Summary: Sandberg cites an interesting recent experiment in psychology:

Researchers primed a group of test subjects by asking them to write down a memory where they held power over other people, while another group were asked to write about a time when others had power over them. Then the subjects were asked to quickly write the letter ‘E’ on their forehead.

High-power subjects were about three times as likely as low-power subjects to draw the letter oriented so it would be readable by themselves rather than readable by others.

From this result, Sanders draws the conclusion that exercising power impairs one's ability to empathize, and thinks through some of the implications of that conclusion.

The researchers suggest that power and perspective taking might not have to exclude each other and that responsible leadership might be possible by learning to take both into account. But they do not cite any actual experiments showing that it works.

Maybe we should just promote people with Asperger syndrome to management in favour of people with intact theory of mind. That way we will not reduce the total human ability to see things from other perspectives.