@Fred_Snerd
It depends on the person.
Consider Jimmy Carter verses Donald Trump.
When you consider your position as an opportunity to provide service you're not as prone to this primarily male tendency.
Other people use privilege in pursuit of a "higher goal" a good example would be Wernher von Braun who ignored the suffering of Jewish slaves in pursuit of rocketry, but not to increase his personal power unless the power would help leverage society toward his objective.

@Fred_Snerd
As for Jesus, I always embraced the "humanistic" teachings his fiction attributes to him, which according to most conservatives, including the ones that claim to follow Jesus, makes us look weak.
Ironic isn't it?

@Fred_Snerd No. The research isn't flawed. I would say it's both. I just made my observation. I think some activists begin as ideologues and wind up as pragmatists. They get cynical and greedy and wind up corrupt. Start with good intentions but eventually succumb to the system. Some of them were phonies all along. They were always corrupt.