Insight 1 of 4 with Tiziana Casciaro
We equate authority and power, but they’re not one and the same. Some
people wield a lot of power even though their title may not suggest it.
This is because power comes from control over the resources that people
value and that they need and want. As the boss, you have resources that
people want, and you control them: a promotion, a budget, an attractive
project. But there will be people who have other resources that you
might need. It could be information, or a network, and, without
knowledge of them, you as leader are going to be cut out of a very
important resource. That makes you dependent on them. We tend to
personalize power, but nothing is further from the truth: power is
always situated in a relationship. It’s all relative, and it shifts over
time.
Power is not a zero sum game. We tend to think
that if we share some of our power, we’re automatically going to lose
power. That’s not how it works. The asymmetrical power that exists
because of an imbalance—whether in relation to your employees or
suppliers, or, for a country, between the people that have the most and
those who have the least—is detrimental to the system in the long run.
A leader in an organization will be personally better off when they allow others to also exercise some power over them. By
sharing power with others, they will give them the tools to do their
best work. In the long run, you will benefit as well, as opposed to
feeling attached to your own power and wanting to control the behavior
of others. Giving
