Power U 77: How to Reward Power Accountability

#PowerU 77 - Welcome back everyone. It’s post-Labour Day and we are diving back into building power literacy. We took a bit of a detour through the World Cup this summer and it turned out to be a very rich power literacy case study! But it also kicked off a conversation about something fundamental: power only has legitimacy when it comes with accountability. We’ve been working through how that applies to each of the six types of power. Episode 77 is about holding reward power - the ability to give people things they value - accountable. Of all the types of power, this is the one we’re most used to seeing held accountable. For example, elected officials have extensive checks and balances precisely because they control public funds. But those decisions are often made on the advice of staff who don’t face the same accountability structures even though they hold enormous reward power over the communities they serve. The accountability infrastructure follows perceived power. Not actual power. And that gap is where harm can happen. Understanding it gives you the tools to both hold reward power accountable and think about how you’re holding your own reward power to account. #PowerU #PowerLiteracy #Leadership #SystemsChange