fixed mindset Archives - Bhavana Learning Group

Power Dynamics, Part 2: Worldviews and Practices

What do all men with power want? More power. — Oracle, Matrix Reloaded

Is power bad, or is the need for power problematic?

Power is a matter of perspective, whether sourced in responsibility, purpose, or choice, or force, control, and results. Our perspective depends on our conditioning within society’s views of power and, culturally, how we internalize those views.

Before we unpack these layers of power, recall that Part 1 of this blog defined the following six dimensions of power: Legitimate, Expert/information, Reward, Coercive, Referent, and Influencer.

Which is it: Fixed or Growth Mindset?

What if our “knowing” self undermines the joy of “learning” or discovery? Consider that having to know drives our need to know, which guides what we learn and what we ignore. Even if someone tells us something we don’t know, we often find ourselves, reflexively and defensively responding, “I know” rather than opening to learn.

Our last two blogs introduced first-person learning (and here) as an approach to learning from our concealed beliefs, assumptions, and blind spots. Such self-discovery expands our views to access our being. However, much of leadership development is predicated on knowing more rather than being more.