Why we give away our power to think and act for ourselves and how to take it back

One of the more unsettling questions we can ask about human behavior is also one of the most revealing: how is it that otherwise intelligent, capable people can find themselves, in certain circumstances, willfully surrendering their judgment to someone or something else entirely? Not out of weakness or ignorance, but as if the very faculties that normally serve them well have been quietly set aside. It is a question I have encountered not only in research, but in my own life — and one that deserves a honest answer. In this article, I want to explore what lies behind that surrender, and what it takes to reclaim the ground we have given away.

At eight years old, I travelled to Japan with my mother in the hope that a 'healer' might help treat a physical handicap resulting from my premature birth.

What led us there was my mother's unwavering determination to find a solution to my predicament, her willingness to pursue every possible path that might offer hope.

During our time there, I found myself exposed to situations that lingered with me, even if I could not fully explain them at the time.

What stayed with me most was the question they raised: how could seemingly rational adults surrender their judgment, and with it their agency, the ability to think and decide for themselves, to someone else so completely?

It is a question that has stayed with me ever since.

The people I encountered were not stupid or weak. They were often thoughtful, searching individuals looking for healing, meaning, or direction. Yet in moments of vulnerability, they placed their trust in someone else’s certainty, sometimes at the expense of their own judgment.

This phenomenon extends far beyond such settings. It plays out in boardrooms, in relationships, and in the everyday choices we make about how to live our lives.

Consider the case of Elizabeth Holmes and the blood testing company Theranos. Highly educated employees, engineers, and scientists who understood that the technology did not work continued to participate in what they knew to be misleading practices. Many deferred out of fear, loyalty, or belief in a compelling vision. Despite their knowledge, they set aside their own judgment.

Elizabeth Holmes, whose conviction is a reminder that that certainty projected by others is not the same as truth.

Similar dynamics can be observed in many organizations, where individuals recognize the right course of action but wait for direction from authority before acting. Over time, deference becomes habitual, and independent judgment weakens.

In retrospect, what I witnessed in Japan during the weeks we spent there, was not an isolated phenomenon. Social psychology suggests that the surrender of personal judgment can occur far more easily than we might like to believe.

One of the most striking demonstrations came from the work of Stanley Milgram. In experiments conducted at Yale University, participants were instructed to administer what they believed were increasingly painful electric shocks to another person when incorrect answers were given. As the situation escalated, many participants showed visible discomfort. Yet when prompted by an authority figure, most continued. Around sixty five percent administered the highest level of shocks. Milgram’s conclusion was unsettling. Under certain conditions, ordinary individuals may defer to authority even when doing so conflicts with their own moral judgment.

Nine in ten people would electrocute others if ordered, a rerun of Milgram's study demonstrates.

Psychologist Martin Seligman offers another lens through the concept of learned helplessness. When individuals repeatedly experience situations in which they feel unable to influence outcomes, they may gradually stop trying to act on their own behalf, even when opportunities to do so remain. Passivity can begin to feel safer than initiative and deferring to others more comfortable than thinking independently.

In a sense, what I witnessed during that time reflected this dynamic. When people are searching for solutions, they can become more receptive to certainty offered by others. The desire for clarity, combined with uncertainty and social influence, can make it difficult to trust one’s own judgment.

At the same time, there are powerful examples of individuals who maintain their agency under significant pressure. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov was aboard a submarine surrounded by United States naval forces. Ships were setting off underwater explosions nearby in an attempt to force the submarine to surface. Believing that war might already have begun, the submarine’s captain proposed launching a nuclear torpedo. This required the agreement of three officers. Two consented. Arkhipov refused. He insisted on surfacing instead. His decision is widely believed to have helped prevent a nuclear escalation.

His action illustrates something deceptively simple yet difficult: the ability to rely on one’s own judgment even when authority, fear, and circumstance push in another direction.

One way to safeguard this capacity is to actively engage with differing perspectives. The investor Ray Dalio has emphasized the importance of thoughtful disagreement, encouraging individuals to seek out opposing views and test their own reasoning. This practice helps prevent passive acceptance and strengthens independent thinking.

These dynamics are not limited to historical or organizational contexts. They are increasingly relevant in a world where technologies can generate answers, arguments, and recommendations on our behalf. Such tools can be valuable, but they also introduce a subtle risk: the temptation to defer our judgment to systems that appear confident and authoritative.

The challenge is not to reject guidance or technology, but to ensure that our own thinking remains engaged.

Reclaiming Agency

If surrendering our agency is a common human tendency, how can we protect against it?

One thing I have learned through my own experience of dependency is that surrendering agency does not simply diminish our capacity to decide for ourselves. It gradually reshapes how we see ourselves in relation to others. Those to whom we defer begin to appear inherently more capable, more certain, more equipped for life than we are. Authority, in this light, does not merely fill a vacuum. It distorts the mirror through which we see ourselves.

The effect is self-reinforcing. As trust in our own judgment erodes, we give away still more agency. And as we give away more agency, we become increasingly dependent on others not only for direction, but for the validation of our own worth. That worth, untethered from any internal anchor, becomes subject to constant fluctuation, hostage to the approval of whoever currently holds our confidence.

Recognizing this cycle is itself a form of reclaiming ground.

It begins, perhaps, with accepting something that is obvious and yet surprisingly difficult to internalize: that life is inherently uncertain, that no single person or perspective holds the answers to all the questions we will face, however convincingly some may pretend otherwise. Wrestling with that uncertainty ourselves is not a failure of judgment. It is what agency actually looks like in practice.

We do not reclaim it all at once. We reclaim it through intention, and through action, and through the willingness to begin.

Cultivating agency does not mean rejecting collaboration or advice. Human beings rely on one another for knowledge and support. But those relationships function best when individuals remain active participants in their own decision making.

One of the complexities of agency is that it is not the same as self-sufficiency. There are areas of life in which we genuinely need the help of others, not because we lack judgment, but because human beings are vulnerable, interdependent, and differently equipped.

This has been especially true in my own life. Born with a physical handicap, I have had to rely on the help and support of numerous people. First and foremost, parents whose love gave me the confidence and tools to believe in myself and ultimately become a productive member of society. And among (many) others, a first grade teacher who, despite initial difficulties, refused to take the easier path and lower her expectations of me, and in doing so, laid the groundwork that made mainstream education possible.

It took me time to understand that requiring someone’s help due to constraints beyond our control is not a sign of ineptitude or lack of agency. In fact it is quite the opposite. True agency, and true leadership, also means recognizing when we need a helping hand.

That, perhaps, is the distinction that matters most: there is a difference between support that strengthens agency and influence that supplants it. The best forms of care do not ask us to disappear into dependence. They help us become more fully present to our own lives.

Certainty can be appealing because it reduces the burden of thinking. But meaningful engagement with life requires something more demanding, the willingness to reflect, question, and decide for ourselves.

Maintaining that balance is not always easy. It involves uncertainty and the possibility of error. Yet it is also what allows us to live in a way that is aligned with our own judgment.

Agency is not something we possess once and for all. It is something we continue to exercise, moment by moment, through the choices we make.