There’s a theme so familiar in my discussions with leaders that I wonder if I haven’t written about it before.  Still, I feel called to return to the theme of the leader’s call to power.

Now, let’s be clear, many men and women in leadership roles have a highly ambivalent response to the word “power”.  Many times I have heard some variant of the following:  “Power?  No, not me… I don’t go in for that sort of thing”.  “That sort of thing” is of course a negative sort of thing – at least in the eyes of the leader.

My experience over the years – of conducting research into what makes an effective leader, of assessing individuals for leadership roles, of working in coaching partnership with leaders – suggests that an individual’s willingness to embrace and to use power is an essential part of leadership effectiveness. The leader needs to go beyond doing everything personally to engage others to do things.  This is a fundamental shift from personal achievement to working with and through others.  The leader also needs, for example, to hold a vision for the future, sharing it with those s/he leads in ways which engage – this is the use of power to influence others.  The leader needs to use the same power to influence his or her peers, providing input to the overall direction and decision-making of an organisation.

My own observations of the use of power by leaders are intimately bound up with the research of Professor David C. McClelland of Harvard University.  McClelland’s research in the field of human motivation has been made available through his writings and through his work to establish a small consultancy which was bought, in time, by my former employer, the Hay Group.  This afforded me opportunities to apply McClelland’s techniques in my work and to test it through my own personal experience and observation.  McClelland was passionate about sharing his work and his little book Power is the Great Motivator, co-authored with David H. Burnham, is a great place to start if you want to understand his research without wading through dense and academic writings.  (If you do want to wade through dense and academic writings, you might enjoy his longer book, Power:  The Inner Experience).

So why has the exercise of power in leadership got such a bad name amongst the very people who are charged with leadership?  Recently, Art Giser put this in a broad context for me at a talk in Central London in just a few passing comments.  He pointed to the record of many leaders in the 20th Century.  We only have to think of such names as Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Idi Amin, Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Bin Laden and Khomeini to realise just how much we fear the embrace of power and its potentially dreadful consequences for humankind.

Our ambivalent relationship with – or outright rejection of – power has also been reflected in our commercial and political activities.  On the very day that I heard Art speak, news broke of the resignation from Goldman Sachs of one of its London-based executives.  Greg Smith wrote an open letter to the New York Times (in itself an exercise of power) in which he said “I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what [Goldman Sachs] stands for” and highlighted the number of times in recent months that he had heard senior colleagues describe clients as “muppets”.

The power dilemma has been embodied in recent months by German politicians.  They are – not without reason – highly wary of embracing power in our current economic circumstances.  At the same time, many Europeans are looking to them to provide leadership.  So, whether you are reflecting on the body politic of our time or a leader seeking diligently to fulfil your responsibilities, I write this posting as an invitation to you to reflect on your relationship with power.  For as long as we reject power as an instrument of evil, we also fail to step up to the potential power has as a way of doing good in the world.  Is it not also true, for example, that many people are yearning for the responsible use of power to address the major challenges and issues of our day?