For Leaders, Power is Part of the Job

Riddle me this - if you’re an all-powerful chief executive with no constraints, how much power do you exercise? 

That’s a central question of the Presidency at this point. Notice I didn’t say President here. Because executive power extends beyond the individual and into the structures that surround them. And while nonprofit leaders aren’t dealing with war plans, the question of control, autonomy, and responsibility follows them too. It just plays out in budgets, org charts, and boardrooms. 

So what is executive power? In its simplest form, it is the ability, and burden, to make decisions on behalf of a group of people or an organization. Sometimes with influence. Sometimes with force. Executive Power is NOT consensus-building. It is about the moment of making a decision and pushing ahead. Whether you’re navigating a crisis, setting a strategy, or managing a team, power is measured not in abstract authority, but in the choices you’re willing to take responsibility for.

Yet for something so crucial, decision-making is incredibly difficult. There’s no shortage of studies on how to do it: models, methods, even decision trees. And still, good decision-making remains maddeningly hard to facilitate, let alone execute.

So why is it so challenging? 

Because real decision-making can’t be taught in classrooms— it must be lived. Frameworks help, but the skill gets built in the doing. The more you decide, the more you sharpen your instincts. And while we can role-play decision-making until the cows come home, it won’t ever fully prepare you for the pressure of making a decision that carries real, tangible impact on those you lead. 

For example, during COVID, theaters and performing arts organizations had agonizing choices to make about the path forward for our institutions. What staff should we keep and why? What will we do about the artists we have commitments to? When should we return to in-person performances?  No amount of classroom training could have prepared leaders for the emotional and ethical weight of those calls. These were choices with real human costs — made in real time, with imperfect information, and no guarantee of a right answer.

But what gives a leader executive power? In the case of the presidency, it’s granted through a combination of votes, laws, traditions, and the architecture of democracy. For nonprofit executives, it is bestowed by the board of directors. But in both cases, there’s one condition that must be met: people have to believe in it.

Think of the One Ring from Tolkien: Why is that one, specific ring all-powerful? Because people believe in it.  It proves itself through demonstration: invisibility, domination, distortion. And in doing so, it strengthens our belief in its power. That's what power does. It persuades. It sometimes intimidates. It reveals.

Right now, that dynamic is on full display in the Trump era. He’s exercising executive power broadly — some would say recklessly — and daring anyone to challenge him. The outrage he provokes isn’t just about what he’s doing, but that he’s doing it. That he's using the authority of the office to its fullest extent — and forcing the country to reckon with how far executive power can stretch when unopposed.

And here’s the thing he’s right about: he’s not wrong to use it. Executive power was granted to him — through our political systems, our legal structures, and our collective belief. If executive power exists but goes unused, does it still serve its purpose? A power you’re unwilling to exercise is, in practice, no power at all.

While some practitioners advocate for decentralized leadership, the public often rewards the visible use of power, even if it is not used well. Take the political adage “strong and wrong beats weak and right.” That’s true, but what we are looking for in leadership is strong and right. And because humans are fallible, most of the time we are strong and wrong. 

Power, in practice, hinges on wrongness and risk. How wrong are you willing to be and at what cost? The higher the position, the higher the cost of error. And the more necessary the courage to act anyway. This courage is what most separates managers from leaders.

Like it or not, “I am the leader” almost always beats “everyone can be a leader.” Humans crave structure and accountability. We say we want consensus, but we also want someone to decide. And though people believe they want to make decisions, many actually don’t. Think about it: who doesn’t hate the dreaded question - “what do you want to eat for dinner?” Making choices that have consequences takes a mental and emotional toll on leaders. And the higher you climb, the more decisions you have to make and the more consequences you have to face. 

This is where Trump and the GOP offer a lesson, however uncomfortable. For all my disagreements with their policies and tactics, they are unapologetically good at exercising and exerting power. And there’s something to learn from that.

So what’s the lesson?  You can only claim power by using it. That’s how it becomes real. Presidential power has always expanded through action. The Founders envisioned the President as an administrative leader who carried out the laws of the country. But every president since has defined, and sometimes stretched, the limits of executive power by exercising it and daring others to push back. 

Andrew Jackson was called “King Andrew I” for a reason. He believed he could stretch the office’s limits — and did. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War. As he says in Spielberg’s Lincoln, he didn’t know he’d need those powers — until he did. Franklin Roosevelt pushed even further with the New Deal.

Trump is doing this everywhere all at once. He claims he can be on the board of the Kennedy Center and its President. That he can decide what tariffs foreign countries pay. He can deport people without due process under the Alien and Enemies Act. That he can control companies and tell them not to raise prices. He can establish as a policy of the US government that there are only two genders. All of this is of course highly questionable. But that’s the point. He asserts power and the burden falls on others to contest it.

Arts executives would do well to take this lesson: Embrace power. Don’t shrink from it. Don’t apologize for it. Instead, ask “where should I use it, when should I use it, and why?” Because leadership isn’t just about holding power — it’s about knowing when to move.