Why high-ranking leaders should be psych tested | Brian Klaas

Why do the worst people rise to power? University College London professor Brian Klaas responds. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► Up next, Why psychopaths rise to power ► George Washington famously didn’t want to become the president of the United States, but he accepted the job and performed it well. That’s how people should feel about important leadership positions, according to how political scientist Brian Klaas thinks about the role of power in society. Klaas says that power should be a burden on people because leaders have to make decisions that will ultimately have negative consequences for many people. One problem: some humans don’t care about those consequences. And, according to Klaas, our institutions don’t do a very good job of screening these people out of important leadership spots. Klaas suggests implementing psychological screening for top jobs,