The truth about power in the workplace (and why pretending you don't have any is probably bollocks)

Power is like gravity: You don't have to believe in it for it to pull on everyone around you.

Why power literacy matters for healthy organisations

I'm sure many of us have been in a meeting when someone says, "Let's hear everyone's views..." but you feel the decision's already been made in the corridor, over lunch, or in the WhatsApp group you're not in.

That's power. And it's not inherently bad - unless you kid yourself into believing it isn't there.

A potentially uncomfortable truth is that everyone holds some form of power over someone else - always. In organisations, this isn't just a philosophical point. Research shows that the way power is used - or misused - is directly tied to employee engagement, retention, and innovation. Poorly handled, it triggers threat responses that narrow thinking, reduce trust, and push people into self-protective "play it safe" modes. Well-handled, it builds the psychological safety that allows risk-taking, collaboration and performance to flourish.

This is why I have come to believe that the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF), developed for the mental health professions, is potentially highly valuable for leaders. Originally designed to help psychologists understand human distress without reducing it to a diagnosis, it has profound application to leadership. The questions it asks cut through euphemism and force us to see how leadership decisions land in the lived experiences of others. They also challenge one of the biggest blind spots in organisational life: Power doesn't have to be intentional to be harmful. Threat is in the eye of the beholder - and meaning is made in their mind, not the leaders'.

I'm going to walk you through the thinking as it applies in our leadership lives.

The every day currency of power

If you're a CEO, it's obvious. If you're a team lead, it's baked into your role. If you're the office administrator who controls power-holding people's diaries, you have it too. Even in friendships, relationships, and families. Power is everywhere:

• Who earns more;
• Who controls information;
• Who controls the finances;
• Who influences the emotional energy in a room;
• Who has veto rights over decisions...

Most people think that power is about big moves - where to spend, hiring, firing, budgets, and so forth.

But it's not: Power shows up in the tiny, everyday ways you set the tone, open doors, or quietly close them.

What psychotherapy training is teaching me about this in leadership

As a psychotherapist-in-training, a coaching psychologist, and with 20 years in HR, including C-suite roles, I've seen more careers and lives damaged by unspoken power dynamics than by bad strategy or relationship breakdowns.

Thanks to groundbreaking work sponsored by the British Psycholoigcal Society, in response to over-pathologising and medicalisation of psychological distress, we have what's known as the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) (courtesy of Lucy Johnstone and Mary Boyle).

I personally don't like the title, but I don't like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual title either (which the PTMF was designed specifically to replace.) And as I've worked my way through it, I've started to feel that its premise could be gold dust for leadership, because it forces us to look at power without euphemisms: Rather than 'diagnosing problems' and asking "what's wrong with you?", the PTMF asks:

1. What's happened to you? (Where has power been used over you?)
2. What resources, agency, or status was removed from you as a result of that power being used over you?
3. How did you make sense of that - what story did you tell yourself?
4. What did you then have to do to survive (habits adopted, character armour put on, tactics learned, etc.)?

The PTMF says distress is often a logical human response to threats to our sense of safety, dignity, or agency - and that those threats usually come from how power is used (or abused) around us.

Looking at this through a leadership lens, you get some gut-punching questions many leaders are potentially (though understandably) avoiding:

1. Where might you be creating threat without meaning to? (E.g. shooting down ideas too quickly, making decisions without explaining the rationale, etc.)
2. What resources or forms of agency might you be taking away - even indirectly / inadvertently? (E.g. pulling finances from functions without conversations, taking over client relationships 'for efficiency', attending your direct report's team meetings without explanation, etc.)
3. What stories might your people be telling themselves and/or each other about you? (E.g. "She clearly doesn't trust me with the big stuff...", "He only promotes people like himself...", or "they pretend to consult but you know they've already decided.")
4. How are they adapting to 'survive' you? (E.g. staying quiet in meetings, sugar-coating or withholding bad news, taking fewer risks, and so forth.)

Like beauty, threat is in the eye of the beholder

Power doesn't have to be intentionally harmful to create threat. In fact, most of the time it isn't.

You might just think you're being efficient, making a call, or keeping things moving. But, like beauty, threat is in the eye of the beholder.

People don't react to your intent - they react to the meaning they make from your behaviour, sometimes based on their past experiences (of you, or otherwise), their identity, and their current sense of safety.

