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Right Use of Power | What's Available? | About Cedar | What Others Say |
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Right Use of Power Right Use of Power is one of the most crucial needs of our time and one of the greatest challenges we face in leadership and in personal development. We have the capacity for wisdom, skillfulness, and service in the use of our power. Yet we have all be wounded by misuses and abuses of power by those in positions of trust, and we have also inevitably misused or under-used our power. Power is simply the ability to have an effect, or to have influence, but the right use of this influence is profound and complex. Personally and in positions of trust, the right use of power is the use of power to prevent, heal, and repair harm, and to promote well-being for all. Far from being an automatic result of good intentions, right use of power must be learned and practiced. The ability to act sensitively, creatively, and effectively on behalf of others and oneself requires attention, skill, wisdom, and a lifetime interest in the impact of your uses of power.
PERSONAL AND RELATIONAL ETHICS
KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS APPROACH TO POWER
POWER SPIRAL MODEL
FOUR DIMENSIONS Although this approach was primarily developed for those in the helping professions, the material covered in written and experiential form necessarily attends to both personal and service ethics. Ethical sensitivity and awareness requires both personal and professional attention. The following is a summary of the theory, topics, and skills covered in each of the four dimensions. Both the Right Use of Power book, and the Teacher’s Resource Manual can be purchased at this site. You can also find workshops and trainings as offered by Cedar Barstow and members of the Right Use of Power Teacher’s Guild. We hope this summary will whet your appetite for more.
THE VISION
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Ethics is here understood as the right use
of power and influence. Ethical
use of power is a meld of personal integrity and role responsibility. The
Right Use of Power approach brings heart and soul to the study of
ethics, first by honoring the good intentions of helping professionals
for wanting the best for their clients. Next by bringing compassion
to our mistakes and our woundedness as healers and as persons. So
often we think we must choose between between being powerful and
being compassionate. In fact, using power well, requires kindness
and wisdom. Personally, we learn to use our power to express
compassion, to empower others and ourselves, and to manifest our
purpose and gifts. Relationally, we gain skillfulness and
sensitivity in using power to heal, protect, and collaborate with
those we serve.
The focus of this dimension is accessing GUIDANCE
from many directions. In
this dimension we gather the guidance that we need for right use
of power actions. We understand and are resourced by information
from the lived history of our service profession that has been downloaded
into ethics codes and guidelines. We practice sensing and owning
the impact of the power differential—its potential, its responsibilities,
its distortions, and its vulnerability for clients. We receive and
use information from those we serve. We pay attention to inner
guidance. We make informed ethical decisions. 
The focus of this dimension is RELATIONSHIP. Ethical
behavior is dependent upon being in right relationship. Here
we acknowledge the power and complexity of connection. We increase
our skillfulness in tracking for difficulties and staying current
in both personal and professional relationships. We recognize
that unintended harm can happen because of one or more factors: difference
between intention and impact, shame, cultural or contextual differences,
lack of skill, unconscious beliefs, shame, transference. We
practice staying connected even in conflict and using conflict
to clarify, resolve, and repair relationships. We understand accountability
as an expression of caring.