By: Liz Ryan, CEO and founder of WorldWIT
Very often, WorldWIT members listen to our radio interviews, and write to me to say "How does one achieve all that? Do you have suggestions for gaining influence, rising in the world, and becoming powerful?" The answer is yes - I do. In fact, finding one's personal power is one of my favorite topics.
One of the best parts of my job is getting to interview fascinating women every week (sometimes, I interview men, too) for our WorldWIT Radio program. Many of our guests are in lofty positions and have tons of influence, as well as accolades in all sorts of areas. Very often, WorldWIT members listen to these radio interviews, and write to me to say "How does one achieve all that? Do you have suggestions for gaining influence, rising in the world, and becoming powerful?" The answer is yes - I do. In fact, finding one's personal power is one of my favorite topics.
But the first thing I would note about power is that there isn't just one kind. I believe that there are two very different sorts of power that a person can focus on developing.
The first type is pretty easy to identify. You'll have lots of power if you have a senior-level job, a big title, a large staff and loads of budgetary dollars to control. Likewise, awards, advanced degrees and high-level business relationships are strongly identified with power. We're all familiar with people whose resumes glitter with these gems. What more could one want, really, than a long list of honors next to your name?
The trouble with these hallmarks of power is that they are externally focused. All of these things - titles, awards, degrees, staffs, etc. - are conferred by other people. In fact, the titles and honors, just like trophies on the shelf, are evidence of how much other people esteem you. In my experience, there is a strong correlation between a person's desire - or even need - to be respected and to feel significant, and his or her zeal to amass trophies during a career. And then there is another problem - what has been bestowed upon you can as easily be taken away. A big job, a fancy title, an enormous organization of subordinates - these can disappear in an instant. That's one of the reasons why this type of externally-conferred power - what I call "Big P" power - is so stressful to maintain. In the quest to continue becoming more significant and more powerful, if you're focused on the Big P trappings of power, you're never done!
There is another kind of power that I much prefer. I call it "small p" power. It's the power that doesn't depend on someone else's assessment of you. It's inside of you to begin with, and only gets stronger over time as you reinforce what you know, sense, and intuit. No one confers "small p" power on you and - wonderfully - no one can take it away.
The Big P power is often fear-based, in two ways. People thirst for external validation because they're afraid that without it, they're nothing. Then, they fear losing that validation, and so they may act in fear-ful ways to maintain all those trophies. Surely you've come across, at least once in your career, a lofty personage (maybe a senior leader in your company) who really has no credibility at all, except for the big title that someone thoughtlessly gave her? Everyone knows that this person has all "Big P" power, and no personal credibility whatsoever. It's sad, because all the trophies in the world - as in "Look here, I'm a division VP and you have to listen to me!" can't induce people to respect this person.
Big P power is power that says "Other people (like the CEO of this company, I'll have you know) respect me, and therefore you must, as well." Sorry - no dice. You just can't force people to respect you, although you can certainly train them to roll their eyes discreetly when you say something inane. That's the trouble with the Big P variety of power.
But "small p" power isn't bestowed upon you and can't be withdrawn, either. You carry it around with you, and it only gets stronger over time - if you listen to your gut, and speak your truth as often as you can. It's not that easy, in many a corporate setting (and many other places) to speak your truth, of course. There are a lot of incentives to keep quiet, or say something silly in order to avoid standing out. But you don't build your personal power by going along with the crowd and keeping your mouth shut, even if that is the predominant cultural mode in your company. You speak up - politely, but from your gut, and without equivocation.
So when history's most idiotic idea is on the table, and you're dying inside at the stupidity of it, and so is everyone else in the room (except the person who proposed the idea) and no one is speaking, it's your personal power that allows you to say "You know, I'm not sure I understand how this idea will get us to the Point B we've identified. Perhaps I do not understand. Can we walk through that again?" Or when you yourself have proposed a plan, and you know it has merit, and the ranking person in the meeting shoots you down by saying, "Okay, that's one idea, are there any others?" you find the voice to say "Before we move on, can we go through my plan in a bit of detail? That might be useful."
Speaking your truth is essential to finding your personal, small-p power. You do it enough, and it becomes habitual. You find it harder to keep quiet when there's something that needs to be said, whether it's the clothes-free state of a leader in your midst or some other truth that can't stay under wraps. Other people begin to look to you to say what needs saying, and to help them find their own voices. And here's the crazy thing: as you build your own engine of power, without benefit of titles or accolades, those external trophies begin to come. I'll bet you've witnessed that to the person in a company who seems so together, so 'on it,' that someone says one day "Is she a manager? She's really on the ball," and about a week later you hear that indeed, this person has just been promoted. Real power is magnetic - it inspires respect. If you get a big title down the line, that's great - but that's not why people respect you. Your personal power doesn't rest on your title in the slightest.
Big-P and small-p power work together like that. Big-P types don't get the dynamics of this relationship at all. When you obsess over, chase after, and value only the Big-P stuff, you don't discover who you are. It is too easy, in the Big-P-power value equation, to do the things you believe you're supposed to do in order to get promoted, get noticed, and get the external praise you're after. In the small-p orientation, you do what your heart and mind tell you to do, and let the chips fall where they may. Damn the promotions, full speed ahead: and over time, you find the place (maybe several employers later) where that kind of power is valued, and the external honors come - exactly when you realize you don't need them.
A woman said to me at a recent speaking gig, "But isn't it important to let people know your accomplishments? Just recently, I was at a meeting with a woman who had been a very high official, and in her introduction, she was encouraged to share this information - to let people know that she had been very influential in government, and wouldn't be trifled with." I winced inside. Why would it ever be necessary to say anything other than "Hi, I'm Claudia James" in an introduction? What benefit could possibly come from adding "And here's what I've done, and here's why I'm important?" Your power will show through, as soon as you open your mouth - or perhaps it will be evident as you sit silently, not opening your mouth at all.
In fact, the more one argues for her power - for instance, in one of those excruciating-to-witness "Battles of the Bios" you encounter from time to time in corporate meetings - the more a colleague insists "But you must listen to me, I have 25 years of experience in this area," the more her power seeps out and puddles on the floor. That isn't power - that's a trophy-brandishing exercise. Power is the ability to be influential without invoking the trophies. That's the piece that Big-P sorts always miss.
And that's why talking with women about their power is so exciting to me. We have it - we're bursting with it!-we only need to determine where the power yardstick lies. It's not in degrees, honors and titles. It's in us. Waiting for the world to notice our greatness is the road to stress, frustration and internal conflict. Simply being powerful, day by day, is about a million times more satisfying, and doesn't require you to wait for anyone or anything outside yourself.
Your personal power is there, waiting to be reinforced by your words and actions. You have it in spades, far more in your little finger than in a glass case of trophies on a paneled-oak wall. You can't control how other people value you, so why not focus on how you value yourself? Are you willing to let your sturdy gut speak for you, rather than some hourly-shifting notion of what's correct in your organization, under today's leader, given the current strategic focus, etc? The direct link from heart to brain to gut to mouth - let it rip, sister - that's power that could light up the city. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Liz has over 20 years experience in managing high-growth organizations, she lectures nationally and writes about working and managing in the digital economy. If you're looking for advice or have questions related to your job, just ask Liz! You can email Liz at lizryan@worldwit.org.
