“People around me are impressed with my success, but I don’t really feel successful, and I don’t know if I can keep this up!”  Does this sound like you?  It’s a constant refrain among many go-getter women.  We’re doing a lot, but it has us spread pretty thin.  One of the perspectives that helps women like you (and us) is the recognition that in our pursuit of career and personal success, we may not have been using all our power.

Traditionally, we have spoken of power using terms that describe masculine traits.  For instance, powerful might mean assertive, decisive, independent, driving, and pragmatic.  Words like relating, gratitude, caring, inclusion, or curiosity didn’t seem to fit with our definition of power.  These words describe more feminine aspects of power.  In order to use all of our power, we have to incorporate both masculine and feminine Elements of Power into our sense of what’s powerful. 

After coaching male and female leaders for ten years, we developed the 12 Elements of Power as a tool for ourselves and our clients.  The Elements were our way of articulating and understanding the feminine traits we intuitively knew were powerful, but that haven’t been defined as such.  We discovered that when we are able to integrate both feminine and masculine Elements of Power, we move from stress to ease.

Today, at our company, Working with Power, we help companies retain and grow their best women by teaching women the 12 Elements of Power and how to use them to make everything a whole lot easier.  This article is a quick introduction to the Elements.  In future months, we will bring you more articles that teach you how to use the Elements of Power in your daily life.

There are six pairs of Elements of Power.  Each pair relates to one key area of our lives and work:  how we get things done, how we establish our identity, how we relate to ourselves and others, how we handle challenges, how we set priorities, and how we think.  Each pair contains a feminine Element of Power and a masculine Element of Power.  It’s not a man/woman thing, rather more like Yin/Yang.  Everyone has all 12 Elements of Power available at any time. 

Masculine power is assertive, observable and directive.  Feminine Power is receptive, subtle, and contained.  In our society, we tend to think of the masculine elements (like driving, focus, self-reliance, and pragmatism) as the keys to effectiveness, and the feminine elements as either rewards to enjoy after the work gets done (like receiving or connection) or weaknesses (like using resilience instead of fierceness or nurturing instead of providing).  But, when we have all 12 tools available, we’re able to use the right tool for the job in any moment.

The Elements describe behavior, attitude or energy in a given situation.  For instance, Nurturing and Providing are the feminine and masculine elements, respectively, in the How We Relate to Others pair.  When someone tells you about their day, your behavior and attitude may be focused on making room for them to talk and feel their feelings, demonstrating nurturing.  Or you may offer ideas, solutions, and perspectives, which would demonstrate providing.  Which one is better?  Neither.  What matters is whether you used the Element of Power that met the needs of the moment. 

In many situations, we’re conditioned to use our masculine power.  If that doesn’t work, we turn up the intensity.  Our clients learn and demonstrate that putting the feminine power first conserves their energy and makes more room for those around them.  Letting someone vent, for instance, often allows them to come to a broader perspective on their own, and it’s a lot less work than “bringing them around” by providing.  Other times, once they’ve vented, they’re ready to hear your good ideas for how to proceed.

It’s been said that a strength overused becomes a liability.  This recognition helps explain the source of many of our headaches and struggles at work and at home:  when we overuse one Element of Power, it goes funky on us.  For instance, a quality like assertiveness can turn into aggression when overused.  We call that the difference between “clean” or “active” Fierceness and “distorted” fierceness. 

Any aspect of your life that isn’t working can be traced to an under-use or over-use of your power.  But once you understand all the power that’s at your disposal, you can quickly correct for these imbalances by activating new Elements of Power and picking the right tool for the job at hand.  And as you begin to see others through the lens of the 12 Elements of Power™ you’ll have newfound compassion for their distortions.