Power and Beyond
Recently a friend asked what I’ve been thinking about power and leadership at this point in my life, forty years after my book Real Power was published. Wow, that is a big and delicious question! I’ve tried to distill my responses in just a few pages😊
I’ll focus on the three most meaningful phases of leadership and power in my model and share what I’ve learned about navigating them in forty years! Each phase has a challenge or invitation that needs to be addressed to keep growing into the next phase. I will also include a new phase of being beyond power and leadership. So here we go with my story, others’ stories of how they navigated the three phases, and a few evocative questions to see how each phase resonates with you!
Phase One: Leading from the Front: Embracing your unique personal power
Invitation: Cultivating your outer gifts by cultivating your inner journey.
Corresponding power stages: Moving through stages one, two and three.
Phase Two: Leading from the Middle: Wrestling with your personal power
Invitation: Embracing “choice points” that will promote your growth.
Corresponding power stages: Stage four and the Wall.
Phase Three: Leading from Behind: Relinquishing your personal power
Invitation: Finding your true presence and legacy by releasing what you’ve outgrown.
Corresponding power stages: Stages five and six.
Being: Thriving Beyond Power and Leadership
Invitation: Living Eternal Love by untethering from all else.
Leading from the Front (your own personal front)
In our western culture, leadership and power have most often been associated with roles or job titles in large organizations. The initial goal was to develop yourself to qualify for entry level employment. The way to have more power was to move up in the organization. That worked well if you had the qualifications, had the right connections, got a substantial education or were at the right place at the right time. Over time, though, many who were not initially privy to that world have learned to navigate it. Some would argue that this new influx of people has enriched that workplace, and others would say the influx also complicated it!
New forms of work have also emerged, from the multiplication of computer-related startups and non-traditional workplaces to a more interconnected and inclusive world. Many people are seeking their own paths, paths that reward their gifts and values more directly, rather than having to “fit in.” This might include a host of women, BIPOC people, those with disabilities, and many in the younger generations. So, the question is, what if you are not in a traditional organization, or do not lean towards organizational goals, yet you have other strong aspirations? Can you still lead from the Front, your own Front, your own gifts, your own calling? I say yes.
In my case, it took me years to find out what my own gifts of leadership were because I didn’t enjoy (or maybe couldn’t!) manage other people or set organizational goals for others to meet. It didn’t fit me. It constricted me. So, I set out to find other ways of leading that were equally fulfilling and could be a way to lead from a personal Front, a personal design of what leading meant. Later this helped me expand my explanation and teaching of the first three stages of power.
I discovered several ways of leading that fit this expanded view of leadership and power, both within and outside of organizations. For example, leading through mentoring, social causes, ideas, nurturing, integration, convening, knowledge, artistry, process, or spirituality. Owning our own unique way of leading allows us all to lead from our own personal Front, if we so desire. Sometimes our Front is really on the side, since we may not be able to use our gifts adequately in our main career work. We can develop a parallel path for our own leadership. This can give us renewed energy for our job as well.
Our stories
My way of leadership is idea leadership. I develop ways to make abstract ideas more concrete. I find new ways to understand things, like power, leadership, or spiritual development. Since I didn’t fit into organizations, I needed to develop a separate path.
My friend, Joseph, is an artistic leader, being a tapestry artist who is also a Black man.
My friend, Juanita, is an organizational change agent, bringing new ways of using power to her work and her team.
My friend, Deb, is a nurturing leader who is currently choosing to redefine the role of matriarch in her family life.
My friend, Michael, was a convening leader who helped people in organizations work for a greater good.
Questions for you to consider
What is the primary gift of leadership you bring to the world? Name it for yourself.
How has it provided satisfaction in you and in others?
What are you most proud of in your personal Front leading style?
Leading from the Middle (whether you are ready to or not)
When we develop confidence in our gifts of leadership, work from a mature ego, and feel some of our own power, we may come to a point where our gifts do not seem to work as well or as easily, or we hit a major life or work crisis, or we burn out from well-doing. We come to a crossroads where we need to make a courageous decision. I’ve called it “hitting the Wall.” The event that happens or the awareness that vastly unsettles us is what brings us to the Wall, to hitting the Wall. It is not the Wall itself. What will bring us through the Wall is how we deal with the issue, what we allow it to say to us, how we transform because of it. We all experience several wall-like or smaller wall experiences throughout our lives, but this Wall calls us to a life-transforming change.
Will we allow significant change, will we work against it, or ignore the invitation? We have a choice. We can say yes or no. We can go back to a safe place (as many understandably do), or we can summon the courage, support and curiosity to move through the Wall to a new place. If we say no, we can still survive and find stability, yet we also face the danger of a paralyzing stuckness. I’m aware that there are those who are simply not capable of making changes for various reasons and I honor that. In the big picture I’ve come to see, we are all equally valuable whether we make the changes or not! Yet, I’ve been overwhelmed over the years, to see just how life-changing and transforming the Wall’s healing process is and how much new life it brings.
I’ve come to see that, at the Wall especially, our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health can be closely associated with choices we make that enhance or stifle our growth. New research in mind-body-spirit connections even affirms that if we listen to our bodies and our souls, we intuitively know what is healthy for us. But knowing it is not enough. We need the inner courage and steadfast support to grow deeper at this phase. It may be the most crucial decision we make; to grow or to stay put. Yikes!!!
If we say yes to growth, our leadership and power change. Power, at this threshold is transformed from outer power to inner power. I call it Soul Leadership. We face into our fears or our stuckness, our repeated patterns of self-sabotage, our fatigue. We look clearly at the crisis and seek what it is asking of us. Not easy. At this point in the process, it’s best not to travel alone. We need wise mentors, resources, listeners, and wisely, a higher power to help guide our courage to a place of healing and renewal. In fact, the increase in inner power assumes and embraces a spiritual power that accompanies us. In addition, the power of nature to heal cannot be overestimated, especially if we intentionally invite its healing. It would be difficult to move into the next phase without use of these resources.
Our stories
In my life and career, I know the moment when I had to decide to move to the middle. I was co-founder of a national organization that was planning a march and conference in Washington, DC. Leaders of competing organizations were undermining our funding and threatening to picket our activities. I had to decide if I wanted to keep engaging and fighting them or release them. Releasing them might have meant the demise of our conference and perhaps the whole march, after four years of work. But the stress was debilitating to my soul. It was a deep and hard discernment time. After a soul-searching meeting with my spiritual director, I faced a turning point in my leadership by deciding to let those leaders do whatever they had to do. I believed there would be a way to deal with it. I notified them of my decision to cease and desist, and then in a fit of compassion I cannot explain, I asked each of them to come to the march and be publicly recognized. That relinquishment and working through a few other significant crises in my life over the next few years (leaving my marriage, quitting my public speaking career) defined my Wall by changing the whole trajectory of my career and my life. I learned what it meant to lead from the middle.
My friend, Joseph, had been working artistically almost exclusively with children to nourish and honor their hearts and minds since that was what he decided mattered most in his life. He liked working with the most difficult kids because he knew how to engage their hearts. But after years of hard work to get his artistic work recognized, and having survived a sickle cell emergency, he decided to completely stop promoting his work, turning it over to his spiritual source.
My friend, Juanita, had several experiences in which the way she led was not recognized or appreciated. She had to leave lucrative jobs and organizations. She had a crisis of leadership within herself. Nevertheless, she persisted by believing in who she was and her form of leadership. She knew it mattered as her own personal truth, no matter how hard it would be to find places where she would fit.
My friend, Deb, had to release her desire, as matriarch, to have her family fully accept her and her work, and instead trust that her unique calling of working with people in the dying process, as a death doula, was crucial to her life. She had an occasion that shocked her, when on vacation, she had a more satisfying time talking with a new hospice client than she did with her family. As matriarch that raised major issues of discontent and discernment.
