decentralizing power

What does decentralizing power actually mean?

One of its dictionary definitions is the dispersion or distribution of functions and powers, specifically, the delegation of power from a central authority to regional and local authorities.

But I’d like to point out two things.

1) In the world we’re co-creating, the delegation of power extends even further than regional and local ‘authorities’ and goes right back to every single individual. 

2) underneath all of this lingo and jargon, what it boils down to is this; our ability to build real and reciprocal relationships with others and with the natural world. 

Decentralizing power cannot be effectively achieved without our ability to build strong relationships and communities, because essentially, it's the transfer of power from one entity to many, and those multiple entities (us) need to have the capacity, the structure and the integrity to hold that power. Without these, the power would fall back to the old hierarchical systems.

As we build these skills, a natural redistribution of power occurs. It’s an organic process, deliberately fragmented by capitalism, which would rather have us feeling isolated, lonely and devoid of true intimacy. When in this state, we can turn to unhealthy behaviours and addictions to fill the void that only healthy relationships can bring; and capitalism is more than primed to feed these addictions in exchange for our money. We’re then left traumatized and frozen, afraid to feel, wary to reach out, mistakenly convinced that we’re the only ones experiencing this feeling.

It's become evident to many of us that we will not be saved by any one government. We are starting to realize that we are the ones who will be saving each other and this planet. This is decentralization of power in action. Shopping locally and ethically. Supporting those in our immediate communities and building relationships globally. Sharing our personal resources and power. Thinking about the many, not just the few. Doing the exact opposite of what has been modelled by those in power, particularly in the white western colonial world. 

In fact, it is the centralization of power that has caused most of the problems we see today. It’s the reason why men like Benjamin Netanyahu can continue to carry out a year-long genocide in Palestine, despite literally millions of people around the world protesting, striking, appealing and boycotting against it. One man’s ideas somehow prevail against millions of peoples’, who despite trying, do not have the ‘power’ to stop him, because so much power has been siphoned into him. A huge amount of military protection and funding has been unjustifiably granted to him by other global elites and governments in similar positions of unearned, protected power. Together, they maintain the dominant patriarchal status quo and imperialist ideologies. 

The good news is that these ideologies once were, like everything else, just ideas. And we do have the power to imagine and bring new worlds into being. It requires a certain amount of commitment and small acts of faith that all add up, as well as building communities of people who hold similar visions, particularly across diversity. Even during moments of despair, those around us can carry the torch while we grieve, allow ourselves to rest and feel what we need to feel, before picking it up again. 

So how does this impact everyday leaders on the ground? Those who still have to run organizations, recruit, train and manage teams? 

What happens on the global scale is a reflection of the intimate and the personal. We’re living with the unhealthy centralization of power in many of our families, communities and workplaces, where it is unquestioningly distributed to only a few, based on race, gender and other societal factors. In workplaces, the people who strive for leadership roles often have unhealed wounds around power, domination and control. I would assume that we’ve all experienced this type of leader, and we all know exactly how the feelings we experienced under their abuse of power affected our self-esteem, our motivation, our everyday lives and our relationships. These things are rarely contained; the impact spreads rapidly and indiscriminately into everyone and everything around us. 

Yet even within the old hierarchical structures and systems, we can start to redistribute power. This starts with acknowledging the power we are given as leaders, and by giving that power back to the group that we're stewarding. 

Many leaders feel the need to monitor and micromanage their team’s every action to the point where it becomes incredibly difficult for people to operate within their own free will. Usually, this is not because the team is ‘hard to manage’, but because the leader is unconsciously driven by their own insecurities and unmet needs. The team then becomes the unfortunate playground for these unhealthy dynamics to be projected outwards and run havoc. When someone is drawn to leadership positions to feel a sense of control over people, this is exactly what makes them one of the most unsafe people for the role. 

There can also be an effort by the leader to turn their team into a homogenous entity, where everyone has to think, behave and work in a certain way; to reduce themselves to simply being another means of production, a cog in the machine, and less of a ‘headache’ for those in power. This is dehumanization; one of the unspoken cornerstones of capitalism.

The centralization of power occurs when some or all of these factors cause leaders to keep team members underskilled and too discouraged to grow in their roles, often because they believe they'll be replaced or seen as incompetent. If this resonates with you as a leader, I invite you to gently sit with these feelings and reflect on where they might come from. It's understandable that leaders feel insecure in their roles, but it's important to remember that this is not due to the people we work with, but a system which is based on the ideas of finite resource and competition. Projecting our own fears onto the team will not only devolve our leadership but it will lead to miserable dynamics both inside and outside of the group. 

It could be said that healthy leadership renders the need to make itself obsolete. That members of the group are upskilled and encouraged to eventually be free of the need for someone to lead them. The leader, therefore, becomes more of a mentor, as and when needed, guiding people back to their own authority and abilities. 

And even though many managers still have to produce ‘evidence’ of their leadership as part of their role, the mindset of decentralizing power can still be the cornerstone of their work. In fact, empowering people to trust their own abilities will free up energy to carry out other necessary work and focus on creative ways forward. 

In many ways, our team is a big part of our community. Especially in a workplace context, these are the people who we inevitably spend the most time with. We don’t often choose everyone there, and neither do they always choose us, but we are responsible for building healthy relationships with them based on respect, trust and collaboration, and for helping to create a harmonious environment. Building a strong sense of community within our team can create more resilience during challenging times, a stronger sense of personal fulfilment, and bring more laughter and joy during time spent together.

And when issues do arise within the team, there are also ways of managing conflict which can help build more intimacy rather than separation. I’ll be exploring this further in future posts.

So I would like to leave us all with an invitation to rethink what leadership looks like. How can we integrate the idea of collective liberation into our daily working lives? How creative can we become with this? How many different ways can we give power back to the people we work with, so that we all feel fulfilled, seen and valued for who we are and what we bring to the table? 

Until next time, take care of yourselves.

If you’re a leader who would like to dive further into this work with me on a 1:1 level, I offer consultancy sessions, so feel free to get in touch.