What if power isn’t something to hold...
...But something to keep moving?
I used to feel the weight of power—its connotations of control, hierarchy, responsibility. It carried a certain heaviness (which I could literally feel in my body—my back and shoulders round just thinking about it), an expectation to wield it wisely or risk harming others. But my relationship with power is complex. Sometimes it feels heavy like stone—an obligation I carry in my body. Other times, it feels alive, necessary, and deeply aligned—a force that fuels connection, action, and change. Recently, in a course with the Right Use of Power Institute, someone framed power as a gift, and it shifted something in me.
Photo by Simon Schmitt on Unsplash
Power as a gift? At first, I hesitated. Power, in so many spaces, has been used to dominate, extract, or exclude. It can feel like a force to be reckoned with, not something freely given. But as I sat with this idea, I was drawn to the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose work I had been re-reading. She speaks about how, in many Indigenous traditions, gifts are not meant to be hoarded or owned; they are meant to be kept in motion—shared, given away, passed along. A gift that is held too tightly ceases to be a gift at all.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer reflects on the misinterpretation of the term “Indian giver”, explaining that it originally came from a cultural difference in how settlers and Indigenous peoples understood gifts. She writes, “‘Indian giver’ refers to the colonial assumption that a gift is a thing, fully transferred and disconnected from the giver. But in the Indigenous way of thinking, a gift is understood to be part of a relationship, an ongoing exchange, a responsibility. A gift that is not shared is lost.”
What if power works the same way?
If power is a gift, then it isn’t something we clutch or accumulate—it’s something that flows. It’s meant to move, to be exchanged in a dance of reciprocity. True power is not about control but about connection. It grows when shared, it strengthens when distributed, and it remains alive when we allow it to circulate.
This perspective shifts the entire conversation around power. If power isn’t something to hold, but something to move, then it also isn’t something to fear. It doesn’t have to be a burden. If power is shared, it becomes abundant rather than scarce. When we move power—when we pass opportunities, uplift others, and redistribute decision-making—we transform it from something that weighs us down to something that energizes and sustains.
I’ve been sitting with this reflection in my own work. How can I move power in ways that keep it alive? How can I release the instinct to hold onto influence and instead trust the abundance that comes from sharing it?
I’ve also been noticing how formally acknowledging shared power where it is often assumed to be absent—like in student/teacher relationships—brings our common goal more alive. When shared power is surfaced, it fosters shared ownership, deepens engagement, and enlivens personal power in ways that ripple beyond the classroom. This matters because we don’t just need more leadership at the top—we need more expression of personal power across teams, organizations, and systems if we are going to co-create our way through the beautiful mess we find ourselves in.
And so, I leave you with these questions:
How might you keep power moving in your leadership this week?
Where in your life are you holding onto power that might need to move?
Where might you need to lean into the power you already have, rather than letting it sit unused or unrecognized?
Where might shared power already exist, even if it hasn’t been acknowledged yet?
By Nic Etheridge Calder & Aidan Cinnamon Tea