My friend, Michael, developed glioblastoma at the age of forty-five and wondered deeply what the meaning of his life would be as he faced into a drastically shortened lifeline. He convened his friends, colleagues, primary doctor, and even his oncologist to consider what facing death meant, and as a result what a deepening of life might mean.
Questions for you to consider
How would leading from the middle look in your world and what would it take to say Yes?
What would you be willing to lose or give up, to gain a significant change in peace of mind,
mental or emotional health, physical health, or spiritual growth?
What inner healing or wise resources would you find most supportive as you consider
those changes?
Leading from Behind
Sooner for some, later for others, we come to a place of gentle (or perhaps strenuous if it seems forced on us) relinquishment. We decide to empower others from the back seat or the bleachers with a sigh of relief that we don’t need to carry the power or leadership; we can just be present. And that, as surprising as it may seem, is powerful in its own way, living by a purpose that goes beyond us, and embracing wisdom. Being present multiplies the joy of living because we get to see the fruits of our lives and work without seemingly doing as much or doing anything!
What I’ve learned about this phase is that it takes Radical Trust to just be like this, to trust in a wise “being” stance that intentionally enhances the greater good of the world. The deepest desires of our hearts then invisibly affect others. In engaging the greater good we also counter all that is not intended for the greater good. People who live out this kind of being usually do not see themselves as leaders at all, but many around them see them as leaders in a different realm.
Not everyone is drawn to this place. It is not rewarding to the parts of us that are invested in having things go a certain way, or in seeing mainly objective results. It is just too countercultural for many people. So be it. Truly, it is a place of intentional boundaries, self-sacrifice, diminished ego and trust in a larger scheme of things. It is not a place of martyrdom, far from it. Our being is fueled by an inner source that knows its limits and honors them! This phase is difficult to describe because it is so individual, so inner- resourced, so attentive to nuance, so connected to Spirit. Whatever our higher power is, we need to be in consistent contact to live a surrendered life of sacred intimacy and joy.
Our stories
If Leading from Behind is what we do chose and we dwell there, it is like living a bit of heaven on earth. What does that look like for my friends?
My friend, Joseph, within months of giving up all self-promotion, was invited to be included in his home state’s Hall of Fame, a total surprise to him since his childhood was difficult and highly segregated. And then, a few years later, in a sheer act of grace, one of his historic tapestries was invited to be permanently housed in the new Obama Presidential Library, to help share Joseph’s legacy of hope, strength and joy with a larger world.
My friend, Juanita, designed a way to work within an organization while turning the traditional sense of power and leadership on its head. This is her intrinsic way of leading by facilitating others’ desires and gifts, and it multiplied her passion and joy in her work.
My friend, Deb, found a new image for her role in the family, one that released her from expectations and disappointments. She is now a Fairy Godmother to her grandchildren and other wondrous creatures. She even found a gorgeous wand to spread her grace and glitter!
Questions for you to consider
Have you ever had an experience that felt “other-worldly?” What did it mean to you?
How might your life look different if you relinquished your outworn sense of power and
leadership without it feeling like a diminishment? Or a requirement? Or a threat?
What would genuine interior freedom, emerging from releasing, feel like and look like for
you?
Beyond Power and leadership
The only thing eclipsing this three-phase power and leadership movement to a deeper satisfaction and ultimate impact on a cosmic scale is Eternal, all encompassing, LOVE. This love is difficult to describe or prove, but cannot be dismissed, once we experience it. It takes us beyond all earthly power and leadership.
My friend, Michael, found out in his four-year dying process, that Eternal Love is all that matters, and now, from beyond the veil, he spreads that love to all he can, in mysterious and profound ways. Before he died, we agreed to meet regularly at our favorite healing bench on the Mississippi River where he would commune with my Spirit, encouraging me with that Eternal Love.
This Eternal Love is intimate and mysterious and sacred. I will leave any more description of it to your imagination and your own experience. May it Be so.
