Power Is Relational, Not Finite

Much of our society is ruled by a false principle: that power is a finite resource, for someone to have power, someone else must necessarily be without. There is a pie, and to be in power, you must have the most pieces.

When we operate by this principle we create spaces, organizations, and systems that rely on hierarchy to manage positionality. This delineates classes, winners and losers, and leaves many without real agency. Centralized authority is normalized and we reward control over collaboration. It feels like power is finite, because it is hoarded.

This zero-sum lens mistakes domination for power.

But this is not a truth about the world. This scarcity is manufactured, and it keeps systems stuck. It turns a concept like equity into a threat instead of an opportunity to build collective capacity. Power isn’t something we simply have, or something bestowed on us, or worse, something we exercise over others. Power is created through mutual respect, accountability and trust. It is relational.

We can create exponential, collective power by focusing on relationships, trust, and shared purpose. In this way, power becomes dynamic, shifting as relationships shift and growing as relationships deepen.

Shifting power, and our perspective of it, requires us to expand who we recognize as experts and to rework the relationships that systems are built on. We aren’t adding new voices to old structures; we are redesigning the structures. When we do that, power stops being about who wins, but about what is possible, together.

At Elevated Denver, we are committed to putting people with lived experience at every table, and to cultivating relational power by creating the conditions for collaboration, trust, and shared leadership. That will take central focus this year.