The Quiet Power You Still Hold—Even Now

Reclaiming Power in a Time of Collapse

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” - Carl Jung

As a modern leader, you’re doing everything right. You lead with heart, show up with courage, and try—sometimes desperately—to hold space for others in an increasingly unrecognizable world. But some days, it feels like the ground beneath you is crumbling. Institutions you believed in are faltering. You’re holding your team together with duct tape and late-night Slack messages. And beneath it all is a gnawing question:

Do I still matter in a system that feels like it’s falling apart?

What if the problem isn’t you–but our outdated definition of power? We’ve been conditioned to believe that power only flows from titles, seniority, and ownership. It’s a sort of learned helplessness that makes us tolerate decisions made about us, without us. But real leadership doesn’t come from authority. It comes from agency. And in this moment of near free fall, a more human, generative form of power is not just possible—it’s inevitable.

When Systems Break, Stories Must Too

I recently stood on stage at a conference in Washington, D.C., preparing to deliver a keynote to a room of public service leaders—Democrats and Republicans alike. The tension was palpable. Departments were being dismantled. Programs designed to foster belonging were being rolled back. Several people were losing their jobs. Others feared they were next.

That morning, I saw attendees holding their heads in despair, reading executive orders and notices of termination. I heard voices cracking on phone calls home—some sobbing to their partners. Organizers quietly cautioned me: read the room carefully; people are really going through it today. One woman refreshed a layoff email like it might change if she read it again. A man beside her stared blankly into his coffee, badge still clipped to his belt, unsure whether to stay or go.

As I looked into the audience, I didn’t see partisans. I saw professionals—parents, caregivers, immigrants, veterans, visionaries—shouldering a quiet grief. What they needed—what so many of us need right now—wasn’t a plan, a policy, or a pep talk.

It was hope.

We’re living through a collective unlearning. The systems we once trusted—social, political, economic—are showing their cracks. And yet, we’re still trying to play by the rules, measuring our worth by outdated definitions of power. We’ve been taught to look up for permission, for validation, for leadership. Rarely have we been taught to look across or inward.

In the opening chapter of The Handbook of Leadership, Dr. Bernard Bass writes:

“Leadership has been built into the human psyche because of the long period we need to be nurtured by parents for our survival. Early on, we learned to follow the leadership of parents and their proxies for satisfaction of our needs for food and comforting. Our mothers or their surrogates became our leaders in early childhood. They still are.”

Over time, we replicate that dynamic in schools, workplaces, and governments. We entrust someone “higher up” to fix things.

But here’s the truth: Power doesn’t only trickle down.

More often than not, it radiates.

A Forgotten Truth About Power

What if the solution to feelings of hopelessness during complexity has been hiding in plain sight—in literature now being pushed to the margins?

From social justice frameworks comes a forgotten truth: Power isn’t fixed. It’s a generative force. It’s something you create—with and within.

In A New Weave of Power, People & Politics, authors Lisa Veneklasen and Valerie Miller outline four expressions of power. Most of us are familiar with the first:

• 1) Power Over: The kind that controls, coerces, and limits. It’s the micromanaging boss. The budget cut with no explanation. The rigid policy that punishes rather than empowers.

But there are three others—just as real, and far more generative:

• 2) Power To: The ability to act, create, and shape the future. Like the team lead who rewrites an outdated onboarding process to reflect people-first values without waiting for permission.

• 3) Power With: The strength that arises through collaboration, shared purpose, and community. Like a cross-functional team co-creating a burnout prevention plan that actually works—because it was built together.

• 4) Power Within: The deep well of dignity, self-worth, and singular purpose we carry, even when everything else disappears. Like the woman who finally leaves a toxic workplace, not because she has another offer—but because she remembers she deserves better.

Even in a collapsing system built on power over, creation is possible.

Consider how stars are born—not in calm or order, but from chaos. In the vacuum of space, massive clouds of gas and dust—nebulae—collapse under their own gravity. And from that collapse comes something radiant. Fusion. Heat. Light.

A new power emerges—not power over, but power to ignite, power with surrounding matter, and power within to burn bright and shape the universe.

More often than not, power floats in the ether—cold, quiet, orbiting a creative moment.

Be In The Room Where It Happens

At the D.C. conference, I acknowledged the fear in the room—the loss of roles, progress, and departments.

But I reminded my fellow leaders: they still had power.

They had the power to rebuild—inside or beyond the system.

They had power with their peers—to collaborate and imagine a better future.

They had power within—a well of purpose deeper than any portfolio.

After the session, a young man approached me.

“I understand everything you said,” he said, “but those other forms of power won’t get me my job back.”

“You’re right,” I replied, “but you now have the power to go where you’re celebrated, not tolerated.”

Because staying in a space that erodes your self-worth is the greatest act of disempowerment. Even if you can’t control everything around you, you can still choose how you show up within it.

That choice—small as it may seem—is true power.

Reclaiming What’s Already Yours

You may never have been taught about other forms of power. You may not have seen them modelled by your leaders—your parents, pastors, and politicians.

But they are yours now. And forever.

You have power to choose.
You have power with others.
You have power within yourself.

Such power doesn’t ask for permission. It remembers who you are. And it dares you to begin again.

This isn’t self-help. This is strategy.

Because in a world where power over is crumbling, the future will belong to those who can access, activate, and amplify the rest.

It belongs to leaders who lift. Builders who collaborate. And people who remember that even in collapse, they are still creators.

You may be facing a boss who doesn’t value you. A system that feels rigged. A moment in your life when things are falling apart.

And still—

You are not powerless.
You are not small.
You are not broken.
You are not done.

Reclaim your power. Remind others of theirs.

The future doesn’t belong to those who wait. It belongs to those who remember who they are—and burn bright.

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy