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Releasing the Power Within – Eight Tips for Greater Effectiveness                 

By Betty Burr of NoonTime University and Teleclass-at-Work

Eleanor Roosevelt is reported to have said: "Women are like teabags; they don’t know their own strengths until they get into hot water!"

Do you know your own strengths and recognize your power? Many people don’t recognize their own power. Yet everyone has a built-in power source. Do you know how to maximize your power and make it work for you?

The first step to manifesting power is to realize what it is. It’s "the ability to get things done," according to Rosebeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard. Since getting things done is a major part of the job for an AA or VA, the effective use of power is essential.

Position Power: Someone/something put you in charge and you act it.

Expert Power: You know (or think you know) more about the subject than others. (Until they learn more than you or someone else more knowledgeable comes along.)

Referred Power: Your boss/husband/wife/father/mother etc. is in power, so you are (for now).

Passive Power: Using the helpless act: "You don’t expect little ole me to change a tire, now do you?"

Personal (Influence) Power: True power that no one can take away from you. It comes from within.

"PIC" the type of power to use in any situation

Powerful people "PIC" the best type of power to use in a specific situation. Being powerful comes from knowing you have Purpose, Intention and Choice and consciously exercising it. If you know why you choose to rely on one kind of power over another, you can know what the consequences of your actions will be.

While there are appropriate situations in which to use each of the 5 types of power, with most of them circumstances can take away the power. For example, the referred power "protector" can leave the company. The person using position power might have someone else put in charge, and so on. For that reason, the most reliable power is Personal (Influence) Power. Everyone has it. Not everyone knows how to access or use it.

To help you figure out your own power, ask yourself these questions and write down the answers:

a) Under what circumstances do I feel most powerful?

b) Under what circumstances do I feel powerless?

c) What are the major differences between events when I feel powerful and those when I feel powerless?

d) What can I do to place myself in more situations where I feel powerful?

Often people think that communication is simple because they can easily open their mouths and talk, or move their fingers and type an email. The powerful person does not send out any communication without thinking through the likely consequences of the action. They practice strategic thinking and strategic communication. This prevents the "I wish I’d never said that!" syndrome.

One of the things that rob people of power is their "automatic" reaction to certain people and things. Everyone has preconceptions and prejudices that keep then from really listening to certain people and getting all the information. Yet without all the information, it’s impossible to strategically "PIC" the type of power to use.

In order to counter this effect, a powerful communicator learns to recognize her own preconceptions. Here is an exercise that will help you see what lies in your mind and strategically "PIC" how you want to react. Read each description and answer the questions to yourself.

1. You walk into a large business cocktail party and get the chance to listen for a few minutes as you circle the room deciding where to stop and talk. Suddenly you overhear a conversation that tells you one of these people is the type you can’t stand to be around. What kind of things would that person be talking about?
   
2. You are walking past a park in which there are 5 different soap box speakers. One of them catches your attention because she is talking about something that makes you absolutely enraged. You walk quickly past her. Some distance down the path, you are stopped by another speaker who is exclaiming about something very near and dear to your heart. What was the subject that made you enraged? What was the subject near to your heart?
3. Your boss arrives at your desk to discuss something which you don’t want to talk about. You find it hard to pay attention. What is the subject?
4. You are informed that your boss is suddenly being transferred to another city and that her replacement has been announced. You know and dislike this person. What is the new boss like?

Every human being has a running inner dialog that tells them how they messed up, how they might get into trouble, and all types of other worrisome ideas. This thinking keeps one from acting powerfully. It is essential that each person build another voice to counter the critic. That is the internal "coach" that encourages and supports them. For example, it is the coach voice that reminds you that a critical person is criticizing your actions, not you as a person. (It is often useful to find an actual personal/business coach to help you get started with this.)

Stepping up to say "I did that and I’m proud of it" can be very difficult for some people. Powerful people take the risk.

Also, to access your power you must be willing to set limits and boundaries, asking for the time you need to finish a project, or the pay rate you want for doing work as a Virtual Assistant.

This idea comes from Michael Gerber in his book The E Myth. If you are an independent professional, you will find that it’s very easy to get totally involved in the doing of the work (working in) and not pay enough attention to planning, marketing, administration, and all of the "working on" elements. Being powerful in your business requires attention to these elements too.

It is almost impossible to exercise personal power without having a good support system behind you. Yet often people get so busy that they forget about all the areas in life they need to keep in balance. To find out if you are in balance, fill out this Satisfaction Analysis (This measures how satisfied you are. So it’s possible that you have nothing going on in one of the areas and you are completely satisfied with that condition.)

Most of the people reading this are probably women. And one of the greatest gifts women bring to the world is their intuition. This ability is powerful! Yet the traditional workplace has not placed much value on the intuitive judgment, but rather the rational. The most powerful people trust their intuition to give them warnings, ideas, cautions, etc. Then they strategically communicate in terms that the recipient of the communication can take in, which may be mostly rational facts and figures.

For more information about your Personal Power, look into the teleclass "Communicating with Power and Influence" at www.teleclassatwork.com.

Betty Burr is the founder of NoonTime University; Inc., Teleclassatwork.com, and Success Coaching for Women. Betty began her career as a junior secretary at the Naval Postgraduate School Physics department "when we still typed on non-correcting variable space Selectric Typewriters!" After a career as a trainer and Director of Training, Betty founded her own company. Her companies have trained EAs and AAs at Hewlett Packard, Synopsys, Chiron, McKesson Corp, Federal Reserve Bank, Comerica Bank, Synopsys, National Semi-Conductor, Applied Materials and others. She conducted West Coast training for American Management Association Administrative Assistant programs, and traveled nationwide for CareerTrack and Dun & Bradstreet. Get more information at www.noontimeu.com

©2002 Betty Burr.