Here’s an insight from years of coaching organizations: even the most thoughtful leaders may be not be aware of how their power affects the potential of their team. Even with the best of intentions, we can fail to see our own impact.
One senior leader I worked with believed they were highly approachable. They did all of the right things, encouraging feedback, regularly asking for input in meetings and speaking openly about wanting transparency across the team. On the surface, it seemed like a healthy, open system.
Yet very little honest feedback was actually reaching this leader. People discussed their concerns in small groups, but rarely surfaced them directly. Meetings were polite. Alignment appeared strong. Nothing was wrong, but the absence of feedback did not mean that everyone agreed.
Team members didn’t lack the courage to give their opinions. They were adapting to invisible conditions influenced by power.
Power changes the relationship
Leaders don’t have to brandish their power to shape behavior and risk within a system. Just by representing authority, they influence what feels safe to say, what gets noticed and what remains unspoken.
- The same comment can land differently depending on who says it.
- The same silence can carry very different meaning depending on who holds it.
Over time, these subtle differences accumulate and shape how people engage with one another.
Mary Parker Follett, one of the earliest thinkers on organizational dynamics, challenged the idea that power is something individuals possess. She described it as something that emerges through relationship, shaped by interaction rather than held as a static resource.
Seen this way, we recognize that power is bestowed through relationship. It is continuously reinforced by how people respond to one another, and fundamentally alters the relational field.
"Power changes how people participate, how they interpret one another and how the system organizes itself around what is possible and what is not."
Following the leader
When someone steps into authority, their own relationship issues get amplified through the system, becoming more visible and more consequential. For instance, attachment patterns shape the behavior of others, and shadow dynamics influence culture.
We all fall back into habitual patterns from time to time. When leaders do so, those moments shape the way that the system will respond in future.
- A leader who becomes defensive is signalling that they are not fully open to hearing concerns.
- A leader who avoids tension is creating an environment where difficult conversations are delayed or avoided altogether.
Power amplifies existing patterns and extends their reach.
A lack of honest feedback
Even when team members are fully engaged, they may hold back on sharing their true opinions if it seems risky. People calibrate what they say, and observe the responses when others give opinions. Over time, they become more selective, offering only what feels safe or necessary.
When this happens, feedback is filtered. What reaches those in authority is softened or delayed. The system continues to function, but the information available is less accurate.
Neutral leadership is an illusion
As leaders, we may believe that we are neutral in facilitating discussions, making decisions and setting direction based on available information.
However, leadership is never neutral. Every response, whether intentional or not, sends a signal to the system. Others will note moments of defensiveness, dismissal or absence, and adjust the message to what they believe is safe and valued.
Edgar Schein’s work on organizational culture highlights that what leaders pay attention to becomes embedded in the system. Their priorities can affect policies and norms across the organization, becoming part of the culture. This can shape behaviour long after an individual leader departs.
We must measure the subtleties of our impact, not our intentions.
Rather than eliminating shadow, power protects it. The more authority we have, the less likely we are to be directly challenged. Team members become more cautious about naming concerns, especially when those concerns relate to the behavior of those in power. This creates a structural gap between intention and impact.
Shadow becomes harder to see. It hasn’t disappeared, but is less likely to be surfaced. Distortion begins to seem normal.
Remember, this is not a failure on the part of the individual leader. Systems just tend to organize this way around power.
What impact are you really making?
Returning to the organization that I coached, this leader truly believed they were approachable. They were unaware of their response to feedback and the impact that it had.
When feedback surfaced, this leader often met it with explanation: adding context, refining the point, or explaining their thinking more fully. It was subtle clarification and redirection rather than overt defensiveness.
Individually, these responses seemed reasonable. Collectively, they created a pattern. Those around this leader learned that while feedback was invited, it was not always easy to land it.
As a result, people softened their language, delayed their input or chose not to raise certain issues at all. The leader still received comments, but what they heard was filtered, incomplete and shaped as the system’s adaptation to power.
The leader had good intentions. The challenge was that they no longer had reliable access to their impact.
It is one of the paradoxes of leadership. As authority increases, the ability to see ourselves clearly is often reduced. The system adapts around us. Without realizing it, we begin making decisions based on a version of reality that is increasingly filtered.
The higher we rise, the more intentional we must become about understanding how we are experienced by others.
The value of coaching the system
As an individual’s power increases within a system, their self-awareness becomes less reliable. Leaders may be willing to reflect, but the system no longer provides clear and consistent feedback. Without deliberate effort, leaders lose access to how they are actually experienced.
Relationship systems coaching creates structure around something that does not happen naturally in the presence of power. It makes the relational field visible and provides ways to work with it intentionally.
This is why relationship work is so essential for those in positions of authority. It is not a preference or a style, but a form of responsibility.
Leaders must actively create conditions where:
- feedback can surface without retaliation.
- impact can be named without defensiveness.
- and relationship can hold tension without breaking.
Without these conditions, patterns will remain unexamined and the system will lose the capacity to adapt.
The most effective leaders I have worked with share a common quality. They are deeply curious about their impact.
They understand that authority creates blind spots. The higher they rise, the easier it becomes for people to adapt around them rather than tell them the truth. They measure their leadership by what their presence makes possible in others.
What we do as systems coaches helps make those dynamics visible. It surfaces what is not being said, working with tension in real time. It helps leaders and teams understand how power is shaping interaction, participation, and decision-making. As awareness increases, the system becomes more truthful.
Once a system is more truthful, it becomes more capable of learning, adapting, and realizing its potential.
If we truly want to walk the talk of who we say we are as leaders, we need:
- ways of seeing beyond our own perspective.
- people who can help us notice patterns we cannot see from inside the system.
One of the greatest values of Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC™) is that it provides a wider view of the relational field.
- It helps leaders understand how their behavior, decisions, and assumptions ripple through the organization.
- It reveals where potential is being encouraged, where it is being constrained, and what the system is trying to communicate.
Ask yourself whether your use of power expands the capacity of the people and systems you lead. Every leader has blind spots. The question is whether you find ways to see them.
This is the sixth article in a series about why relationship matters.
Learn more about ORSC, a systems coaching skillset that creates strong relationship in teams of any size.
Author
Michael Holton ORSCC, EIA-SP, ESIA, ICE-AC, ICF-PCC
Michael Holton is the CEO of CRR Global and a systems-inspired coach whose work integrates Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC™), somatic awareness, trauma-informed practice and developmental leadership. He supports leaders, teams and organizations in building coherence, trust and the capacity to navigate complexity. Michael’s approach is grounded in deep listening, relational intelligence and a commitment to equity and regenerative change.
