WHAT I'M READING WEDNESDAY : Power, a User's Guide by Julie Diamond

Earlier this month, my daughter asked if we were going to war.

It was the day that we heard about the drones being shot down over Poland.

She had heard it on the radio in her carpool, and didn't know its significance, or its impact.

It resulted in a conversation about NATO, allyship, and power.

She asked if France was going to war. (I didn't know.)
She asked if her father would have to go (I told her he was too old)
If I would have to go. (I'm even older 🤣 )
If her brother would have to go. (That he's too young.)
If her best friend's brother would have to go. (I didn't know.)

I told her that I didn't have the power or position to make the decisions about whether we went to war or not, but that I trusted in our governments and institutions to make the best choice.

I told her that Russia might simply be flexing and trying to demonstrate power and scare Europe.

As Julie Diamond points out in her book, power can and does corrupt.

Unfortunately, we are seeing it in multiple forms these days.

She reminds us to be keenly self-aware of the shadow sides of power, and how it can trap people:

✅ You conflate authority with power, and lose legitimacy when you assume people will follow you due to your role, despite lack of trust.
✅ In an effort not to MISUSE power, you cycle through discussion after discussion, never making a decision or taking a stand.
✅ You recognize that you don't have power, and try to overcome that with forcefulness and attacks
✅ You use power like a drug to mask something missing within.
✅ When you have power, you think it means you don't have to listen, and/or you cherry pick what you do listen to.
✅ You use your power to satisfy personal needs, by making your "underlings" do things for you that don't align with the organization's interests.
✅ You become like Narcissus -- mesmerized by yourself.
✅ You're already at the top, so you don't hold need to be accountable anymore.

She also reminds us that power doesn't have to live in this shadow side -- that we can, and should, use and share our personal power, to counterbalance this insidious side.

As I work with a group on the book Presence by Amy Cuddy, we are spending a lot of time discussion power, and how power influences our abilities to be present, confident, and attuned.
​
This book, seemed like a good compliment to that work.

👉 Have you read it?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

Read Deeper Not Faster