Chapter 2: Inclusive Leadership and Power

The study of power is essential to any study of leadership, as power is fundamental to human organization and is understood to be a driving force of leadership. Power is typically thought of in terms of having dominance over others from a hierarchically higher position. In this chapter, we explore how power is typically defined in the literature and propose that mutualism represents an expanded definition of power and one that more closely aligns with the concept of inclusive leadership. We make a case for viewing power as a capacity that can be developed in others rather than a commodity that can be obtained, horded, or doled out. With this in mind, we explore how these two phenomena intersect from the perspectives of powerdistance, hierarchy, and empowerment. We argue that power expressed as dominance creates distance between leaders and employees, while mutualistic expressions reduce such distance, and that hierarchy and power have been erroneously conflated and when disaggregated can serve a useful purpose in a low-power-distance culture. Finally, through empowerment, we consider approaches to the development of power in others, which is a topic that is rarely considered in the leadership literature. Inclusive leadership offers an important pathway for moving organizations and society toward justice through the creation of cultures characterized by cooperation, unity, and diversity where greater numbers of people step into their capacity for power and begin to address the challenges facing humanity. This is realizable in cultures that promote mutualistic power.