Inclusive Leadership: Systems of Power

I’m running a three week module on ‘Inclusive Leadership’, starting this week, which uses the three lenses of ‘Power’, ‘Identity’, and ‘Voice’, through which to consider structural, social, and systemic questions of inclusion. Today i’m sharing some of my notes and approach.

I would usually say that if you wish to understand any system, be it a formal Organisational one, or a social and tribal one, the lens of ‘Power’ is a great place to start. Many of our systems simply represent codified, or consensual, structures of power, and the application of consequence, and imposition of conformity, all originate in these. To belong requires conformity, and conformity has a backstop of consequence (exclusion or punishment), which means that belonging also relates to power.

In the work on ‘Power and Potential’ (the eBook is free, here) i explore how these systems of power co-exist, not necessarily in one dimension, but across multiple, stacked up, or sitting in strata. In fact, i quite like the ‘stratification’ of power, because it also visually represents how some power is visible, whilst other is layered underneath. And in that work we consider how power intersects: in opposition, or amplification, to deflect or negate the other, or to be split and refracted into varied sub components. To understand what ‘makes’ up our power, and how the different elements of power are composed.

But with our understanding of power, we need other elements to truly understand our leadership within a system: Identity and Voice are both parts of this.

Identity, or more accurately ‘Identities’ are important, because again this indicates a layered system (you can read more on the ‘Identity Project’ website here). Possibly we curate, or select, an identity for each context – and part of that context is the power we require, or encounter. One thing that comes through clearly in the Trust research (and which i’ve written about in ‘Finding your Campfire, which you can find here) is that we need separation for safety: not ‘one’ identity in all places, accessible to everyone, but rather separate identities in different spaces, and the gatekeeping between these identities is a core capability we develop and practice.

In this sense, language about bringing our ‘whole self’ to work sits at odds with the mechanisms by which we are actually kept safe.

Perhaps we should rather say bring your ‘most appropriate’, or ‘safest’ self? Of course the opposite is also true: if work invades our ‘non work’ spaces, then our leaders also need to bring their appropriate self, and power.

Identity is both an individual and collective feature, and may of course be chosen or imposed (people are ‘druids’, ‘victims’, ‘sick’ or ‘rich’, ‘excluded’ or ‘malcontent’). Understanding how identity operates is important for inclusive leadership, because alongside the lens of power, it lets us see how identity stories are used both to enable, but also entangle and constrain. It brings us back to the notion of a Social Leader as a Storytelling Leader, but one who understands how to use stories in service or, or to liberate, others.

Voice is the thread that can tie this together: understanding voice and silence (and silencing) is to watch the currents and waves flow through the system. Within Social Leadership more broadly we see that ‘voice’ is not about ‘volume’ per se, but rather about amplification through routes of Social Authority, rooted in Authenticity, and that change may be effected by quiet voices that are nonetheless amplified in quiet action – connected and resonant. Indeed, in our broader leadership research at quite some scale, we see that ‘authentic storytelling’ is deemed a core feature of leadership, something greatly valued, and yet not quantified, but rather judged. Hence a fickle measure.

In summary: Inclusive Leadership is less a ‘thing’, more so than the navigation of systems of power, of understanding layers of identity, and navigating voice, our own and others. So more an art and practice than a defined ‘thing’.