Power Is Misunderstood
Why the strongest organizations are the ones where capability is widely distributed rather than tightly held.
Previously on Giuseppe's Glimpse: In the last episode, we explored how AI agents are sitting between brands and customers, changing what it means to speak to your audience. Missed it? Catch up here! ✨
Buongiorno everyone 👋
Whether we like it or not, we’re all part of power dynamics at work.
Sometimes you have power over decisions, resources or direction. Sometimes you’re on the receiving end, waiting for approval or working within constraints set by someone else. These dynamics shape how things get done, how fast they move and how people feel about their work.
Over the years, I’ve watched organizations handle power in very different ways. Some use it to unlock potential. Others use it to maintain control. The difference in outcomes is dramatic.
Why the mismatch? I think it starts with a misunderstanding about what power actually means.
What is power?
To understand what power is, we need to look at its etymology. The word comes from the Latin potere, which combines potis (able) and esse (to be). Literally, “to be able.”
Not to control. Not to command. To be able.
This is quite different from how we use the word now, right? When someone says “she has power” in an organization, we usually mean she can make decisions that others have to follow. We think of power as something you hold over people. 💪
But the original meaning suggests something else entirely. Power as the ability to make things happen. To create conditions where action becomes possible. It’s closer to capability than control, closer to enabling than commanding.
When I look at it like this, it reframes a lot of what I’ve seen in organizations. Somewhere between ancient Rome and modern corporations, we changed what power means, and I think that shift matters more than we realize.
How organizations changed what power does
Most companies today are still built on models from the 19th and 20th centuries. That was an era focused on predictability, reliability and repetition. You got efficiency through standardization, scale through specialization, control through hierarchy.
In that world, power had one job: drive people toward predefined actions.
Work got broken into tasks. Tasks got assigned to roles. Roles got governed by rules, procedures and supervision. People weren’t there to decide what to do. They were there to execute what they were told. 🫡
From an operational perspective, this made sense. These systems worked incredibly well in stable environments. They reduced variance, increased output and made mass production possible at scale never seen before.
You could argue (and many do) that industrial progress required exactly this kind of power structure.
Where this starts breaking down
What worked in predictable environments struggles in volatile ones. 🥴
As markets became more dynamic, customer expectations more fluid and technology more pervasive, the same mechanisms that once created efficiency began to produce friction.
I’ve seen what happens when power gets used mainly to direct:
Decisions slow down
People stop taking initiative and wait for direction from above
Responsibility gets fuzzy
Everyone optimizes for following rules rather than solving problems
The critique from people who study organizations is that power designed to control action often ends up suppressing judgment. You stay safe, but you also stay slow. 🐌
I don’t think this is anyone’s fault. It’s just a mismatch between how we designed organizations and the world they now operate in. We’re using 20th-century logic for 21st-century problems.
What happens in complex environments
In complex environments, leaders can’t know enough to prescribe the right action at every level. You can’t issue instructions for everything because you don’t have all the information.
The challenge shifts from “get everyone aligned on what to do” to “create shared understanding of what matters.”
Power needs a different role here. Instead of telling people what to do, it needs to make them able to figure it out themselves. 💡
This connects back to that original meaning: power as capability rather than control.
From what I’ve seen, power used this way tends to:
Create clarity about direction without dictating every step
Build people’s capabilities so they don’t need constant supervision
Spread decision-making to where the information actually lives
In this version, you measure leadership by how much initiative and ownership flows outward, not by how many decisions flow upward for approval. 🎯
What this requires from leaders
This doesn’t mean abandoning structure or accountability. People who warn against “empowerment” have a point when they say it can become chaos dressed up as freedom.
The shift is more subtle.
Leaders need to move from being the source of answers to being the people who create conditions for good decisions:
Clear intent about what you’re trying to achieve
Shared principles for how to make choices
Decision rights that sit close to where the work happens
Trust that’s backed up by competence
When this works, organizations get more resilient. Not because they’re tightly controlled, but because they’re genuinely capable of responding to what’s in front of them. 🕺
People stop waiting for permission. They see what needs doing and do it.
Where is power?
Have you ever thought of how we recognize power in organizations?
If we pay attention to it, we’ll notice that we often look for it in the wrong places. Who makes the final call. Who controls the budget. Who needs to approve things. We equate power with authority.
But if the Latin root is right, and power really means “to be able,” then maybe we should look for it elsewhere. In how many people can make good decisions without escalation. In how quickly teams respond to problems without waiting for direction. In how much gets done when leaders aren’t in the room.
The most powerful organizations might actually be the ones where capability is widely distributed rather than tightly held. Where “to be able” applies to many people, not just a few at the top.
That’s harder to build than traditional hierarchy. It requires different instincts from leaders. But I suspect it’s the only approach that works when the world moves faster than any single person can process.
Stay curious 🙌
-gs
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