That's why the same action can land as 'empowering' to one person, and 'undermining' to another. If you ignore that gap, you risk missing the silent damage your otherwise well-meaning decisions or actions might be doing.

Let me outline some more examples, to really bring it home.

What's happened to you?

This could be ideas being dismissed in meetings, or inviting someone to apply for a role that you know they're never going to get. It could be a project they'd been promised then being quietly handed over to someone else without explanation. It could be your checking in daily in a way that feels like surveillance, even if intended as support. In each case, someone else's power (possibly yours) has shaped their opportunities and experiences - whether meant or not. Threat is in the eye of the beholder; intent doesn't cancel impact.

What's been taken from you?

This could be confidence, influence, access to decision-making, autonomy over their time or place of work (ahem: non-consultative RTO.) It could be budget, visibility, or the ability to decide how work gets done. When leaders cut people out of conversations, block resources, or reassign work without notice, they're not just making operational changes - they're taking something someone values. You may see it as 'optimising', but the person on the receiving end may experience it as loss.

How did you make sense of it?

In the absence of a clear explanation, we tell ourselves stories. Stories like, "Maybe I'm not good enough", "Speaking up here is dangerous", "It's all politics and I'm on the losing side", and "This place doesn't value people like me." These stories become reality if they're reinforced enough times (think: Self-fulfilling Prophecy.) You may have thought you were just making a call or streamlining, but the meaning someone takes from it could be deeply personal.

What did you have to do to survive?

This is adaptation. Perhaps that meant making oneself small, becoming quieter, avoiding the more powerful people in meetings, playing it safe. It could also mean hypervigilance, overpreparing for every meeting, watching every tone and word choice like your career (or life!) depends on it - because it might! Some adapt by becoming political, aligning with the most powerful voices. Others retreat entirely, disengaging while counting the days until they leave. The trigger may not have been intended as threatening, but survival model doens't wait for confirmation of intent.

Leadership red flags

The Promotion Block... Someone in your team has applied for a promotion twice. Both times, you told them "it's not the right time."

• Power = You're controlling their advancement.
• Threat = They're losing career momentum, status, and/or desired income.
• Meaning = They're not feeling valued here, and they're excluded from a perceived 'inner circle'.
• Their survival response = Stop applying, look elsewhere, and/or disengage and coast their way through work until you fire them or they find something they want to go and do.

The Surprise Takeover... You've been leading a team for six months. You're making great progress. You're feeling conected to the team and the results are moving from amber to green. Then all of a sudden, your C-suite boss says, "I'm going to ask Shriva to take on your team alongside hers... she has more experience than you do." Wow.

• Power = Senior leader controls structural decisions.
• Threat = Loss of credit, visibility, influence, leadership experience.
• Meaning = They don't trust me anymore, and I was clearly just a placeholder.
• Survival response = Say no to managing teams in future, work to rule as an individual contributor, emotionally disengage, and leave.

The Meeting After the Meeting... Jake presents an ROI case for a new system. People smile, nod, and say, "This looks great - well done for coming up with it - I think it's something we should do." And then Jake finds out the decision not to go ahead was made by you, after consulting your peers. What do we think happens to Jake here?

• Power = Access to the actual decision making forum.
• Threat = Jake is locked out of influencing the outcome of your peer consultation.
• Meaning = Jake believes his input no longer matters, and that presenting ROI cases - and hearing the initial outcome - is just for show.
• Jake's survival response is then to stop putting in his best effort, focus on protecting his own turf, and withholding all future ideas -- taking them to another company just 3 months later.

The PTMF doesn't let leaders hide behind intent; you might not mean to create threat. But if your actions - or the organisational system you uphold - make people feel disempowered, unsafe, or undervalued, their reaction isn't being "difficult". It's a rational human adaptation to power.

From soapbox to toolbox

I've taken some time to really think about this. It's always important to me that I offer as much practical guidance, advice, and/or support after standing on my soapbox...

If you suspect 'what's happened to you?' moments are occurring...

• Pause before acting: Ask, "If I were them and on the receiving end of this, how might it land?"
• Narrate decisions in real time: Don't just make the change - explain the "why" and the "how".
• Seek feedback early: Use a quick, "How are you feeling about this?" to surface unintended impact before it festers.

