#21: power
It is all around us. It is sought after, those who have it as admired. Those who have it are sometimes feared. It can create opportunities, it can silence voices, it can provide access or limit it. When talking about power, we often have some stereotypical images in our heads of male dominated spaces with persons making decisions and smoking cigars. In the following are some of my reflections on the concept of power and the issues associated with it.
A more nuanced and explanatory take on the concept of power, is to say that power is distributed (not evenly) in- and among groups of people. Power can be thought of as something taking place in the void between social structure and identity. This means that power is both a pre-existing feature of social life and history of learning and a feature of identity. Being powerful is then to be able sustain and develop identity in practice according to your own potential trajectory. Being powerless on the other hand is strongly linked to being alienated.
To work together, then, is about tackling issues of power. In order to do this you need to be aware of power structures, and that there are no such places as power free spaces. If you, because of expertise, institutions or privilege, find yourself in a position of power, your job is to provide other people with access to that power. Access can here be understood very literally, as giving access to a room (a board room for instance). It can also be about providing access to valuable practices or communities or people.
In Denmark where I live we do not like to talk about power and we pride ourselves in having a highly diverse and democratic approach to leadership and collaboration at the workplace. This leads to a false conclusion of shared or distributed power (which in some cases actually is the case) - when in reality the power still belongs to the few and what might seem like a shared decision instead can be a manipulated will of a few dominant people.
The best piece of advice when managing powerfulness is to listen, pay attention and invite other perspectives, doing this, bearing in mind that you can either empower people or shut them out - is a great place to start. Having power or exercising leadership is a delicate matter and something you need to learn how to do. The best way to lead is to create an overall direction and then have people fill out the blanks. The more people that are involved, the messier it gets. At the same time it is even more important to share the power. To do this you have be straight forward, create trust and dare to share your vulnerability or in other words be open about how and when you engage uncertainty.