Ep #4: Power & Empowerment

You are listening to the Dream For Others® podcast with Naomi Arnold, Episode 4.

Dream For Me, Dream For You, Dream For Others®. And now your host, award-winning life and business coach, Naomi Arnold…

Hi there,

I hope your week has been going well so far. And thanks so much for squeezing an episode of my podcast into your day.

In this episode, I wanted to talk about power and empowerment – and not in a context that you might expect a life and business coach like myself to talk about such topics.

Incase you didn’t know, I am studying a Master of Human Rights at Curtin University at the moment. In my last unit which was called Human Rights Activism, Advocacy and Change we examined power and empowerment in the context of human rights.

As someone who is very focused on personal praxis – so essentially reflection and action in order to create change or transformation – I’m always trying to apply what I’m learning to my own life and work. I’m always looking for ways that I can personally take action and create some change based on what I’m learning. And given I’m an entrepreneur and a coach, I’m often taking the lessons I’m learning in Human Rights and thinking about how I can apply them to my industry and work.

This lesson on power and empowerment captured my attention because I could see how it could be applied to my work, and also how it could offer a framework for how I could think about the different ways that I could act to create social change in my industry.

So I wanted to share this lesson with you today, incase you find it useful too. And just so you know, you don’t have to be an entrepreneur or a coach or a business owner for this episode to be of use to you. I’m going to use these industries as an example or a case study to illustrate the how a theory on power and empowerment can be applied – but you can apply it to your own context. You can apply it to a different industry, or work setting, or community, maybe a church, or some type of institution or system you are are part of. You could even think about the theories more generally, or as they’re meant to be understood, and think about what knowing these theories might mean for you when it comes to personal praxis in your life. I’m hoping that by me explaining how I applied the theory to entrepreneurship that this will help you see how you can apply the theory to whichever context you choose too.

Okay, so let’s dive in.

Empowerment is often quoted or assumed to be a central objective of the personal development, self help and also wellness spaces – so this process of enhancing someone’s capacity to show up in their power and create change.

Interestingly, empowerment is also often cited as central objective of social movements and social justice work. Essentially, in these contexts empowerment is referred to as a process that aims to increase the power of those who are not in dominant groups or who experience social injustice.

Now Professor Jim Ife argues that there are four theoretical and political perspectives on power and empowerment – and I found these to be interesting and wanted to share them with you today. I’ll also pop a link in the show notes to Professor Ife’s book on community development for those who want to do further reading later.

The four theories on power are 1) Pluralist; 2) Elitist, 3) Structural and 4) Post Structural. Now bare with me, as you might not see the relevance to what this means for you yet, but I promise I’ll get there.

Let’s begin with the… Pluralist perspective on power.

This perspective emphasises that the individuals and groups who make up our society are all competing for power.

So those who align with the pluralist perspective believe that empowerment is achieved by helping individuals and groups who experience disadvantage or injustice to learn the skills required to effectively and successfully compete in this system.

With this theory, we’re not changing the system, we’re teaching people how to compete in the system – and how to experience empowerment through becoming better competitors.

For an example, I’m going to apply this to the digital entrepreneurship or online business context. And if you don’t work in this industry, hopefully you can apply it to your industry or context in some way.

In the digital entrepreneurship context, researchers have found that power and influence is most likely held by White cis men and least likely held by Women of Colour. As an aside – for those who don’t know, ‘cis’ it refers to those who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.

So if we wanted to create change here, and if we held a pluralist perspective, we would therefore focus on teaching the non-dominant group the skills required to compete within the online business world. We might provide lessons on promotion and marketing, on gettings clients or making sales, and on how to successfully build online businesses, etc. If we hold or at least in part hold a pluralist perspective, we might offer scholarships and pro-bono placements in an effort to make these teachings more accessible.

But it’s perhaps worth keeping in mind that since a pluralist perspectives on power does not focus on changing the system, some of the strategies or tools or skills that get taught might work for those in the dominant group, for those who hold power and privilege – but may not actually work or feel empowering to those who are not in the dominant group.

Now, an elite perspective… acknowledges that power is NOT evenly distributed between individuals and groups.

If you were to hold an elitist perspective you would assert that power and control is determined by the elites, so a way of changing this would be to join the elites with the intention of creating change from the inside, of influencing them in some way.

Again when applying this to a digital entrepreneurship context, an example might be that if you had access to boards, or masterminds, or networking groups made up of ‘elites’ or those in the dominant group, you might join or use that position to increase their awareness and attempt to facilitate change by leaning in to and influencing your sphere of influence.

Next is the structural perspective on power. If you were to hold this perspective you would believe that inequality is deeply embedded in social structures, institutions and systems.

So those who hold a pure structural perspective might argue that joining the elites in an effort to influence change is potentially reinforcing the structures that perpetuate inequality.

Those who hold a structural perspective emphasise that the process of empowerment is complex and challenging and requires consideration of wider social change agendas and efforts in order to dismantle oppressive systems.

So again in the online business context, this might include educating entrepreneurs, particularly those in dominant groups, about oppressive systems and their role in upholding structural inequality.

The final perspective is the post-structural. It examines the way power and empowerment are understood, often by deconstructing people’s subjective worldviews and their language too. This perspective focuses on elevating and validating the voices of those who are often silenced or erased.

In his book Ife says the “post-structural perspective thus emphasises understanding, analysis, deconstruction, education and participation in the discourse(s) of power, and sees a simple concentration on action alone as inadequate.”

So again, if I were to apply this perspective to my industry, this might involve challenging language, theories and advice that perpetuate oppression. It might involve actively seeking to elevate the voices of those who are most harmed by oppressive systems.

It might mean, for example, entrepreneurs and coaches challenging their clients’ and audience’s worldviews and language. It might include making a conscious effort to ensure that different people and voices and experiences are included in trainings, programs, podcasts and promotions.

So they are the four different perspectives. I wonder which one or ones you might resonate with most? Or I wonder if you’re someone who feels they might all have their place, depending on the context, within reason? Maybe you are someone who can see the shortcomings in some or all of them, but can also see ways that you could perhaps borrow from them to create change in some contexts?

And regardless of what you believe, I wonder if going through a similar process than I did when it came to injustice in the digital entrepreneurship space, if you went through that process for your industry or for an issue that you’re passionate about, whether it would give you some ideas for the different types of actions you could take or different types of things you could do to contribute to creating change?

So this is one of those episodes that isn’t designed to give you a clear formula or answer. This one is designed to get you thinking, to ask questions, and more questions, and think some more… and then hopefully use these reflections to identify some ways that you can take action when it comes to creating change.

Because it is such a big topic I’ll share some links to further readings on this topic so you can read a little further, examine a little deeper and think about how it could be applied to your context there.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and have a wonderful week and I will talk to you again shortly.

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