What Does Power-To Look Like?

On Monday I asked you when you first realized that you had the power to . . . And I gave you a brief glimpse at my definition of what power-to looks like. Check out this piece I just wrote for More.com on why it’s time for women to change how we think about power.

Here’s another No Excuses look at what power-to means:

Power-over focuses on tactics for gaining compliance, while leadership focuses on getting answers and solutions in order to be able to accomplish something for mutual good.

Power-over makes people feel powerless. Even if it isn’t force or brute power, but a manipulative power such as political dominance, the feeling that one has no control over one’s choices makes her disgruntled, angry, or passive-aggressive.

Power-to makes us feel powerfull.

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Power-to supports and enhances whatever power the individual brings to a project, workplace, relationship, or civic activity. It abhors coercion. It opens up the possibility of choices; the ability to choose is what makes us human. Choosing is the basis of morality.

Power-over is amoral. Power-to is responsibility.

Power-over is oppression. Power-to is leadership.

What are your thoughts about this definition? How does it change your ideas about power and leadership? Can you give examples of the use of either definition of power?

7 Comments

  1. Serena Freewomyn on October 20, 2010 at 10:48 am

    I really like the idea of power-to as responsibility. I feel like many of us get involved in social justice movements because we feel a responsibility to our communities.

  2. […] Time to Change How We Think About Power by Gloria Feldt on October 20th, 2010 in Power and tagged forbes, Fortune, Gloria Feldt, leadership, power, women Check out this piece I just wrote for More.com on why it’s time for women to change how we think about power. I am posting it here to encourage you to share your stories right here on the 9 Ways blog. […]

  3. Aletha on October 21, 2010 at 3:53 am

    I think to say power over is amoral is charitable. The high value male-dominated cultures place on that kind of “power” and its concomitants is, as I see it, the root of everything wrong in this world. It rots the soul of the culture and pits people against each other, as well as other living things. But then, I am a dreamer who believes the exercise of authority should be minimized as far as possible.

    • Gloria Feldt on October 21, 2010 at 10:41 am

      Aletha, In No Excuses,I say that power is amoral–that it is amorphous actually, whatever we make of it good or bad. Power over is indeed inherently a negative as you describe.

      Thanks for catching that error in my post. Guess I was moving too fast and didn’t proof my work as well as I should.

      Power over is oppression. Power to is leadership.

      I’m not sure I agree that authority is inherently bad though. It strikes me more like influence. We do need leadership and sometimes that means an individual has to take extra responsibility and authority to ensure that things happen as opposed to sitting around a circle discussing it.

      • Aletha on October 22, 2010 at 4:29 am

        It depends on how one defines it, but I did not mean to imply authority is “inherently” bad. Authority as it is commonly understood is hard to separate from power over. I think parents and teachers need to exercise some authority over children, for instance, but there are different ways to enforce boundaries. I also would not dispute some kind of authority needs to be exercised over criminals. My point is that some ways of exercising authority are abusive and irresponsible, others are neither, but the responsible exercise of authority does not look much like the current state of affairs, which seems to me to be moving toward increasing authoritarianism, instead of increasing liberty and responsibility.

        This could be blamed on the war on terror, but I think that excuse cannot justify much of what has developed in response to the 9/11 attacks, especially some provisions of the Patriot Act, cracking down on dissent, etc. Bush seized new kinds of power, and Congress went along meekly. Obama has yet to renounce any of that, and I am not holding my breath for that, nor for changing the direction of foreign policy to come to terms with possible reasons why those attacks occurred. When Obama speaks of projecting American power, what kind of power do you suppose he has in mind? He speaks of peace, while escalating war. He says we do not torture, but so did Bush, and extraordinary rendition still goes on. He speaks of international cooperation, but continues to flout international law. He speaks of the danger of returning to the failed policies of the past, but in too many ways, he just put a new varnish on those.

        • Gloria Feldt on October 22, 2010 at 10:13 pm

          Don’t get me started on Obama…

          • Aletha on October 22, 2010 at 11:48 pm

            Yeah, I know. I was tempted to go on and on, but that would be off topic, so I figured I had better stop. Obama did give fair warning he is a politician, after all. We must “make me do it,” he said. Unfortunately I do not think feminists are organized enough to have the power to make him do anything controversial, that might cost him political capital. It seems it is the old boy network who has power over him.



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