Power, as the capability to achieve an individual’s goals and influence others, has long been studied by scholars in various fields, yet there is a lack of understanding about the relationship between power and well-being. Mindset is the basic beliefs of an individual for constructing the reality and re-orienting their expectations and behaviors. There is also a lack of research on the mindsets of leaders to better understand the behavior of leaders. A leader’s belief, affection, and motive about power, offers interesting insights on what mindset about power is and its relationship to the well-being of powerholders. Extant research showed contradictory findings about how the belief about power of a powerholder correlates with their well-being. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, this empirical research found that business leaders from China’s high-tech industry believed that power is not just about control of resources, power is defined as a combination of positional authority, responsibility, and an integrative process. Business leaders believed that it is critical to keep the equilibrium among positional authority, responsibility, and reward from power. This research also found that the belief about power, no matter individualistic or relational, correlated with powerholders’ well-being, both positively and negatively. First, these beliefs served as a psychological state of power and directly correlated with factors of well-being, such as affection, relationship with others, accomplishment, stress, and physical health. Second, these beliefs also functioned as a lens interpreting the effects of power on powerholders’ well-being through re-orienting their ways of thinking and using power. There were cultural factors in the business leaders’ belief about power, such as the meaning of the word “Power” (权力) in Chinese, and “Lao Da” (老大), an iconic leadership figure in organizations). This research also found that female business leaders believed that their beliefs about power had no significant difference from their male counterparts, yet they were more considerate in using power than male leaders. Finally, this research found that business leaders believed that COVID-19 pandemic had little impact on their beliefs about power.
