Navigating Power Dynamics in Leadership: A Guide for Students and Advisors
To create and maintain healthy group dynamics, understanding the interplay between power and personal empowerment has become crucial. While power differiential may exists on some level in all group settings, the misuse of power often manifests as control-seeking behavior, undue demands for respect, and prioritizing personal gains over collective progress. Power-happy behaviors, while sometimes perceived as necessary in crisis situations, often lead to negative consequences such as reduced well-being, increased conflict, and a stifling of creativity and inclusivity within groups.
The Leadership Challenge: Balancing Empowerment with Empathy
Leaders are encouraged to be vocal and assertive, promoting empowerment and confidence. However, the effectiveness of these messages can be undermined if not tempered with kindness and human dignity.
- The message leaders hear: Speak up
- Current gap: When the call to be empowered isn’t balanced with character education, you have a case of right message, wrong delivery.
To truly empower individuals, a values-driven approach is essential—one characterized by confidence, empathy, and using one’s voice and influence with a genuine desire to elevate others.
My post-COVID observations
As organizations returned to in-person and group settings, navigating larger group environments posed challenges. Leaders faced a daunting task.
- Members with leadership experience in this environment graduated or left. Newer members and leaders were learning as they were leading and without the opportunity to observe and learn from experienced leaders.
- During COVID, smaller, close-knit groups that formed during virtual interactions were praised and became the norm. While this led to the formation of meaningful friendships and likely retained members during COVID, as these groups merged back into larger entities, issues arose. Individuals struggled to adapt to larger, more complex settings leading to the emergence of new issues. What was once praised as finding a way to navigate social isolation (small friend groups, pods) transformed into negative friend groups (cliques, bullies ) creating a divide among members.
- I observed more anger and frustration between members. There seemed to be a lower tolerance of one another.
Leaders were striving to pull the group back together by generating fun and excitement again compared to a virtual experience. In many cases, there were some wonderfully creative and positive ideas. In others, it presented itself as demanding and forceful.
The conflicts between individuals were less frequent virtually and there wasn’t as much debate and dialog over Zoom meetings. With lowered participation requirements during COVID, expectations were easier to meet and there was no need for organizational accountability. Confrontation was unfamiliar and unpracticed. The problem was compounded with only knowing a few people well. When members didn’t consider each other a close friends, it was difficult to confront behaviors and students shared with it didn’t seem like it was your place.
The absence of effective communication and established trust seemed to exacerbate misunderstandings and power imbalances. This, coupled with a lack of foundational education
in conflict resolution and values-based leadership, resulted in a power diffiential problem. On the individual level, there were stories of feeling silenced and pushed out. Others felt called to speak up or found those speaking up offputting. On the group level, traditions that may have not been happening at all before were occurring in small friend groups, big/little/family settings, and in roommate settings before/after milestone events or in social environments. Unregulated traditions, a lack of group-wide understanding of the neuses of hazing, and attempts to “bring back the fun” post-COVID, resulted in hazing entering or reentering the membership experience at times unbeknownst to leaders.
Strategies for Positive Change
From conversations with peers in the field, there was a readiness to address potential high-risk behaviors and to help groups come back together. Despsite the best efforts of leaders, advisors, and professionals, inter-personal issues and unhealthy small group events are still negatively impacting the membership experience. There is a need to harness the potential of personal empowerment while addressing power imbalances. Consider these options based on your own observations:
- Understand Power Dynamics: Gain a deeper understanding of how power operates within groups. French and Raven’s foundational research identifies five types of power—legitimate, reward, expert, referent, and coercive. Each type influences interactions differently. Help members, leaders, and advisors recognize behaviors that contribute to healthy empowerment versus those that perpetuate negative power differentials.
- Celebrate Positive Leadership: Highlight and learn from individuals who exhibit positive leadership traits. Analyze what makes their approach successful and how their behaviors foster a healthier group dynamic.
- Identify and Address Concerns: Focus on areas where power differentials impact group cohesion. Is it a misunderstood friend group? Perhaps several leaders who have become close and are demonstrating group-think. Engage with individuals who may be unknowingly perpetuating exclusionary or harmful behaviors, guage their intentions, and then coach on positive mindsets and help redirect unhealthy.
- Encourage Open Dialogue: Facilitate conversations and build member’s capacity to recognize hazing, problem-solving, and consensus-build. Encourage members to reflect on their roles in either perpetuating or alleviating power imbalances. Reinforce options on how to address and report hazing.
- Develop Essential Skills: Equip individuals with communication skills and self-awareness to navigate power dynamics constructively. Empower them to address unhealthy behaviors with empathy and clarity.
By taking exploring one or more of these options, organizations and communities can cultivate environments where personal empowerment thrives, and power is wielded responsibly. It’s through these intentional efforts that we can transform challenges into opportunities for growth, ensuring that every voice is heard, group experiences are hazing-free and safe, and every individual is empowered to contribute meaningfully.
As we navigate the complexities of power dynamics, let us remember that true empowerment lies not in demanding respect or authority, but in using our influence to uplift others. Together, we can build a future where leadership is synonymous with empathy, respect, and a commitment to collective well-being.
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Lorin Phillips focuses on crucial issues like hazing prevention, alcohol misuse, well-being, and peer leadership, aiming to empower students and communities to confidently address harm reduction and safety.