ÓJanet Hagberg, 2025. Please pass this along.
I’ll focus on the three most meaningful phases of leadership and power in my model and share what I’ve learned about navigating them in forty years! Each phase has a challenge or invitation that needs to be addressed to keep growing into the next phase. I will also include a new phase of being beyond power and leadership. So here we go with my story, others’ stories of how they navigated the three phases, and a few evocative questions to see how each phase resonates with you!
Phase One: Leading from the Front: Embracing your unique personal power
Invitation: Cultivating your outer gifts by cultivating your inner journey.
Corresponding power stages: Moving through stages one, two and three.
Phase Two: Leading from the Middle: Wrestling with your personal power
Invitation: Embracing “choice points” that will promote your growth.
Corresponding power stages: Stage four and the Wall.
Phase Three: Leading from Behind: Relinquishing your personal power
Invitation: Finding your true presence and legacy by releasing what you’ve outgrown.
Corresponding power stages: Stages five and six.
Being: Thriving Beyond Power and Leadership
Invitation: Living Eternal Love by untethering from all else.
Leading from the Front (your own personal front)
In our western culture, leadership and power have most often been associated with roles or job titles in large organizations. The initial goal was to develop yourself to qualify for entry level employment. The way to have more power was to move up in the organization. That worked well if you had the qualifications, had the right connections, got a substantial education or were at the right place at the right time. Over time, though, many who were not initially privy to that world have learned to navigate it. Some would argue that this new influx of people has enriched that workplace, and others would say the influx also complicated it!
New forms of work have also emerged, from the multiplication of computer-related startups and non-traditional workplaces to a more interconnected and inclusive world. Many people are seeking their own paths, paths that reward their gifts and values more directly, rather than having to “fit in.” This might include a host of women, BIPOC people, those with disabilities, and many in the younger generations. So, the question is, what if you are not in a traditional organization, or do not lean towards organizational goals, yet you have other strong aspirations? Can you still lead from the Front, your own Front, your own gifts, your own calling? I say yes.
In my case, it took me years to find out what my own gifts of leadership were because I didn’t enjoy (or maybe couldn’t!) manage other people or set organizational goals for others to meet. It didn’t fit me. It constricted me. So, I set out to find other ways of leading that were equally fulfilling and could be a way to lead from a personal Front, a personal design of what leading meant. Later this helped me expand my explanation and teaching of the first three stages of power.
I discovered several ways of leading that fit this expanded view of leadership and power, both within and outside of organizations. For example, leading through mentoring, social causes, ideas, nurturing, integration, convening, knowledge, artistry, process, or spirituality. Owning our own unique way of leading allows us all to lead from our own personal Front, if we so desire. Sometimes our Front is really on the side, since we may not be able to use our gifts adequately in our main career work. We can develop a parallel path for our own leadership. This can give us renewed energy for our job as well.
Our stories
My way of leadership is idea leadership. I develop ways to make abstract ideas more concrete. I find new ways to understand things, like power, leadership, or spiritual development. Since I didn’t fit into organizations, I needed to develop a separate path.
My friend, Joseph, is an artistic leader, being a tapestry artist who is also a Black man.
My friend, Juanita, is an organizational change agent, bringing new ways of using power to her work and her team.
My friend, Deb, is a nurturing leader who is currently choosing to redefine the role of matriarch in her family life.
My friend, Michael, was a convening leader who helped people in organizations work for a greater good.
Questions for you to consider
What is the primary gift of leadership you bring to the world? Name it for yourself.
How has it provided satisfaction in you and in others?
What are you most proud of in your personal Front leading style?