And if it's already happened:

• Acknowledge it without defensiveness, e.g. "I can see how that decision impacted you... even if that wasn't my intention."
• Explain context without making excuses. Offer the reasoning, constraints and pressures, but avoid "you misunderstood me" language (no-one needs to be accused of 'gaslighting' now, do they.)
• Involve them in next steps: Give them a voice in how to move forward or adapt the change.

If you risk 'what's been taken from you?' situations...

• Map what people value - don't assume, ask. Autonomy, visibility, decision rights, flexibility... know what's most important to each person in your team.
• Offer choices where possible - even small degrees of choice preserve agency.
• Replace what you remove - if you MUST take away one form of resource, replace it with another. E.g. reduced decision rights but more support or access.

And if it's already happened:

• Name the loss - "I realise moving this project removed a level of visibility you valued."
• Return what you can: Restore some decision-making rights, flexibility, or resources wherever possible.
• Offer a tangible replacement: Access to a different high-impact project, networking opportunity, or public praise / recognition for work already done.

If you think 'how did you make sense of it' stories might be forming...

• Close the story gap... People will invent explanations if you don't provide one.
• Be transparent about constraints... share context, trade-offs, and what's still unknown.
• Check the story they're holding... Ask, "What's your take on what's happened?"... and then correct or confrim it with care.

And if it's already gone South:

• Surface the story. Ask directly, "What's your understanding of why this happened?"
• Correct gently: Replace assumptions with facts, using transparency to reduce threat.
• Reset the narrative together: Agree on shared understanding and outline clear expectations going forward.

If 'what did you have to do to survive?' adaptations are showing up...

• Spot the signs: Silence, guarded language, over-preparation, or total disengagement are bright red flags.
• Name the shift: "I've noticed you seem quieter lately... what's changed for you?"
• Rebuild safety: Create low-risk opportunities to contribute (121s, smaller groups) and reward constructive risk-taking with both gratitude and praise when it happens.

... and if the survival tactic has become the norm...

• Acknowledge the adaptation - "I've noticed you've been more cautious lately and I'm keen to understand why..."
• Rebuild safety in small steps - start with low-stakes opportunities for contribution and follow through on your promises.
• Recognise and reward openness - publicly value constructive risk-taking to show the environment has shifted.

So what?

The PTMF doesn't ask us as leaders to walk on eggshells. But it does ask us to pay attention. You don't have to intend harm to cause it; meaning is made in the mind of the person experiencing your power. When you understand that, prevention and repair stop being about 'damage control' and start being about building a climate where people can do their best work without armouring up. That's not softness, it's strategic leadership. Because when people feel safe, respected, valued and resourced, they bring you their best ideas, their honest feedback, and the kind of commitment you can't buy with a bonus or a beer.

In my coaching and HR work, some of the most uncomfortable - yet deeply transformational - conversations have been about the kinds of power people didn't even know they had.

Social Justice and Power - the part people sometimes pretend is someone else's job

It would be horribly remiss of me to talk about power without talking about who actually gets it, and who doesn't. This is where race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and other 'identity markers' stop being "HR matters" and become core leadership responsibilities (and this isn't a HR professional shirking responsibility, either!)

The truth is, if we're all really honest with ourselves, most workplaces are just not neutral playing fields. They're historically skewed systems where power has been concentrated in certain hands for centuries. You don't fix that by delivering an inclusion workshop or writing it as an organisational value.

How power plays out along identity lines

• Race - people of colour are underrepresented in senior roles and overrepresented in low-authority roles. Barriers aren't just hiring bias - they're about access to networks, sponsorship, and, frankly, the benefit of the doubt.
• Gender - women face the "glass ceiling" (getting in) and the "glass cliff" (getting high-risk roles with low support.) What's referred to as 'leadership material' is still often coded as white, male, and extroverted.
• Sexual orientation and gender identity - LGBTQ+ employees navigate the risk of being fully 'out' at work. The power here is about who controls your narrative, and whether authenticity costs you progression.
• Disability and neurodivergence - formal accommodations are one thing. Informal acceptance is another. Power is in meeting structures, "always on" cultures, and unspoken rules.

The subtle and dangerous side of workplace power

Bias-based power is rarely loud. It's:

• Who gets called on first;
• Who's unofficially mentored;
• Who's told "you're not ready" without a roadmap / meaningful development plan;
• Whose mistakes get quietly fixed / covered up vs. publicly dissected.

