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4.2 | Notice your source of power as agency or “power with” not “power over.” Does this affect the relational field? What have you noticed about the ecology of your personal power, your sharing of power, and when you empower others? Post insights.
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In the classroom, I am intentional about “power with” rather than over. Students are used to the traditional power dynamic with teachers based on grading and classroom rules and this can be uncomfortable for them. It takes time to earn their trust that I’m open to their experience and believe in their inherent self worth rather than assign a grade. I plan on introducing this concept in faculty development classes.
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As a member of our institution’s leadership team I try to use my role to uplift others by using intuition and thoughtful awareness to know when to step back and allow space for other voices and to ask questions that help to reveal ideas more clearly. I work best when there’s an exchange of ideas and perspectives shared from all angles and all levels. Consensus is not always a good thing, rather it’s most important to determine a way forward that considers a multiplicity of voices. I want to build confidence within my team members to speak out, question, and take risks while also building trust. While the majority of my role models have not always been exemplary in these areas within my career, I have learned to find and hone skills in my own way by looking outward to organizational leaders across industries, reading the work of organizational psychologists, and trainings such as this workshop. I understand that hierarchies exist, but I prefer to use my role to empower and build relationships.
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Power with means support, collaboration and even joy to me. In my experience, people working together in a trusted environment ultimately feel more connected and come up with better ideas as a result. Power with feels good inside. Power over doesn’t.
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As a person who holds positional power in my organization, I have become more aware of the distinctions between what this power means in terms of my relationships at work– I see it now as responsibility to be in listening mode and broader awareness of what others are and are not saying. I have also learned to differentiate between “being in a position of power” and “working from a place of power.” 2 distinct things.
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I think I’m must successful when I pause- when I’ve meditated and can calmly greet a situation. That’s when I have power with. When I feel threatened or called out, I revert to power over and I need to take the time to count to 5 and greet the experience with mindful behavior.
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I have experienced “power over” professionally and personally and do not like it! I think as women we are conditioned more towards power with instead of power over so that is a more natural fit for me. In doing the personal power survey, most areas resonated with me but the areas that I felt disconnected to were about reputation and status- I really don’t know how people I work with view me although I have some guesses which could be totally wrong. I also think in many cases I have more power than I realize. I work in a strange power dynamic where I have power internally at work but not externally at work (when meeting with donors) so I think that really keeps me grounded.
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I am in a role as a leader and as a professional given societal power, and I have for years tried to use mindful non-specialized language, so everyone in my team can share and think together as equals, to have “power with.”
I noticed and became aware of the team dynamic when two leaders and professionals seemed to equate team collaborations as “power over,” and the newer team members would shut down and talk less and less in these meetings.
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I’ve always believed myself to be more a “power with” person, but it is interesting as I step into roles of greater responsibility to recognize the temptations of “power over” – in the name of efficiency, consistency, getting it “done right.” Working to recognize these shadow places and see how they impact team dynamics and morale.
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As an intuitive introvert, I am predisposed to see human beings as intrinsically stupid (not intellectually) in terms of the systems, structures, hierarchies and other mechanisms we put in place to segment, separate and assert power over each other. Chimpanzees—a close genetic cousin—have been observed to be extremely hierarchical and so this tendency likely stems from ancient parts of the human brain. However, a look at human history reveals this to be a recent norm. For the majority of our time on earth, evidence reflects that humans tended to display more egalitarian behaviors in hunter-gatherer organizational structures. Modern life is debased and fraught with ‘power over’ structures. I invested more than 15 years of my professional life in consumer technology and enterprise software companies, which outwardly pronounce upon the virtue of a libertarian, diffuse ‘power with’ structures but in actuality far more often operate on a dehumanizing and sometimes violent power over model. I’ve been fortunate enough to evade these organizational structures and create a niche that allows me to reinforce the idea of agency both within myself and within the clients we serve.
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I’m not a very “power over” kind of person. I prefer to help motivate people from within, empowering them to feel the confidence or drive to do something based on their own intrinsic motivation. I find when I do this, especially through sharing power, my colleagues themselves feel so much more agency and ownership over their work, which almost always leads to better outcomes.
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