Leading from the Middle (whether you are ready to or not)
When we develop confidence in our gifts of leadership, work from a mature ego, and feel some of our own power, we may come to a point where our gifts do not seem to work as well or as easily, or we hit a major life or work crisis, or we burn out from well-doing. We come to a crossroads where we need to make a courageous decision. I’ve called it “hitting the Wall.” The event that happens or the awareness that vastly unsettles us is what brings us to the Wall, to hitting the Wall. It is not the Wall itself. What will bring us through the Wall is how we deal with the issue, what we allow it to say to us, how we transform because of it. We all experience several wall-like or smaller wall experiences throughout our lives, but this Wall calls us to a life-transforming change.
Will we allow significant change, will we work against it, or ignore the invitation? We have a choice. We can say yes or no. We can go back to a safe place (as many understandably do), or we can summon the courage, support and curiosity to move through the Wall to a new place. If we say no, we can still survive and find stability, yet we also face the danger of a paralyzing stuckness. I’m aware that there are those who are simply not capable of making changes for various reasons and I honor that. In the big picture I’ve come to see, we are all equally valuable whether we make the changes or not! Yet, I’ve been overwhelmed over the years, to see just how life-changing and transforming the Wall’s healing process is and how much new life it brings.
I’ve come to see that, at the Wall especially, our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health can be closely associated with choices we make that enhance or stifle our growth. New research in mind-body-spirit connections even affirms that if we listen to our bodies and our souls, we intuitively know what is healthy for us. But knowing it is not enough. We need the inner courage and steadfast support to grow deeper at this phase. It may be the most crucial decision we make; to grow or to stay put. Yikes!!!
If we say yes to growth, our leadership and power change. Power, at this threshold is transformed from outer power to inner power. I call it Soul Leadership. We face into our fears or our stuckness, our repeated patterns of self-sabotage, our fatigue. We look clearly at the crisis and seek what it is asking of us. Not easy. At this point in the process, it’s best not to travel alone. We need wise mentors, resources, listeners, and wisely, a higher power to help guide our courage to a place of healing and renewal. In fact, the increase in inner power assumes and embraces a spiritual power that accompanies us. In addition, the power of nature to heal cannot be overestimated, especially if we intentionally invite its healing. It would be difficult to move into the next phase without use of these resources.
Our stories
In my life and career, I know the moment when I had to decide to move to the middle. I was co-founder of a national organization that was planning a march and conference in Washington, DC. Leaders of competing organizations were undermining our funding and threatening to picket our activities. I had to decide if I wanted to keep engaging and fighting them or release them. Releasing them might have meant the demise of our conference and perhaps the whole march, after four years of work. But the stress was debilitating to my soul. It was a deep and hard discernment time. After a soul-searching meeting with my spiritual director, I faced a turning point in my leadership by deciding to let those leaders do whatever they had to do. I believed there would be a way to deal with it. I notified them of my decision to cease and desist, and then in a fit of compassion I cannot explain, I asked each of them to come to the march and be publicly recognized. That relinquishment and working through a few other significant crises in my life over the next few years (leaving my marriage, quitting my public speaking career) defined my Wall by changing the whole trajectory of my career and my life. I learned what it meant to lead from the middle.
My friend, Joseph, had been working artistically almost exclusively with children to nourish and honor their hearts and minds since that was what he decided mattered most in his life. He liked working with the most difficult kids because he knew how to engage their hearts. But after years of hard work to get his artistic work recognized, and having survived a sickle cell emergency, he decided to completely stop promoting his work, turning it over to his spiritual source.
My friend, Juanita, had several experiences in which the way she led was not recognized or appreciated. She had to leave lucrative jobs and organizations. She had a crisis of leadership within herself. Nevertheless, she persisted by believing in who she was and her form of leadership. She knew it mattered as her own personal truth, no matter how hard it would be to find places where she would fit.
My friend, Deb, had to release her desire, as matriarch, to have her family fully accept her and her work, and instead trust that her unique calling of working with people in the dying process, as a death doula, was crucial to her life. She had an occasion that shocked her, when on vacation, she had a more satisfying time talking with a new hospice client than she did with her family. As matriarch that raised major issues of discontent and discernment.
