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love to have it, but hate to have it exercised over them.
Teaching conflict resolution and leadership skills
includes teaching people how to use power and how to
work in the presence of power. This is particularly impor-
tant when working cross-culturally, the norm in California
and many other places.
leaders, the subject of power came up in an
interesting way. Representatives of American
nonprofit organizations have immense power in devel-
oping countries. They represent unfathomable resources
to the people they serve.
with being treated like powerful people, since back
home they are not very powerful. Now comes the
problem: how can someone who wants to be
not-powerful empower someone who is powerless?
After all, what relief, development and mission workers
set out to do is empower people to take care of them-
selves better.
political sense of giving authority to act on another's
behalf, it includes the idea of sharing power. Power is not
a zero sum game. There is an indefinite amount available.
One gets power from other people. Citizens share their
power by giving governments the authority to act on
their behalf. One way government uses that authority is
to protect citizens who become vulnerable. When
governments respond to natural disasters they are doing
so on behalf of all their citizens to benefit some of their
citizens.
underdeveloped country they act on behalf of those
who sent them. They are given power to use for the
agreed purpose. If they try to hang on to the power, it
shrivels up. The people they want to help realize that
power is not flowing from the person, and it simply dies
away. If they share it, it multiplies by combining with the
power people had before to make even more power
than there was in the first place.
The idea that love grows as you give it away has been an
American pop culture fixture for decades, sparked by the
Malvina Reynolds song "Magic Penny" of the 1950s.
Power is like that. A would-be despot has little power in
the beginning. It must be gained by sharing what little
there is with others interested in acquiring power.
the despot authority to act on their behalf, power has
been achieved.
almost requires sharing the other. So how does one share
power in a relief, development or missions context? It is
widely acknowledged that oppressed people are never
given power; they must take it from their oppressor.
When the power is possessed by someone who wants to
do good, can it be given, or must it be taken even then?
leader who was working with an indigenous
missionary. As it turned out, the missionary was from a
low-status tribe whose main claim to regional fame was
"they will eat anything." Worse yet, he married a woman
from a universally despised group. The missionary could
only reach people with little social status, since no one
else respected him. The American mission leader did not
realize all these things. When the American visited the
missionary wanted to take him around like a visiting
prince, introducing him to people and giving him the
best of everything. The American resisted this treatment
since he was there to serve, not be served.
was taking the American's power by showing him off.
Since the American had great social status, being associ-
ated with him raised the missionary's status. No matter
how the American protested being treated in princely
fashion, the missionary persisted, knowing that he could
speak to people while the American was present who
would not otherwise be willing to meet. Now that he is
aware of these dynamics, the American is ready to go
and let himself be used, since that is how he can
empower the missionary.
and they in turn empower us. The tighter we hold on to
power, the less we have. As St. Francis said, "it is in giving
that we receive."
Pacific University School of
Business and the Center for
Peacemaking and Conflict
Studies. He is the author of
Conflict and Peacemaking
Across Cultures.