With the recent unfolding of events in London, which saw YouGov founder and former Chancellor and Chairman of the Conservative Party (Nadhim Zahawi) sacked from his position as a Government minister, it felt only fitting to delve deeper into the role of leaders in today’s society and the sort of standards they are expected to live up to.

Zahawi’s company, YouGov, specialises in market research and opinion polling through online methods. The company’s methodology involves obtaining responses from an invited group of internet users, and then weighting the responses to conform with demographic information. This means that he was heading a business in control of surveying the country and often taking polls for the different political parties, with YouGov being a member of the British Polling Council. Zahawi was in a position of much power and a recent investigation, carried out by Sir Magnus Laurie, found that Mr Zahawi had failed to convey his recent tax discrepancies to the Government, therefore meaning he had breached the behaviour rules for Government ministers. In light of these recent events, it brings forward the question of whether our society can place any sort of faith in those in power? Or do we expect too much from our leaders?

So, what does it mean to be in power? Well, lots of burdens come with a position of power (not least stress) however, it can easily be argued that excuses cannot be made when trusted with such power and importance. To quote a fictitious role model, “with great power comes great responsibility.” And it must be stated, it is hard to find a quote more fitting to a position of power in today’s world. With this being said, it begs the question of why important people in power seem too often, to forget our expectation for our role models to take ownership, but why is that so?

Being in control and wielding a lot of power is often linked to greed and a thirst for control, but are these stereotypes too harsh? Unfortunately, in recent years those stereotypes seem to fit the mould of many in power and it has become increasingly more difficult for the people to place their trust in those who seek power. Ultimately, these sorts of debates on the topic of power and those in charge will always come down to one pivotal question… Who can you trust?