One Apple A Day #401
Yesterday, my friend Sujith made me think about the paradox of power.
Or better, the paradox of empowering.
We often hear about the need for a leader to “empower people”.
Empower means “give power or authority to”.
According to the dictionary “to empower someone means to give them the means to achieve something, for example, to become stronger or more successful”.
When we empower someone we are giving them power.
So, they will have the power to achieve what they want with their own strength.
But here’s the paradox of power.
When we give power to others, we are giving ourselves even more power over them.
Their power will be “given” by us, and that means that we have more power than them. So, on one side we want to empower others, but on the other hand, we are taking away power from that same people because their power comes from us.
If we really want people to have the power to achieve what they want, we shouldn’t empower them. What we can do is to hold the space and allow them to create their own power in their own way.
The real power is self-generated.
Empowering is a self-discovery journey.