Behaviors are driven by incentives. And we have to be honest about incentives. Some are emotional. Some are psychological. Some are driven by society. Some are driven by other people.

But all behaviors are driven by incentives. Either internal or external.

Remember, when you tax a behavior, you get less of that behavior. When you subsidize a behavior, you get more of it. When you give permission for a behavior, people will test whether or not your permission has boundaries. And when you say, either verbally or non-verbally, “Go this far and no further,” well, people will (usually) go that far. And no further.

The reason people in authority don’t care about alignment between incentives and behaviors of the people they rule over is multifaceted, but at the bottom of all those reasons is a basic one: They don’t understand the incentives that drive their own behaviors, desires, and appetites.

And when you don’t understand yourself, you rule over others foolishly, tyrannically, or lackadaisically.

We all have to get radically honest about the incentives that drive our behaviors, no matter how we feel about those incentives. And then we have to vigorously encourage our leaders–those “people in authority” I just mentioned–to express honestly the incentives driving their behaviors.