This is structural power (Kanter) - baked into who's visible and who's invisible.

The leadership responsibility

If you lead, you inherit your organisation's power dynamics. You have two choices:

1. Pretend it's just the way things are, or;
2. Get literate in how identity shapes access to power - and act.

That means:

• Audit access - who's in the room for key decisions?
• Change gatekeepers - rotate budget sign off, meeting chairs, high-profile work, and fire the Devil who Schedules Prada.
• Interrupt bias in real time - don't outsource it to a f-ing workshop.
• Sponsor, don't just mentor - advocate for people in rooms they're not in yet.

This isn't just fairness. It's performance enhancing. Identity-based exlusion creates chronic threat, strips resources, shapes meaning ("I don't belong") and forces suvival responses (masking, overworking, playing small.) Minimising that exclusion will get more out of everyone.

And make no mistake: The quiet, patterned power that decides who leads and who follows is the most dangerous of all.

I write all this as a white gay man. That means I've walked into most rooms already holding a lot of unearned power - and also walked into some rooms feeling the weight of being "other". Both experiences have shaped me. The privilege means I've often been given the benefit of the doubt before I'd earned it. The under-privelege means I've learned what it's like to edit myself for safety. Leadership, for me, is about holding both truths at once - noticing where the system tilts in my favour, naming it, and using it to make space for others. And when it doesn't tilt my way, using that lived experience to stay human, listen harder, and lead in a way that doesn't require anyone else to shrink to fit.

A sigh that silenced

I worked with one leader who insisted - swore down - that he empowered his people. (Even using 'empowered' implies you still hold more of it, in my opinion!) "They know they can challenge me any time," he said.

Except I observed that every time someone did challenge him, he'd give "the sigh". Not an angry outburst, not a rant. Just a slow exhale, and a slight tilt of his head, followed by slowly saying, "Well, I'm not sure that's the right approach."

Within no less than a month, his team stopped challenging him and making suggestions. Any that they did were arguably performative, to not bring to his attention what was going on. And not because they suddenly agreed with him - but because it simply wasn't worth the invisible cost.

He didn't see himself as 'abusing power'. But from his team's perspective, his micro-signals were a threat to credibility and belonging.

So they adapted, played it safe, avoided risk-taking, and mirrored the boss. Creativity shrank to fit his comfort zone.

The Devil Schedules Prada

Different client, different scale. In this anecdote, the most powerful person was not on the Exec team. She attended the meetings. But she wasn't on the team. She didn't sign contracts - with her own signature, at least. She didn't lead strategy discussion and planning. But she did control the CEO's diary, email filters, and travel plans. And if she didn't like you, good luck getting any time beyond the weekly 121 with the boss.

On paper, she had zero formal authority. In reality, she could make or break careers. That's informational and gatekeeping power - often invisible, but incredibly potent.

What the research says (in everyday people's language...)

French and Raven were the ones who identified six power bases. You probably learned about them somewhere during school or university. They are:

• Expert Power - you know your shit, and people respect you for it.
• Referent Power - people trust you and want to be like you. Think the cool older sibling who bought your booze.
• Reward Power - you've got the treats: Promotions, bonuses, corner offices. Can be motivating, but addictive for both sides.
• Coercive Power - The stick to Reward's carrot. Works immediately because of the fast-acting, unthinking fear response it inspires in others... But if overused... You get the gist.
• Legitimate Power - "because I'm the boss". Hierarchically true, but socially and relationally lethal if you pull that card too freely.
• Informational Power - you have the data, the gossip, and/or the context. Hoard it and you're Gollum; share it and you're like Gandalf.

Long and short: Build expert and referent power. Use the others like hot sauce - sparingly and only when the dish can take it.

Beyond this, Keltner's "Approach-Inhibition" Theory says power messes with your head - chemically. Here's the sciencey bit... Power activates the brain's approach system (dopamine, motivation, action), making you bolder, quicker and more decisive. Sounds great, until you remember it also inhibits your inhibition system (like a bottle of wine); this is the one that says, "maybe don't interrupt Billy mid-sentence" or "perhaps double-check if this will ruin morale..." The upside is obviously that shit gets done. But the downside... You might stop noticing the small emotional craters you've leaving behind you. It's just leadership with a bit too much Red Bull running through its veins.

