A New Grammar of Power in Leadership
Hilma af Klint, The Swan, No. 1, Group IX/SUW, The SUW/UW Series, 1915 (a glimpse of the image)
I remember being in a training with Wendy Palmer years ago when she said, almost off-hand, “Power has had a bad rap. Let’s get it out of the closet.” The room exhaled. We’d been trained to see power as domination and spectacle, not as clean capacity. But power, at its root, simply means: I am able. I am capable. Ability—in service of life.
Today, that reclamation feels so urgent in my body. Wars and displacement, climate shocks, fraying democracies, and algorithmic outrage—when we hide from power, a vacuum forms and force rushes in. Force grips and coerces; power conducts and stewards. Force is noisy and brittle. Power is grounded, exact, and answerable.
Dr. David R. Hawkins offers a useful lens here. In Power vs. Force, he distinguishes force (coercive, depleting, positional) from power (coherent, life-giving, non-positional). His Map of Consciousness charts emotional/mental states from contracting (shame, guilt, apathy, fear) to expanding (courage, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace). Whether or not you take his calibration numbers literally, the direction of movement is gold for leadership.
What this means for leadership—now
Force narrows attention, creates opposition, and burns trust.
Power conducts purpose through a coherent nervous system; it preserves dignity and nurtures trust.
Hawkins calls out a pivotal threshold: Courage—the shift from avoidance/defense to truthful engagement. Below courage, we spin in force (blame, urgency theater, control). At courage and above, power becomes available (clarity, responsibility, service, love).
I offer you another way to think of power as a shared grammar for leadership:
Power-within (dignity)= the inner coherence we cultivate—to face reality, choose with integrity, and keep dignity intact.
Power-to (agency)= the practical capacity we build—to organize resources, make decisions, and bring intention into form.
Power-with (relation) = the collective capacity we generate between us—to coordinate across difference, share leadership, and move what matters together.
Power-for (stewardship)= The strength we aim on purpose to protect, to heal, to advance the common good.
Power in my mind the embodied ability to align attention with purpose and move resources—cleanly—so dignity is preserved and the future is held with care.
Leadership Apothecary Reflective Questions
Where am I avoiding power because I’m afraid of becoming what I oppose? What would courage look like today?
Where is force residing in me and what story is it telling me?
Recall a moment I used power cleanly under pressure—what state was I in (courage, willingness, love)? How did my body know?
What boundary, set kindly this week, would reduce harm and lift the field just 10% more? What would be possible?
Which grammar do I need now: within, to, with, or for?
Interesting to be sure, but in my opinion, the problem is that his definition of power is not the definition most of us in business use, so it's hard to decipher without rewriting the definition of power. Makes it hard to grasp, or I would imagine, take hold. Christine Merser, Slate l Spark.