Points of Power

Every month, Toastmasters District 24 leaders (folks who help Toastmasters clubs in mostly Nebraska) get together for an educational session. This month was a special session presented in person by our Region Advisor (someone who assists several Districts) Jamie Pickering.

The session was about self-motivation and self-leadership, including discovering the power you may already have without realizing it.  Though the session mostly covered things I had already considered, I thought it was worth drawing attention to the "five points of power" that Jamie discussed.  As Jamie stated, we are unlikely to have large amounts of all five points of power, but we certainly have at least some degree of some of them.

The five points of power are:

1. Knowledge - what you know
2. Personal - interpersonal skills and vision
3. Relationship - connections to others in power
4. Task - control over resources or tasks
5. Position - title or authority to make decisions

In my job, I feel I have a lot of knowledge power and a fair amount of personal and relationship power.  I know quite a lot about computer programming (knowledge) that helps me complete work effectively.  I seek to interact with others, discover their talents, and share my ideas with them in an inspiring manner (personal).  I know and interact with several people at my company who have their own power (relationship).  My task and position power are lower, but not completely absent.  I was recently made the Tech liaison for a new hire training program (task) and I do have a fairly high job title (position) though I am still an "individual contributor" without direct reports.

Seeing the five points of the power in this training re-emphasized for me that I have quite a bit of power in my job.  That makes me feel good.  However, I have seen others not feel the same way about themselves.  That makes me sad.

In the training, I commented on the fact that often people feel their power is "shut down" by those with "position" power.  This can be disheartening.  However, Jamie and others in the session encouraged finding ways to use what power you do have.  You can even use that power to appeal to that "position" power when appropriate.

Imagine in your job that you want to undertake a project that someone with more "position power" does not currently endorse, but which you think could be very valuable to the company.  How can you use your power to influence them?  If you are known as someone with a lot of knowledge, you can use that in a pitch to the person with position power.  If you have relationships connected to others the person with the position power knows, perhaps you can leverage them as a source of information about how to appeal to the person with position power.  If you have personal power, you could get others excited about your idea and work together to come up with a way to proceed even if you have limited formal support (though you should never go behind someone's back).  If you have task power, you can use it to show the person in position power that you have the resources needed to make this project feasible.  

Not all of these approaches will work in all circumstances, but you can assess the situation and decide what might work for you.  If none of them work, you can try to find a different angle - maybe there is a different but related project you can undertake.  Maybe instead of trying to apply your idea at your job, you can implement a similar project in your community or your Toastmasters club.  If it goes well, then you have an example of success you can take back, and if it doesn't, you can learn from that too!

I hope everyone reading this will consider which of the five points of power they have and leverage those points of power to advocate for themselves and their ideas in their workplace, community, and even Toastmasters club.  If you aren't in a Toastmasters club, might I suggest one of the ones I'm in:  Rail Talkers, Club 229, or Tech Talkers?  Ask me for more info!