My friend, Michael, developed glioblastoma at the age of forty-five and wondered deeply what the meaning of his life would be as he faced into a drastically shortened lifeline. He convened his friends, colleagues, primary doctor, and even his oncologist to consider what facing death meant, and as a result what a deepening of life might mean.
Questions for you to consider
How would leading from the middle look in your world and what would it take to say Yes?
What would you be willing to lose or give up, to gain a significant change in peace of mind,
mental or emotional health, physical health, or spiritual growth?
What inner healing or wise resources would you find most supportive as you consider
those changes?
Leading from Behind
Sooner for some, later for others, we come to a place of gentle (or perhaps strenuous if it seems forced on us) relinquishment. We decide to empower others from the back seat or the bleachers with a sigh of relief that we don’t need to carry the power or leadership; we can just be present. And that, as surprising as it may seem, is powerful in its own way, living by a purpose that goes beyond us, and embracing wisdom. Being present multiplies the joy of living because we get to see the fruits of our lives and work without seemingly doing as much or doing anything!
What I’ve learned about this phase is that it takes Radical Trust to just be like this, to trust in a wise “being” stance that intentionally enhances the greater good of the world. The deepest desires of our hearts then invisibly affect others. In engaging the greater good we also counter all that is not intended for the greater good. People who live out this kind of being usually do not see themselves as leaders at all, but many around them see them as leaders in a different realm.
Not everyone is drawn to this place. It is not rewarding to the parts of us that are invested in having things go a certain way, or in seeing mainly objective results. It is just too countercultural for many people. So be it. Truly, it is a place of intentional boundaries, self-sacrifice, diminished ego and trust in a larger scheme of things. It is not a place of martyrdom, far from it. Our being is fueled by an inner source that knows its limits and honors them! This phase is difficult to describe because it is so individual, so inner- resourced, so attentive to nuance, so connected to Spirit. Whatever our higher power is, we need to be in consistent contact to live a surrendered life of sacred intimacy and joy.
Our stories
If Leading from Behind is what we do chose and we dwell there, it is like living a bit of heaven on earth. What does that look like for my friends?
My friend, Joseph, within months of giving up all self-promotion, was invited to be included in his home state’s Hall of Fame, a total surprise to him since his childhood was difficult and highly segregated. And then, a few years later, in a sheer act of grace, one of his historic tapestries was invited to be permanently housed in the new Obama Presidential Library, to help share Joseph’s legacy of hope, strength and joy with a larger world.
My friend, Juanita, designed a way to work within an organization while turning the traditional sense of power and leadership on its head. This is her intrinsic way of leading by facilitating others’ desires and gifts, and it multiplied her passion and joy in her work.
My friend, Deb, found a new image for her role in the family, one that released her from expectations and disappointments. She is now a Fairy Godmother to her grandchildren and other wondrous creatures. She even found a gorgeous wand to spread her grace and glitter!
Questions for you to consider
Have you ever had an experience that felt “other-worldly?” What did it mean to you?
How might your life look different if you relinquished your outworn sense of power and
leadership without it feeling like a diminishment? Or a requirement? Or a threat?
What would genuine interior freedom, emerging from releasing, feel like and look like for
you?
Beyond Power and leadership
The only thing eclipsing this three-phase power and leadership movement to a deeper satisfaction and ultimate impact on a cosmic scale is Eternal, all encompassing, LOVE. This love is difficult to describe or prove, but cannot be dismissed, once we experience it. It takes us beyond all earthly power and leadership.
My friend, Michael, found out in his four-year dying process, that Eternal Love is all that matters, and now, from beyond the veil, he spreads that love to all he can, in mysterious and profound ways. Before he died, we agreed to meet regularly at our favorite healing bench on the Mississippi River where he would commune with my Spirit, encouraging me with that Eternal Love.
This Eternal Love is intimate and mysterious and sacred. I will leave any more description of it to your imagination and your own experience. May it Be so.
ÓJanet Hagberg, 2025. Please pass this along.