The Two Forces of Leadership

13 May The Two Forces of Leadership

Do you use power or do you empower?

So we’ve identified that there’s two forces of leadership by which people lead with, the first one is power and the second one is empower.  And the interesting part about these two is once we come to understand them what you’ll see is they both have two completely different styles of leadership which means they both have different impacts that they’ll make on people, the organization, and its future. So let’s take a look at them.  

The first one power, like what is power?  Power is defined by a possession of control, like think about that, we all have come across some leaders who have led by a very power-like mantra of leadership where they’re very possessive, they’re very controlling.  These are leaders that are very dictator in nature, they tell you what to do; they’re very… it’s very one directional.  It’s very forceful in nature, they’re very controlling.  We know these people, these types of leaders to be control freaks.

Now understand, there’s two types of control freaks in leadership one that we seem… you know when we understand it, one is good, and one I wouldn’t say is necessarily bad but maybe has some work to work on, or a different focus to work on.  Control freak by results which is good, as a leader be a control freak on the results.

The second is a control freak on activities, and this is where the more power type leader comes in where they just come in, they tell you what to do, they look over your shoulder, they don’t afford you any freedoms or resources, it’s just do as I tell you, it’s very dictator-to-soldier type mentality.  And so their attitude… their personality, their leadership personality is one of forceful in nature; it’s very assertive, it’s very dictator-like, it’s very telling in nature, and your only option as the follower is to be someone that listens and becomes in essence a yes-sir or yes-ma’am type subordinate or employee within the organization or business, or even, quite frankly, in your homes as well.  

So when we look at power this leader tends to show up what we find due to insecurities,  people that lead by power what they lack are two things, resources to be influential, or the second one, confidence.  And when we talk about lack of confidence what that looks like is it’s a leader that tends to have some sort of insecurities and they’re overcompensating, they have fears and sometimes those fears have a tendency to be based off of the need to be liked, to be popular, to be accepted, and what happens there is that need and the desire to fulfill that need causes us to take control, like we start having these… these types of leaders have the mentality that “Nobody can do it as good as I can so might as well just tell people how to do it.”

And so there are some pros and cons, you know too much of anything is no good and too little of something is no good as well.  So what we understand about this style, this force of leadership is there’s environments where that style of leadership actually thrives.  Military is one of them; law enforcement; any sort of environment where it tends to be life or death per se, and where things need to happen relatively quickly, and it tends to happen in a very reactionary mindset.  So understand, this type of force of leader, the powerful force of leader is not necessarily a bad thing.  What we come to know about higher level consciousness understanding is nothing is either good or bad until it’s good or bad.  And what you’ll find when you learn about the second force of leadership is they also… the style of leadership that you take is also subjective and contingent on the people that you lead, the environment that you’re leading in, so when you hear this understand for you may receive it as “Oh yeah I’ve had a leader that’s been very power like leader and I don’t like that, I don’t respond to that, so that’s bad.”  

Okay it’s bad, but in maybe military, special forces, law enforcement, SWAT teams, like that style of leadership thrives.  That environment calls for it;  the followers, the elite people, they can respond really well because they understand the nature and appreciate that style of leadership and the value that it brings.  

So the second one is what we call empower right so there’s power versus empower.  And empower we’ve defined in previous videos to be the… to give… so this is a gift… to give someone the ability and authority to accomplish something that they desire to accomplish.  So it’s more of an inspiring, it’s conversational, it’s a two-way engagement, you’re having a conversation with someone, you’re offering them resourcefulness, and what you’re offering them is authority to take action.  

So if you look at the power, the power is telling someone to do something, there’s no resources available there, it’s just “Here it is… take it …use it… go… put it into action.”  Whereas the empower it’s more inspiring, it’s more conversational, it tends to take longer, it tends to be more opportunities for growth through non accomplishment because it’s more lead through self discovery, awareness, and allowing people to go be resourceful to accomplish goals, actions, et cetera.

Now some people respond very well to this, in this world of business where we talk about talent, like you can’t tell talent what to do.  What talent tends to respond…whatever that looks like for you, however you define talent, talent tends to respond to empower better than they do power.  But guess what, if we look at the environment, if you look at the military, law enforcement, elite special operation forces, they don’t have time for that, they don’t respond to that, “Well you know what would you think?”  In certain maybe situational planning, yes; but in execution results, like if you’re an elite special forces team and you’re going in a thread-the-needle type mission, we’re not going to sit there over communications and go “Guys well how do you think we should navigate this situation?”  No, someone needs to take charge, take control, be forceful, be direct, “Do this…go.”

So understand that the power versus empower is neither good nor bad until it’s good or bad; it’s situationally dependent; it’s the environment that you’re leading in, the type of people that you’re leading.  Now you can have an organization where one person responds well to that type of leadership and another person doesn’t.  So what tends to happen is leaders will forge their way into one particular type of leadership and it’s not necessarily the right way to lead whether the environment and/or the people.  So what we come to understand leaders is… Tony Robbins says this, success… the leader that will be the most successful is the one that can be the most flexible.  So leaders I want to understand when we talk about these two forces of leadership the powerful force and the empowerful force of leadership as a leader you need to understand that you need to possess flexibility, you need to assess the environment, you need to assess the situation and you need to assess the people that you’re leading to determine and dictate what type of leadership is right for the person, the moment, the goal, and the big picture.  So when we look at them leaders, look at it like this, if you’re parenting guess what, there’s going to come times where you need to be that powerful leader in your family especially raising kids where we want to have an open heart, we want to teach them things, we want to give …we want to offer them gifts and resources to be successful but sometimes a three/four/five year old just doesn’t get that and we just have to be forceful and tell them like, “Do this.”

If a car is coming down the road and your child’s running into it, are you going to be the empowering leader or you’re going to be the powerful leader?  But if your child’s heart is broken, maybe they are teenagers and they are in their stages of dating and they’re learning these relationship things like are you going to be the empowering leader or are you going to be the powerful leader?  As your child starts to transition from tween to teen to early stages of adult where we want to teach them how to make decisions that will allow them to be successful, are you going to be the forceful parent?  Like parents that are out there that are raising teens does your teen respond to your forceful powerful ways of parenting leadership or do we want to teach them how to be empowered?  Do we lead them empowering in certain environments and do we lead them in a powerful nature?  Because I can promise you this, look at any leadership environment, and there’s going to come times that your leadership is going to call for you to be a powerful leader based off of the person that you’re leading, the situation and the end result and outcome that you’re looking to accomplish; and there’s going to come times where your leadership is going to require you to be empowering.  

So leaders here’s what I’ll challenge you to, hone both of those skills because they’re going to show up in the environments that you lead in.  Learn to understand how and when the powerful type leader shows up and when it’s appropriate to lead in that respect. Now in our culture today we still look at teens as hey they need parenting and leadership and just kind of following my lead because we want to protect them.  But look back over history of mankind, teens, especially young boys, that was the time where they stepped up and started to become hunter gatherers.   So yes there’s going to be that natural power struggle because we as parents today seem to think that our teens are still the same kids they were at eight years old.  It’s not how biology through humanity is.  It just is, that’s how it is.

So what I’ll challenge you leaders to is look at the ways in which it’s beneficial to be a power-like leader and when are the times you can empower them?  What are the times that empowering leadership is the right way to lead your children and when are the times that power leader to tell them “Hey you have to do this.”  Like think about it parents, if your child is hanging out with a group of individuals that you know is going to take them down the wrong path that might be a time where you need to tell them what to do, like your initial blink of leadership is tell them “Don’t hang out with those people.”

Well guess what, you tell a teen don’t hang out with them what are they going to do?  They’re going to want to do it more, so you’re going to have to figure out like “How do I empower them?  How do I give them the ability and authority to make the decisions that will ultimately lead them down the right path, the path of righteousness for them as opposed to the path of struggle and wrongdoing.”

You can email me at ch***@tr***********************.com and if you want to exclusive content go to our website www.transforminglivescoaching.com.  Sign up for our VIP exclusive video series that will come to your e-mail box every Saturday morning so you can sit on your couch, do your reading, watch your news, do what you do on Saturday morning and get a two minute snippet of how to be a more powerful and effective leader.  So thanks for joining me today, hope we brought value to not just your business but your life as well.  Remember one thing, God loves you, so do I.  Lead strong.  Have a powerful day and have an awesome week.  Take care.

About the author:

Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!

To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Ch***@Tr***********************.com