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Emerging leaders are sometimes ambivalent about holding power. This is especially true of those who have had to struggle against forces such as racism, sexism, or classism in order to claim a seat at the table. When our personal histories include the need for resistance against unfair uses of power, we can easily form the belief that power is inherently suspect. Some of us may have developed identities rooted in defying power rather than in wielding it. Finding oneself as a power holder can then be deeply disorienting.
This kind of ambivalence is, I believe, actually a leadership strength. Lived awareness of the ways power can be misused can shape leaders in positive ways. Such leaders tend to be deeply humane and are often creative visionaries as well.
I encourage all leaders to remember that power is in itself neither good nor bad. Its ethical character arises from the uses to which it is put and the degree to which it is accountable to others. We notice when power is used to accomplish bad ends. And we can learn to see how power is used for good ends and in constructive ways. But we are less likely to pay attention to how power is or is not accountable. Focusing on accountability is a path to becoming more comfortable with one’s own power.
In an academic context, power holders should be publicly accountable to our core constituencies—students, faculty and staff, trustees, alumni, and our community. We should also be accountable for our professional and public actions in more private ways—to ourselves, to the people we love the most, and to whatever it is that we take as the source of ultimate meaning. Accountability means having an obligation to openly explain our decision making, take alternative points of view into account, tolerate dissent and criticism, be scrupulously fair, and remain intellectually and personally humble. When power goes awry on campus, it is often due to a failure of accountability. Accountability can’t be fully mandated or required. While various policies can compel a modicum of accountability, its full flowering requires that the power holders hone their own internal insistence on the importance of accountability to others.
To feel more at home in your own power, acknowledge it, commit to using it wisely and well, and ensure that you remain deeply accountable to multiple others and to your own conscience.
Questions for reflection: How do you describe your own power? How comfortable are you with it? What are some examples of ways you have used your power to effect positive change? Where would you like more or less power? To whom are you accountable? How is that accountability demonstrated? Where might greater accountability be needed? What structures can you create to keep yourself accountable as you wield your own power?
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