Whenever a discussion about personal power comes up in a coaching session it can trigger many different questions. What defines my power? To what extent does my power affect someone else’s power? Is it a zero-sum game? What is ‘power’ anyway in leadership?
Typically, in exploring power we enter the territory of respect, expertise, charisma, even physical factors such as our voice (tone and timbre) or height and build, masculine and feminine. Power is a multi-faceted topic, and it usually arises in leadership discussions because the leader isn’t considered to be having the impact they feel they can have – or are being told they need to have.
And power in this context is about influence, the ability to persuade others to get things done or agree to things in a chosen direction or manner. The dictionary describes influence as ‘the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself’.
Here another question arises for me – is seeking to influence and persuade in itself ethical? We all do it of course – within our personal relationships, with our colleagues, with our teams and even with the ‘boss’. We also seek to influence the system as a whole – the organisation and its culture – even nations. Marketing, corporate communications (internal and external), family principles and stories, schools, as well as, of course, political communications are all designed to influence – to steer, direct, to induce in various directions.
As we consider the ethics of influence, we enter more complex territory than just defining what it is. At its base level we might say that influence is a process of education – sharing insights, knowledge, experience and wisdom with others. We might say it’s a process of developmental thinking supporting growth and change – an opportunity to embrace more perspectives and allowing them to develop and circulate, having an impact on our own thinking, or not.
And we must return also to the question of power. Where power is unequal is it possible for the influence to be ethical? Isn’t there a sizeable risk of manipulation and coercion? Between employer and employee. Between governments and citizens. Even between teachers and students.
Power becomes an actor within the process of sharing information, exchanging viewpoints and forming individual and collective views and cultures. Here we bring in the topic of trust and integrity. Whom or what do we trust and why? If we are going to allow something or someone to influence our own thinking surely the level of integrity is a major factor for any right-thinking person.
The ethics involved in influence and persuasion must surely be about the degree to which the key players seeking to influence are doing so from a place of transparency, truthfulness, deep respect for the other(s) meaning vulnerabilities and inequalities are not exploited, along with a genuine willingness to be influenced in return – to really be open to listening and adjusting one’s own perspective and even goal.
The ethical question is not whether we influence others, because influence is unavoidable. The real question is whether we use that influence to expand people’s freedom, understanding and choices, or to narrow them. Ethical persuasion respects human agency; manipulation seeks to bypass it.