Fear of financial power

By Tracy Theemes

I recently spoke to a group of mid-career female professionals about leadership, power and money. This group was knowledgeable, intelligent and focused. Talking about leadership was easy. It’s the holy grail of women’s business groups. When we discuss topics like leadership, ethics and values everyone puts on their happy face. And this group was no different.

It was when we got into the area of power and money that the room began to twitch. As we explored this I could see that we had hit on a hot button. Not only were they hot but they got a bit angry too.

So I probed deeper. I asked the group, “If I gave you unlimited power, what would you do with it? Take three minutes and write down your ideas.”

Half of the group dismissed the challenge. They gave the power back. They didn’t want it. Power is corrupt. Power is aggressive. Power makes the world a bad place.

The remaining women said that having power wasn’t enough. They needed time and money. I replied, “Go to the bank. Have them unlock the safe! Tax evil people. Bring in servants. You have the power. Take the money and buy the time!”

They still argued. So I shifted gears and suggested they take 3 minutes to write down what they would do with unlimited money.

When we debriefed, most of them STILL gave it back.  The ones who kept it looked after friends and family with their wealth. The last few used their unlimited money to abolish world hunger or eliminate fossil fuel use. I’d given them unlimited power, money and time. Didn’t anyone want a new house, a chauffeur or a manicure? 

For women whose notion of employing unlimited resources is about helping others, I ask, what about you in all of this? How can a woman hold power of this magnitude without any thought of her self, her needs and pleasures? No wonder power is unattractive and often feared — it’s overwhelming and all consuming. So perhaps we protect ourselves from further over-expenditures of energy by simply avoiding power altogether.

We have a complicated relationship with money and power.

How do we hold our fair share of economic authority if it is the power inherent in it that terrifies us?

Women tell me that power doesn’t make them feel powerful, it makes them feel unsafe.  A sense of danger so primal, so deep that it keeps us in its grip by its very unknowingness. It is the inviolable, invisible force that knows us better than we know ourselves. 

So where does this come from and how will we eradicate it? 

As I see it, there are two sources of this fear and reluctance to hold power. The stuff we are born with and the stuff we accumulate along the way. According to the emerging research in the field of epigenetics we are born holding patterns of experiences from our ancestors at a cellular level.  Add to that the impact of neurology, biology and hormones.

And then there are beliefs that emerge from our own experiences, the messages of our families and the influence of the culture that we were raised into.

Most of this influence is happening below our levels of awareness. That makes it a bit more complicated and challenging. But it is not impossible to understand and overcome.

With a willingness to become deep sea divers pursuing ocean bound treasure we can look inside and begin the process of bringing up the “loot.” We can catalogue it and manage it. The sheer act of personal exploration is exhilarating - far more so than holding on to nameless terrors and a reticence to expand that does not serve us or our world. 

We will have to mine the deepest part of our psyches and belief systems to unravel this cord to what holds us back.  But we don’t have to do it alone.

Strength and courage are grown in community.

We have each other. And the benefits of making a better, safer world make it well worth the effort.