Personal Power vs Positional Power

Do you embody the full Positional Power of your current role?

Last week I wrote about what leaders can do to help close the wealth gap. The article focused on reviewing jobs responsibilities and leaders helping their team members progress in their careers.

This week, let’s take a look at what we can do to assess our roles and responsibilities and whether we embody the full Positional Power of our current position.

In the coming months, I’ll dive into Personal vs. Positional Power in more detail with a model I’ve developed, as there are many aspects to consider.

Personal Power

To keep it simple for now, Personal Power embodies four strengths: inner, external, relationship, and financial. Here are some high-level questions to ask yourself to gauge your Personal Power:

Inner Strength - Do you have an inner confidence and feel aligned with your values?

External Strength - Are your skills and industry knowledge marketable and forward-leaning?

Relationship Strength - How influential are you, and how influential are your relationships?

Financial Strength - Do you have the financial strength to take career risks?

Positional Power

Positional Power is typically defined by your employer and management team in the job description you receive and your leader’s expectations for the role. It also includes the relationship dance between the leader and you as you each execute the functions of the relationship. At a high level, here are some questions to help see the Positional Power of a role:

Is decision-making authority clear and understood?

Is the scope of the job responsibilities well known and recognized by the leaders and your peers?

Does the position have budget responsibility to include crafting and shaping products/services offered or retired?

What is the role’s level of influence over the team, the organization, the department, and the company?

Does the position have business goals and metrics responsibility, and are the expectations from leadership high yet achievable?

Now that we have a high-level understanding of Personal vs. Positional Power, here’s the fundamental question to ask:

Do I embody the full Positional Power of my current role?

Grow Personal Power to Match our Positional Power

If our Personal Power keeps us from assuming the full power of our role, we have some work to do to fill the gap. We can start by reviewing the holes and letting our leaders know we see the gaps. We should also say that starting today, we will operate within the full Positional Power of the role we have been entrusted to hold.

Ready for a Career Change

If our Personal Power aligns with our Positional Power, start the conversation with our leaders that we are ready for a career move. You will want to start those conversations as soon as possible because your Personal Power will continue to grow (skills, capabilities, relationships, etc.). You will want to glide up into your next position with the momentum flowing upwardly.

Beyond Time

It’s definitely time to move into a new role if our Personal Power exceeds our Positional Power. These are unhealthy situations filled with pain, frustration, and irritations where we might feel boxed in and limited on what others will allow us to do versus what we and our network know can get done. It’s also unhealthy as our leadership might start to sense these feelings, which may influence the level of advocacy they offer for a new role. To remedy this, work to repair the feelings you may have, improve the relationship with your leader or peers, and start finding a new position supporting your advanced skills, capabilities, expanded network, and strategic decision-making models.

Take Time In the Next Couple of Weeks

Spend a quiet hour reflecting on your Personal and Positional Power. See which graph bests reflect where you are at today. You will know what to do and where to start as you continue developing your financial flexibility and freedom.

Author:

I’ve been passionate about personal finance and financial freedom topics since 1993 after attending a course at The University of Texas at Austin. I’ve used my life and passions as experiments to help close the gap for myself and others. I’m excited to spend more time helping close the wealth gap for women and the Hispanic community. Here, you will find me writing on integrative financial well-being, taking the body, heart, mind, and spirit approach into account.

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