In an environment without accountability, higher pay is just more incentive to lay low and not take any personal risk. Why do anything other than the bare minimum when there is no upside? In a bureaucracy where responsibility is diffused and the culture is purely political and not merit/performance-based, few are willing to step out of line to do the right thing.
The people who climb to the top aren’t the ones who took a risk and got the reward. Quite the opposite, they’re the ones who learned to play the game and didn’t upset the power structure by rocking the boat. No one is going to tell the emperor he has no clothes when the path to power is political and has no grounding in reality.
Highly conscientious, intrinsically motivated people will do the right thing in any environment. And those people don’t last long in political/bureaucratic environments where the incentives are misaligned.
The people who climb to the top aren’t the ones who took a risk and got the reward. Quite the opposite, they’re the ones who learned to play the game and didn’t upset the power structure by rocking the boat. No one is going to tell the emperor he has no clothes when the path to power is political and has no grounding in reality.
Highly conscientious, intrinsically motivated people will do the right thing in any environment. And those people don’t last long in political/bureaucratic environments where the incentives are misaligned.