Institutions have a will, independent of the people who run them. Individuals involved in the leadership of an institution can be more or less attuned to the will of the institution, can resist or comply with the will of the institution.

The degree of individual compliance or complicity to the will of the institution is not indicative of the success or failure of leaders within an institution, but it does correlate to the success of lower-status individuals within the institution's power. When

When I say that institutions have will this is a metaphor. Institutions have will in the same sense that viruses do: that is, unconscious and unreasoning but nevertheless active, basically predictable, and suggestive of choice.

The will of the institution is to perpetuate the institution and to increase its efficiency. But the will of the institution is indifferent to the goals or mission statements of the individuals who found or lead the institution.

That is why we see so many institutions that, over time, clearly act in opposition to their stated goals or mission statement.

That is why so many universities have mission statements that emphasize things like the transformative power of education but policies that over time tend to calcify the status quo. That is why democratic nations can be anti-democratic at their core.

The mission of the institution is irrelevant to the will of the institution.

The will of the institution is expressed in the old joke "school would be wonderful if it weren't for all the students"

The will of the institution is to expand and to run efficiently. But adding administrative apparatus does not impede the efficiency of the institution because "efficiency" does not mean achieving its mission, it means functioning without crises, interference, or interruption.

The will of the institution is the death of its people, because people interfere with the administration of the institution.

Usually this manifests as a metaphorical death--that is a dehumanizing erasure of difference, choice, specificity, emotion, even reason.

But when it becomes possible, the will of the institution is the literal and physical death of the people involved in it.