The Voice Whisperer, Amy Edmondson, gave us Psychological Safety. And there's an awful lot that's been built on this since she brought it to us in 1999. It basically boils down to this: People will speak truth to power only if they think it won't cost them their job, their credibility, or their standing at the Christmas Party. Every time someone considers speaking up, their brain runs a microsecond algorithm...

It's risk of speaking vs. risk of staying silent.

If the risk of speaking even feels higher, you'll get nodding heads, safe answers, and that awkward post-meeting WhatsApp group where the real opinions come out.

Your job as a leader...? Make the "it's safe to say this" calculation so easy for others that they don't even notice they're doing it.

The Gatekeeper's Watcher, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, looked beyond personality and straight into the structural plumbing of organisations. She found that power isn't just in titles - it's in access... Access to things like:

• Exciting projects;
• Budget sign off;
• Meeting invitations.

Essentially, she said that if the same type of person always gets these, you're not running a meritocracy, you're running a cloning programme. And it's the same six people congratulating each other in the same conference room, wondering why innovation feels stale.

Lukes and Foucault - dubbed the 'puppet masters of the possible' - said power comes in three distinct flavours:

1. Overt - make a decision (obvs.);
2. Agenda-setting - decide what gets talked about;
3. Shaping desires - decide what people even want to talk about.

Michel Foucault took this further and said it's not just meetings, it's the whole architecture of what's "normal" around here. The KPIs, the metrics, the "values" - all of them effectively training people in what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. It's building the stage and deciding the script before anyone steps on it.

The Good Silencer

One chap I worked with prided himself on being "one of the team". He sat with them, he knew everyone, had super-low ego, and I'd say sometimes he was a bit more like a shop steward than a manager. But in meetings, he'd jump in early with ideas. His team absolutely loved him - but once he'd spoken, no-one disagreed. "Why bother?" they thought... Plan B was dead before it was ideated.

He thought he was "leading from the front." In reality, he was unintentionally narrowing the range of ideas - a textbook case of Lukes' third dimension of power.

Getting fluent with power

The bottom line is... Whatever your role, whether you like it or not, you have power, so please stop pretending that you don't. Instead, get fluent with it.

• Map your power sources - list every form you hold and over whom (formal authority, budget, hiring/firing, agenda setting, information access, social influence, expertise, emotional leverage, and so forth.)
• Audit the "choke points" - this is where careers, projects, resources, etc., get stuck... Who's in control? Is it always the same person or same type of person?
• Design for voice... Build low-risk channels for dissent, like anonymous feedback, rotating meeting chairs, team challenges. And try not to give your view first if you can help it.
• Balance your power diet: Lean on expert and referent power, use reward carefully, and save coercion for breaches of ethics, laws, or safety - not for missed KPIs.
• Watch out for side effects... Power makes you faster and more certain. Try counterbalancing it with deliberate perspective-taking. Ask yourself often, "What am I missing?" and mean it.
• Use the PTMF. If someone reacts strongly to you, ask:

"What threat might they feel from my power?" "What meaning might they attach to it?" "What survival tactics might they be using right now, possibly unconsciously?"

Power isn't evil. But unconscious power can be dangerous. Because you'll think you're just "getting shit done" while others are quietly adapting to survive around you - and the creativity, trust and growth you need for yourself and everyone else is slowly dying in the background.

If you lead people, your first job is not just to use power. It's to understand it, and choose how best to use it - and facilitate others' good use of it, as well.

You may already know you have power. But do you really know how it feels to be on the other side of it? This has been some of the work I've done through my career - mapping power, making it conscious, and turning it into a force people want to follow.

If you want to understand the power you hold, and the power you're giving away, start mapping it now.

References

• Edmondson, A. (1999) Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarerly, 44 (2), pps 350-383.
• Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon, New York.
• French, J.R.P. and Raven, B. (1959) The Bases of Social Power, in Cartwright, D. (ed.) Studies in Social Power. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, pps 150-167.
• Johnstone, L. and Boyle, M. (2018) The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the Identification of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled or Troubling Behaviour, as an alternative to functional psychiatric diagnosis. British Psychological Society, Leicester.
• Kanter, R.M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. Basic Books, New York.
• Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D.H. and Anderson, C. (2003) Power, approach and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110 (2), pps265-284.
• Lukes, S. (1974/2005) Power: A Radical View. 2nd Ed. Macmillan, London.