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Five hundred years ago, writing in The Prince, Nicolo Machiavelli offered advice to leaders trying to grow their power. “It would serve [the Prince] to appear pious, faithful, humane, true, religious, and even to be so,” he wrote, “but only if he is willing, should it become necessary, to act in the opposite manner.”
In other words, don’t hold on tightly to your values, because no one else will either.
Centuries later, that passage still perfectly encapsulates a cynical world view. Cynics believe that human beings are fundamentally self-interested. This also means that interactions between people are at their core a ruthless, Darwinian struggle for survival, where the path to success requires stepping past, over, or on the people around you.
Many of us follow this bleak logic. More than half of parents believe that to succeed, their children should think of the world as harsh and dangerous. According to the legendary management professor Sumantra Goshal, MBA students are taught that “companies must compete not only with their competitors but also with their suppliers, employees, and regulators.” In Silicon Valley, where I work, brilliant but toxic leaders such as Steve Jobs are celebrated and — too often — emulated.
Following Machiavelli’s advice, cynics sacrifice relationships and principle to win. Instead, research demonstrates they lose. A wave of new behavioral science has found that, over the course of one’s career, cynical thinking stands in the way of success. Parents might think their kids will thrive if they see the world as competitive, but people with that mindset earn less money and report lower satisfaction at work.
Other research follows people over time, testing their cynicism at one point and following up years later to measure professional outcomes. The news here is clearer, and even worse for cynics. Over a decade-long span, their salary grows at barely a third the rate of non-cynics, and they are less likely to be elevated to leadership positions.
Why? Compared to their more trusting counterparts, cynics report a greater hunger for power and pursue it in different ways. Confident that others will take advantage of them if given the chance, they go on the offensive, manipulating others first. Machiavelli would be proud. He urges leaders to dominate others, preferring to be feared than loved. Researchdoes find that dominant actions, such as intimidating coworkers and kissing up to higher-ups, tend to build people’s power in the workplace. But so do communal actions, such as sharing generously with colleagues. Research on disagreeable people who share cynics’ competitive streak finds that they use only dominant strategies to get ahead. This leaves them isolated and eventually puts a ceiling on their success.
Put simply, cynics are playing the wrong game. Success is not a winner-take-all battle royale. People most often win by building trusting connections and alliances. And even if an individual manages to shove their way to the top, their team often pays the price. Psychologists recently analyzed levels of narcissism in NBA players’ tweets and found that teams with higher levels of narcissism won fewer games. Why? To compete at the highest level, teammates must first stop trying to outdo each other. If they hog the ball, narcissistic players cost their teams a cooperativeadvantage. As the NBA champion Bill Bradley put it, “the success of the group assures the success of the individual, but not the other way around.”
Cynicism can bleed workplaces of creativity, openness, and morale, and the bottom line. The good news is that cynicism is not a life sentence. Researchsuggests that barely a quarter of it is genetic, meaning that the social environment significantly shapes our willingness to give and earn trust. Through the right habits, cynics can build new mindsets and lean into connection.
As a research psychologist and author, I’ve studied the science of cynicism for years. I also work with organizations and leaders to help them fight cynicism and bring the cooperative advantage to their teams. Here are a few places to begin.
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