Inner Leadership - Power Is An Inner Experience

The widespread use, the change of power is, however, often accompanied by conflict, confusion and doubt, largely because it is very often a taboo subject and is pursued as a rule alone and in silence.

A few years ago when I was a consultant for a major company, experienced an exciting but painful lesson in the ways of power that helps clarify this problem. I was asked to advise their managers on the New Management, and were intrigued to see that a more effective type of corporation could be developed using these principles. Then he asked me to help implement this concept in its operations.

Well, you can imagine that I was flying high at the prospect that my ideas brought to life. It made me realize the non-attraction, addiction, which accesses that taste great power. The use of capacity to influence the opinion of others is a heady, delicious feeling. In contrast to the struggle of everyday life, power transmitting a sense of control over our environment. As the political TV talk show host John McLaughlin said: "Power is an experience as intense as sex.

But the story gets better. The company asked me to undertake a project which requires obtaining the support of twenty-five other large corporations. When the project was completed, I organized a meeting of all directors to discuss the results. At the meeting, I Strode to the podium savoring the thrill of accomplishment, made some brief remarks, noting that this project had been successful because everyone has worked together cooperatively.

Unfortunately, made the mistake of taking my remarks by saying that far too should develop a similar spirit of cooperation with their employees, customers and other stakeholders. Suddenly, looking out at all the faces, I felt waves of resentment flowing toward me. It was felt quite rightly that I was misusing my role to lecture them. When the full force of his anger hit, I was plunged into the nightmare that haunts the speakers, a panic attack. In front of all those important people that I had wanted to impress, there is simply without words, unable to find a way out of my terror. It was only a few seconds, really, but it seems like an endless ordeal.

I describe both the highs and low from this experience, although both are embarrassing in different ways, to illustrate how deeply they often experience the use of power. Think of a time when he addressed a tough situation interpersonal well and felt a warm sense of accomplishment when you or a situation correctly and felt the power drain. Such sentiments are common because deep jousting in the field of power is a fact of life, and today the game is played on a psychological level as evidence that our beliefs, knowledge, and against others. It would be great if we could all work together cooperatively, but that does not happen very often.

Whole libraries have been written about the traits of leadership styles and skills in order to clarify these murky issues. This "external" in sight, with an emphasis on the behavior of the leader, is useful, but loses the interior of reality from which emanates power. In the experience described above, my behaviour and outside of my hearing does not make sense without understanding the internal forces at work: my pushy need to change these executives, their sense of resentment, fear my reaction in the attack panic, and so on. Here's how Robert Rabbin, head of a consulting firm that helps managers to cultivate this kind of inside knowledge, describes it:

Learning about awareness teaches us that life is indeed an "inside job". Our experiences and capabilities are a mark of our consciousness. The quality of our consciousness determines the quality of our lives and actions.