Leadership. Power. Sex and Sexuality

By A. Abeku Haywood-Dadzie

"When a handshake goes beyond the elbow, it ceases to be a friendly gesture and signals a fight” Africa proverb

A small clip of a joke by comedian Hannibal Buress was all it needed to open Pandora's Box and set off a media frenzy that exposed the skeletons in America's favourite daddy's closet. The media's expose burst like a volcano on a minefield, and the previously lush green foliage of Hollywood began to light up like a Christmas tree with charges of sexual indiscretion and wrongdoing. Today, the wild fire [allegations of sexual misconduct] keeps spreading and consuming anything in its way, with fresh stories surfacing on a near daily basis. The tsunami has stripped revered members of our society bare as they have been accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct.

Today, the wildfire [sexual misconduct allegations] continues to grow and consume anything in its path, with new stories emerging on a near-daily basis. As a result of the tsunami, revered individuals in our society have been stripped naked and accused of various degrees of sexual misbehaviour.

Influence is central to leadership. "Influence is the ability to affect actions, transform behaviors, shift views, and direct authorities." It is what transforms good leaders into great leaders, goals into results, and plans into effective actions. Influence is how leaders lead. " To quote John Quincy Adam, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader."

Whenever people come together, a "power platform" is created due to the fact that most groups or organisations do have a pyramid-shaped structure, and this results in the emergence of a political atmosphere. Power struggles and politics within groups or organisations are common because, as a social system, these units provide a power base for people to achieve their aspirations. However, since people want power for many different reasons, political behaviour becomes inevitable and widespread in most of these units. Leaders everywhere accrue power in their capacity as owners of resources or as agents acting on behalf of the owners of these resources.

The management of these resources places leaders in positions of power and generates a political environment in which they can operate. Leaders develop their teams' overarching strategies as well as their key performance metrics. They also establish the criteria for evaluating members of their team. They must decide what is best for others and who will have access to what resources because of these privileges. As a result, leaders are extremely powerful. They are seen as role models by their team, which some leaders take for granted due to the difficulty they encounter in separating their personal lives from their professional lives.

Effective leaders recognise that they have an impact on many people beyond themselves. Thousands of leaders who have failed in their personal lives have indirectly harmed and damaged the lives of some of their followers by failing to meet their expectations. It's been claimed that wielding power is a crucial but delicate part of leadership. Power can be abused in the worst circumstances, and it can also be used wisely and for worthwhile causes in the best cases.

The ability to choose to use power judiciously, regardless of the consequence, is the hallmark of successful leadership. This is because every human behaviour has a motivation, especially when it comes to the pursuit of individual agendas and self-interest. Successful leaders appreciate the fact that they must always separate their personal lives from their professional lives. However, at certain levels of leadership, it's almost impossible for leaders to totally separate their personal lives from their professional lives, the two become entwined and enmeshed. In such situations, most successful leaders try to draw a healthy boundary between the two. However, these boundaries sometimes become blurred and inconspicuous for members of the ecosystem. One can therefore infer that at certain levels of leadership, leaders must come to the realisation that it's simply impossible to separate their professional and personal lives.

Leaders require power to lead their teams, and they obtain this power from both positional and personal power. Unfortunately, some leaders can become victims of their own fame and power if not checked. Power is like a drug and can intoxicate. Leaders intoxicated with power can give up their beliefs and convictions in a bid to gain more power. This can lead to negative repercussions for the leader as well as the led. Therefore, Lord Acton, cautioned that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Great men are almost always bad men. " Leaders must always be aware of this.?

According to Dahl, "power is the capacity that "A" has to influence the behaviour of "B", so that "B" does something he or she would not otherwise do." This power may include the power to align a team to an organization's objectives or the power to demand unwanted sexual behaviour that’s offensive, humiliating, or intimidating, also known as "sexual harassment’. Leaders who understand that they are in positions of power and that power comes with responsibilities are more successful.The same cannot be said about those who fail to appreciate the power they wield as leaders. When some leaders have their powers increased to the extent that they can force their followers to do what they themselves do not believe it's right to do, then it becomes a challenge and it’s appropriate to say that moral weakness has set in the exercise of their power.?

According to William Pitt,?"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it." This corrupted power may include the power to advance favours in exchange for some benefits or withhold professional opportunities based on a prospective employee’s submission to a sexual request. It may also occur when a leader ties job benefits directly to a subordinate's submitting to unwelcome sexual advances.

A leader must understand they wield a huge amount of power and this power has the propensity to buy them great influence. It’s therefore incumbent on them to take a reality check by asking themselves these simple questions. Would I have received this amount of favour if I was not in my current position? or would he/she have objected if it weren't for my current position?

Today we are receiving a daily roll call of leaders who have been devoured by the "sexual misconduct viruses". They include lawmakers, ex-presidents, clergy, people in the media, and on and on. If you are a leader who is involved in such practises and your name is not mentioned yet, go on your knees and thank God but just remember, it may take time for this weakness to become visible. In fact, its full extent is normally left for the historians to record, but we will eventually learn of it.?

The floodgate just got opened.