Despite evidence to the contrary, most of us persist in the delusion that smarts and hard work will eventually be rewarded because we buy in to what psychologists call the "just-world hypothesis" -- the belief, conscious or not, that life is fair.

There you are, working away at your job, turning in consistently great work. One of these days, the people above you are bound to notice your talent and dedication and promote you to the lofty position you deserve. Right?

Good luck with that.

As Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford's graduate business school, points out in his latest book Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't, decades of exhaustive research show little connection between performance and power.

That notion will hardly shock anyone who has ever watched a less-qualified colleague's career take off like a rocket. Yet most of us persist in the delusion that smarts and hard work will eventually be rewarded because we buy in to what psychologists call the "just-world hypothesis" -- the belief, conscious or not, that life is fair.

Instead, Pfeffer contends, peons who aspire to power have to step away from the grindstone and cultivate, or acquire, the traits shared by powerful people, including ambition, confidence, and persistence.

One crucial skill on the path to power is "the ability to tolerate conflict," Pfeffer adds, noting that most of us are so averse to confrontation that we back down rather than standing up for our views. The powerful, as you may have noticed, are far less shy.

They're also expert politicians. Like a modern Machiavelli, Pfeffer coolly examines "the strategy of flattery" as a way of gaining influence, especially with those more powerful, and tells why you should use it to make higher-ups "think well of you because you make them feel good about themselves."

None of Pfeffer's prescriptions is easy and, once you've fought and flattered your way to the top, staying there takes "long hours and lots of energy," he observes. In his chapter on how people lose power, he notes, "People get tired." As many an ousted CEO has learned the hard way, knowing when to let go and step down gracefully may be the trickiest power play of all.

Because of poor record keeping and a lack of regulatory oversight today, your vote, as a shareholder, may not be counted.

By Eleanor Bloxham, contributor

The alarm bells regarding the abusive back office processes of mortgage servicers were ringing back in 2007, but they mainly fell on deaf ears.

Legal scholar Katherine Porter's 2007 review of 1,700 cases in Misbehavior and Mistake in Bankruptcy Mortgage Claims concluded that "a majority of mortgage claims lack the required documentation necessary to establish a valid debt", fees are charged that "do not appear to be legally permissible", and that "the bankruptcy system routinely processes mortgage claims that cannot be validated and are not, in fact, lawful."

And state regulators sought federal regulatory assistance three years ago due to foreclosure issues they had uncovered at Bank of America (BAC) and JP Morgan (JPM). The regulators were ignored by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Despite the warnings, it was not until people losing their homes in record numbers began to speak out that the issues really came into the spotlight, forcing banks to seriously review and own up to issues with their internal processes.

Now, silently, there is another back office issue brewing that may soon come to a head, this time at brokerage houses. While not as devastating as losing a home, the issue goes to the very heart of capitalism -- losing your shareholder vote. Because of poor record keeping and a lack of regulatory oversight today, your vote, as a shareholder, may not be counted. More

When your computer system crashes or a virus hijacks the network, there's no easy alternative: you need to upgrade the whole system, maybe rewriting the code from the bottom up. That's where we are with management.

By Simon Caulkin, contributor

Most of the time, you take your office computers for granted. Okay, there's a niggle or two, but generally the IT folks can sort it out.

Occasionally, though, it gets serious. When the system crashes regularly or a virus hijacks the network, there's no easy alternative: you need to upgrade the whole system, maybe even rewrite the code from the bottom up.

That's where we are with management.

When Vince Cable, the UK's business secretary, suggested in September that capitalism wasn't -- ahem -- actually functioning too well, he was roundly booed by the press and business leaders who seemed to think his job was cheerleading rather than criticizing.

Yet for anyone not living on some other planet -- anyone, for instance, who has lost a home, a job or pension rights, or had their salary frozen in the last couple of the years -- Cable's remark was a statement of the blindingly obvious.

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Despite historical reservations toward Western business culture, there has been a surge in applications to U.S. business schools from China. And the influx has just begun.

By Greg Spielberg, contributor

(poetsandquants.com) -- When Scarlett Wu's mother taught her to use chopsticks, she always reminded her daughter to keep the three fingers low. In the central-Chinese village of Wuzhu, where Wu is from, everyone grips their chopsticks low.

The grip offers better leverage, but to Wu, it signified her mother's wish that she stay close to home.

None of the 2,000 residents have gone to China's big cities for college, and Wu's entire extended family lives locally, two hours from Shiyan, a city of 3 million with no airport.

Since starting business school at the University of Michigan, Lewis Yao, 27, has had to adapt to a more competitive classroom culture than the one he had known in China.

So it seems especially adventurous for Wu, now 27, to come to the U.S. to become an MBA student in, of all places, Bloomington, Indiana.

She's among a growing number of young Chinese with business ambitions coming to the U.S. to learn from some of the leading lights of capitalism. In the past five years, the number of Chinese taking the GMAT -- the requisite exam for entrance into a business school -- has tripled to 30,000 from 10,000 in the 2005-2006 school year. The number of U.S. schools receiving GMAT scores from Chinese test-takers has risen to 80,669 this year, from 25,525 in 2006.

