Workshop #04 — Professional Training
Leadership and the competent use of power
A successful leader is skilful in managing relationships. This seminar explores the two major dimensions of relating — the vertical and the horizontal — and the strategic, ethical and personal capacities required to navigate power well.
Orientation
Two dimensions of relating
The horizontal aspect involves collegiality and mutual influence; it is accompanied by connection and openness. The vertical component requires the use of power — making hard decisions, maintaining control, exerting influence and keeping a goal focus.
The way that power differentials are navigated determines whether leadership is effective on both horizontal and vertical levels. If people feel respected, they are more likely to follow direction; yet insufficient decisiveness reduces output and efficiency.
This seminar examines the ingredients required for the competent use of power, relating the formal and informal aspects of organisational leadership in a coherent framework. Current theory and research is introduced and applied directly to the challenges that leaders face.
The Unvirtues
The ethics of power are addressed throughout — and the concept of the ‘Unvirtues’, the underbelly of good intentions, is introduced as a powerful tool for transparency in leadership.
Areas of inquiry
The complexities of power
Together we examine power styles, contextual influences and formative experiences of power, and the relevance of shame in understanding leadership effectiveness. All material is applied to participants through reflective and experiential processes to support insight and integrated understanding.
- 01
Sources of power
Status, role and personal power sources, and the responsibilities that accompany role differences.
- 02
Negotiating difference
Negotiating power differences, task and relationship variables, and working in the power zone within a relationship.
- 03
Risk and vulnerability
Risk, vulnerability and need; the complex issue of harm, and the discrepancy between intention and impact — with its remedies.
- 04
Boundary styles
Over- and underbounded patterns of leadership, and the dangers of the underuse of power as much as its misuse.
- 05
Feedback and repair
Advanced feedback skills, and the work of resolving and repairing the effects of the poor use of power.
- 06
Self and sustenance
Core strength, resiliency, and the significance of self care in leaders who carry weight over time.
- 07
Power and shame
The connection between power and shame — and what to do about it — alongside the 150% principle and the power paradox.
Also addressed
Style, stance and the ethics of leadership
Power leadership style
Recognising one’s habitual stance under pressure, and broadening the repertoire so that power may be expressed appropriately to context.
The power paradox
How the very qualities that bring people to influence can erode under its weight — and the practices that keep a leader honest.
Underuse of power
The quieter failure: ambivalence, abdication and the costs to a group when authority is withheld.
Integration in practice
Reflective and experiential work translates concept into capability — leadership that is decisive, relational and accountable.
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