The Rightness Loop: Power-Induced Cognitive Bias and Its Consequences for Leadership Decision Quality — A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Background: Leaders operating under sustained positional power show measurable changes in cognitive processing, particularly in error detection, perspective-taking, and the capacity to incorporate disconfirming information. Although the neuropsychological and social-psychological effects of power on individual cognition have been extensively documented, the organizational mechanism through which these individual-level effects compound over time into a self-reinforcing decision-quality spiral has received limited theoretical attention. Objective: This paper introduces the Rightness Loop — a theoretical framework describing the mechanism through which accumulated positional power progressively impairs leadership judgment by reinforcing a cognitive tendency toward uncritical selfvalidation, referred to here as rightness bias. Methods: Conceptual synthesis drawing on neuropsychological research on power and behavioral inhibition, organizational behavior literature on sycophancy, upward voice suppression, and psychological safety, and social psychology research on overconfidence and self-serving attribution.