The influx is only beginning. Chinese applications to New York University's Stern School for the class of 2012 increased by 30% from the previous year. Nearly 10% of next year's graduating MBA class at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business will be Chinese, a new record. And the number of Chinese students (14) in the class of 2012 at MIT's Sloan School of Management is twice as many as those in the previous year's class. More

Consultant Pontish Yeramyan on how you can make your workers more productive by opening up a little and letting them see the real you.

Interview by Beth Kowitt, writer-reporter

Creating connections with employees might sound a little too mushy for most bosses. But don't dismiss the idea just yet. Bonding with your workers doesn't just mean a healthier office environment, it also leads to better results, says Pontish Yeramyan, founder and CEO of management consultancy Gap International. "The more connected one is to people," she says, "the more willingly and rapidly they'll do things because of the relationship." Employees are more likely to take on risks and bigger challenges if they feel as if their boss knows and understands them. "Oftentimes people think they need to distance themselves because it's not good to be close and vulnerable," says Yeramyan. "Those days are gone." Here are her tips on creating what she calls "affinity" with employees. More

While the first 100 days of the newly minted dean augur well for Kellogg, there is still much work to be done at a school that has lost momentum, if not its edge, among the business school elite.

By John A. Byrne, contributor

During her first 100 days as dean of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, Sally Blount's calendar looked like the schedule of a politician in the heat of a race.

She met with alums and supporters in Boston, Minneapolis, Montreal, and Washington, D.C. She worked alumni gatherings at Chicago's Lyric Opera House and at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the Temple of Dandur was bathed in purple light (Kellogg's color). Blount held her own on a National Public Radio show on MBA education with fellow deans at Harvard and Berkeley.

And in this age of social media, the 48-year-old dean managed to knock out 18 posts on a blog that cataloged her first 100 days, complete with photos she took with her iPhone.

Blount shared such personal details as dropping her youngest son, Cameron, off to college for his freshman year and noting that her college-age daughter, Haley, had to be rushed to the operating room for an emergency appendectomy.

The goal: to introduce herself to Kellogg's key stakeholders and to build confidence and excitement about the school's future. More

If you want to be a boss, rather than painting you as someone who plays well with others, your references would help you more by saying that you excel at speaking assertively, influencing others, and initiating new projects.

Let's say you've asked a former colleague or boss you know is a fan of yours for a letter of recommendation. This person describes you with words like "kind," "helpful," "tactful," or "agreeable."

And let's further suppose that you're characterized as excellent at helping others, taking direction well, and maintaining relationships.

Sounds good, right?

Well, not necessarily. According to research from psychologists at Rice University in Houston, such "communal" language can scuttle your chances of getting hired for a management job. More

An estimated 20% of business school grads are not making payments on their student loans, according to government data. And biz school grads are the best among the lot. Are we fast becoming a nation of over-educated debtors?

By Anne VanderMey, reporter

For the average American, higher education in recent years has become increasingly unaffordable. Now, with the economy in the tank, student loan default rates on the rise and the cost of education still increasing, new government data show that the squeeze may have reached one of the last holdouts for well-heeled students -- business schools.

Recent government data on student loan repayment show that 20% of students from elite business schools are struggling to pay down their student debt. And that average is miles better than the typical business school's, raising questions about what that means for the rest of us.

Unsurprisingly, the government numbers, released by the Department of Education this summer, found that graduates of the oft demonized for-profit and career schools were saddled with debt and not making payments.

But the for-profit schools are not alone.

The report, which is preliminary, also features thousands of other schools with less-than-perfect track records. Like Harvard Business School.

According to the data, 88% of Harvard Business School students over the last four years have paid down at least one dollar on the principal of their federal student loans. The other 12% have taken advantage of debt repayment options like forbearance, income-based repayment or deferment. Some of the students among that 12% probably never graduated. And some likely defaulted. More

When Ashkon Jafari was in college (starting at age 16), "I had no one to turn to for advice and felt lost," he says.

Then he snagged an internship where he lucked into meeting a boss he now describes as "an outstanding mentor," who helped him choose the right courses and find his first real job.

The experience proved so valuable that it inspired StudentMentor.org, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit Jafari launched last month.

StudentMentor is the first national online mentoring matchmaking service designed to pair up college students who have questions with experienced businesspeople who have answers.

Prospective mentors and mentees can join for free on StudentMentor's web site and are matched according to their areas of common interest. Geography isn't a factor, as most mentoring sessions take place online or by phone. In its six weeks of existence so far, 296 mentors have signed on. More

Several MBA admissions consultants recently gained access to Wharton's updated interview questions, a stark reminder that the business schools admissions process is not a level playing field.

By John A. Byrne, contributor

Several prominent MBA admissions consultants, with access to inside information on the web, are coaching their clients for forthcoming applicant interviews with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, Poets&Quants has learned.

What makes the practice especially noteworthy is that this year Wharton has launched a new process that requires all applicants to answer three of six "behavioral" questions. Knowledge of the questions would allow applicants time to prepare thoughtful answers and score well. Applicants unaware of the new format and the questions would be facing this interview process totally unprepared.

The consultants have gained access to an audio slideshow presentation intended to train Wharton alumni who conduct the interviews. The slideshow includes all six questions, suggestions for follow-ups, as well as detailed guidelines for how to grade the applicants' answers. More