Archive - March 2023

Power and place – and invisible women

She was a senior manager in a male-dominated environment. Did she really need power in order to establish and maintain her position?  Did she have power by virtue of her position, and if so, only because of her position?  How did her power show up and how did she think it showed up? How can women reclaim their power in a balanced, proportionate, appropriate way when they feel it’s been misplaced between the genders?  Factors that help include leaders who have humility, sensitivity and perceptiveness, and contexts of real psychological safety and openness to learning.  This might well be the stuff of development once leaders have realised the central role of psychological safety in effectiveness, collaboration, teamwork, innovation and improvement. importantly, it’s worth remembering that power isn’t simply external, something that goes on between oneself and others.  It’s also internal: a sense of power that we create inside ourselves, a message to ourselves about our place in the world and about our agency over our own lives, behaviours, and patterns of thinking and acting.