08/30/2026
Get A G.R.I.P. Leadership: 101 (Types of Power)
-FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY-
Abstract: (Asterisks Denote-Direct Quotes)
*“The better we are able to understand power and communicate that understanding with others, the better placed we are to be able to intervene and address imbalances that degrade team performance, or in the worst cases, cause actual harm to people.”
*This connects to the idea of “power literacy” – if we don’t have the language to talk about power, we can find ourselves powerless to address inequity.
Quote:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin
*”There are many schools of thought in respect to power, and entire papers and books have been written on the topic.
At Psych Safety, they try to keep things simple enough to be actionable and practical, whilst granular enough to be meaningful: and they ’ve found these typologies to be the most accurate and useful:
Formal, Informal, Demographic, and Expert.
Credits:
These are based on French and Raven’s bases of power, alongside Galbraith, Mary Parker Follett, and Deborah Cameron’s work on privilege.
Research Provided by: The G.R.I.P. Research Foundation
“Get-A-G.R.I.P.!™”
Typologies of Power In a few previous newsletters, we’ve gotten into power dynamics, power gradients, “power over” vs “power for” and “power to” (see Mary Parker Follett). Steep power gradients are the number one inhibitor of psychological safety, and addressing […]
