

If you don't think about it much, you won't even realize it's happening.

Out of sight, out of mind.

In that position, even tiny tweaks in how you spend your time can have huge repercussions.

For example, maybe there is a person you used to work closely with.

But then they said something in a meeting that you didn't agree with.

The project ends, and you don't see that person very much anymore.

But the gossip spreads: "He iced out Sarah because she told him a thing he didn't like!"

To your perspective no such thing happened: you're simply busy and haven't had a need to talk to Sarah recently.

These are the kinds of weird eddy currents of power dynamics that are inescapable in large organizations, especially for very powerful people.

Everyone will be scrambling to give you precisely what you want.

In the limit, that includes telling you white lies to your face.

If you're powerful, you'll find the confirming evidence you're looking for… and if it doesn't exist, it will be created for you without you having to ask for it to be.

Everyone will be scrambling to curry good favor.

This dynamic scales with how scarce the resource is.

For an important person, the resource is your time, and how many other people are competing for it.