Abuse of Power

A coworker stood in the doorway of my office musing about a wide variety of things.  She mentioned her interest in reading on the topic of the use and abuse of power in the workplace.  I was in the midst of exercising my power (not over her) as the manager of my group.  The question caused me to stop and think.

It strikes me that there are two ways to abuse power:  The stereotype is the capricious, ego-centric, unreasonable, fist-pounding leader who exercises power like a sit-com manager.  The other abuse of power is the failure to use legitimate authority when it is needed.  If child neglect is child abuse, then leadership neglect is power abuse.

The former is obvious and stereotypical.  So for the moment, let's consider why we may fail to exercise legitimate authority:

1. We don't know what to do.
2. We are afraid of the conflict
3. We want to protect the vulnerable (a variant of #2)

Option 1 seems easy enough to fix... go get help or advice or, in the case of the truly unsolvable problem, at least take first steps to understand what you're facing.

But for Options 2 and 3, the question seems to bring up moral dilemmas... Do I fire this person for non-performance even though she's the sole wage earner in her family?  Do I redefine this person's assignment to align to the business needs even though this puts him outside of his circle of expertise?  

But we need to see that the failure to address legitimate leadership needs with clarity, though apparently kind or considerate nearly always ends with delayed and amplified anger, frustration, or misunderstanding.  I am learning that clear conversations, even if they're difficult to have, are always better to have early and often.  The anticipation of the difficulty of a conversation seems always ti be greater than the actual difficulty.

Clarity does not require unkindess, but leadership fuzziness is always unkind.