Power is not what most leaders think it is

The word itself comes from the Old French ‘pouair’, meaning to be able.

Not to control. Not to dominate. Not to defend.

Simply: to be able.

Somewhere between the 12th century and the modern boardroom, something got lost in translation.

In twenty years of working with senior leaders, I have come to one consistent conclusion: a leader’s relationship with power is the foundation of everything. The culture they build, the decisions they make, the impact they leave behind — all of it flows from how they understand and exercise power.

Most leaders have never examined that relationship. They don’t need to — until the environment shifts and the assumptions stop working.

There are four kinds of power worth understanding.

Ego-centric power is where leadership begins. Control, status, personal agenda. A game of one-upmanship where thinking is short-term and decisions are reactive. Every leader starts here to some degree. The ones who stay here cause damage — particularly when organisational hierarchy gives them the authority to do so without consequence.

Positional power is the one most leaders associate with power itself. The authority and responsibility that comes with the role. When used well, and when supported by healthy systems and culture, positional power enables progress and genuine impact. When combined with unchecked ego-centric power, it becomes something else entirely. Power over others, without accountability, is one of the most reliably destructive forces in organisational life.

Men and women experience these first two forms of power differently.

For most men, stepping into a position of power carries an inherited sense of entitlement — not always conscious, rarely examined, but present. The system was built for this. It feels familiar because it was designed to.

For most women, the experience is almost the opposite. These early forms of power are frequently encountered as forces of suppression before they are available as tools of leadership. The path to positional power, for a woman, often runs through the work of reclaiming something that was never freely given.

Which is why personal power is not optional. It is essential.

This is the power within. It develops when a leader builds genuine self-awareness and emotional regulation — the capacity to remain grounded under pressure, to lead from values rather than fear, to hold a clear sense of purpose when everything around them is uncertain and shifting.

A leader operating from personal power does not need to control the room. They can hold it.

And from that foundation, the fourth and most extraordinary form of power becomes possible.

Generative power is where exceptional leaders operate. This is the capacity to share power — deliberately, structurally, wholeheartedly — and in doing so, multiply the capability of everyone around them. Not power over others. Not even power alongside others. Power that creates more power.

This is the kind of leadership that builds organisations that outlast the leader. Cultures that don’t depend on a single person’s presence to function. Teams that bring their fullest thinking because they have been genuinely trusted with it.

Early leadership relies on control. Experienced leadership relies on authority.

Mature leadership relies on inner power. Exceptional leadership multiplies the power of others.

The question worth sitting with this week is a simple one.

Which kind of power are you leading from right now?

And which kind does the moment actually require?