Kinds
of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses
James Hillman
You sometimes expect to find the
Machiavellian, the Chomskian, the Actonian or the Foucauldian streak to Hillman
when he discusses on the concept of Power!
Indeed he does! There’s quite an
amalgamation on some of those concepts, but still, he comes out bigtime with
his own interesting views on Power too! That gives the book its aura and its
vibes!
Celebrated Jungian therapist James
Hillman shows how the artful leader uses each of two dozen kinds of power with
finesse and subtlety.
Power, we often forget, has many
faces, many different expressions.
"Empowerment," writes
best-selling Jungian analyst James Hillman, "comes from understanding the
widest spectrum of possibilities for embracing power."
If food means only meat and
potatoes, your body suffers from your ignorance.
When your idea of food expands, so
does your strength.
So it is with power. "James
Hillman," says Robert Bly, "is the most lively and original
psychologist we have had in America since William James."
In Kinds of Power, Hillman gives much needed substance to the subject
by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the mind, and
the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates
power with strength.
Hillman's "anatomy" of
power explores two dozen expressions of power every artful leader must
understand and use, including: the language of power, control, influence,
resistance, leadership, prestige, authority, exhibitionism, charisma, ambition,
reputation, fearsomeness, tyranny, purism, subtle power, growth, and
efficiency.
Power in business, politics and the
world of work, to most people, implies competition, domination, control and
reward.
Rejecting this conventional notion
of power as limited and stultifying, Hillman reconceptualizes power in terms of
sustaining continuity, conserving, teaching, caring, bringing out the innate
potential in each person or task.
Growth, to corporations, means
bottom-line results, bigger equals better. But to Hillman, growth is a process
of shedding worn-out identities, cleaning up messes, pondering the implications
of one's actions for the wider world and for future generations.
The core of this highly reflective
inquiry consists of short explorations: mythological, philosophical,
etymological, psychological, etc., of concepts like influence, tyranny,
ambition, office and decision.
Hillman points out that there are
many different kinds of power and that the execution of power has many styles
and nuances.
In the past, power has been used to
increase growth and efficiency, but now, Hillman explains, it should be used to
accomplish the goals of service and maintenance.
How trueeey!
With delightful inputs from librarything.com
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