You have more power than you think.
I don’t claim to have any rights to Spiderman, other than a right to think he is awesome! (So please don’t sue me Marvel/Disney.)
Ah, Spiderman …
When I was a kid, I loved comic books. Yet, I didn’t love Spiderman. He was cool and all - but who wants to read about a superhero with real world problems?
Well, once I became an adult, I learned to appreciate - even identify with - Peter Parker’s many dilemmas. (And although I’ve never battled Mole-man, I have fought with moles burrowing through my yard.)
Spidey is best known for this wonderful quote and observation on the nature of power in a moral universe:
Many of us go into leadership because we have a sense of responsibility to our organizations, our communities, even our world, to make things better. So we gain power in order to make good things happen.
But what about those situations where we feel responsible, yet we don’t seem to have any power?
Sometimes clients say they feel powerless to deal with difficult co-workers, bosses who’ve strayed from the true purpose of the organization, or even the sometimes-fierce curve balls thrown at us by life. They feel responsible to do something about the situation, yet they feel powerless to do anything meaningful.
That phrase catches my ear because when we feel “powerless,” it can occur because of what we assume to be true about power. So, part of the coaching project is helping them challenge and change those assumptions that don’t serve them. The goal for this post is to help you see that you have access to multiple kinds of power in your life and to help you apply that power to meet challenges at work and home.
Power and Self-Efficacy
In other posts, we’ve discussed the importance of feeling like the choices you make and actions you take have real impact in the world. When we feel like we don’t have power, we lose that sense of self-efficacy. When we lose our sense of self-efficacy, we are much more prone to hopelessness, despair, and depression. When we don’t have personal efficacy, we are much more likely to throw in the towel.
More Than One Type of Power
We might think of these in terms of personal power and positional power. Personal power is based on your character and the ways you make people feel. If you are a “charismatic” leader, then your personal power base is strong. The positives of using personal power is that for those who highly value relationships, it is a comfortable platform to operate from (Here I’m particularly thinking of the “I” types on a DISC personality assessment). When I speak of leading through “influence” at work and home, this is the power base I’m often appealing to. The negative is that personal power is much more susceptible to the fickleness of other’s likes and dislikes. We can break personal power into two types:
Referent power is about your likability.
Expert power is about how knowledgeable you appear.
For example, here is how I apply those types in my business. From a branding perspective, I appeal to these two power sources with my “professorial” air (looking knowledgeable, writing books, having a PhD) and “down-to-earth” manner (being relatable). I would add here that for those who wish to “partner” with their leaders - aka “courageous followers” - they can use this power base to build trust, so that when they need to have hard conversations, they have earned the right to be heard.
Positional power is more in line with how we traditionally think of power - the ability to control through force of some kind. Often this power base is tied to our position in an organization and the resources we are able to either grant or withhold.
Legitimate power often comes with our title or the job we hold.
Reward power is our ability to give other people what they want. This is often tied to our control of resources in an organization.
Coercive power is the flip side of this - and speaks to our ability to withhold rewards or punish others when they displease us.
These five types of power were identified by researchers J. R. French, Jr., and B. Raven, so this is referred to as “French and Raven’s Five Bases of Power.”
When we don’t have formal power, our ability to develop and utilize ally and advocate relationships becomes all the more critical.
To help you better appreciate these types of power, check out the video below - illustrated from another fantasy franchise (you may be picking up some trends in my reading habits).
For Reflection
How might your personal power help you meet the challenges of today?
How might ally and advocate relationships help with that?