Why speaking truth to power is hard

An intriguing piece of research, this: When People Feel Powerful, They Ignore New Opinions, Study Finds which indicates that "The best way to get leaders to consider new ideas is to put them in a situation where they don’t feel as powerful, the research suggests. “If you temporarily make a powerful person feel less powerful, you have a better chance of getting them to pay attention,”"
I think that this probably indicates that if you want good thinking from leaders, they need to feel a little insecure, or you need self-aware leaders who actively put structures in place to offset this psychology of power. It does suggest that distributing power and accountability are important for the health of a society. And it's intriguing, therefore, to think about God's apparent preferred governance option in the Hebrew scriptures which seemed to be decentralised without a king...