Power & Conflict Power's Role

Power & Conflict Power's Role in a Conflict As in all other kinds of communication, power influences the nature of communication during a conflict. Power is a fundamental concept in conflict theory and the core of any analysis has to lie in the power structure. Despite this, it is difficult to define what power is. "Like love, we know that power exists, but we cannot agree on a description of it" (Kipnis cited in Hocker & Wilmot, 2007, p. 96). Everybody has a different view of it.

Because so many references to power have negative connotations, some people feel that power is an inappropriate topic for discussion and thus, in bad taste. People even feel guilty for wanting power and deny that they ever use it in their communicative acts (although, of course, they do). A variety of ways exist to deny that one is using power to influence a situation. A person may deny having communicated at all or that anything was communicated.

They may deny that they told something to another person, or deny that a situation existed in which they communicated something. All these are ways of denying that power exists in a relationship even though the person is exercising power. It is impossible to engage in an act of communication without influencing the process. Even if you would rather not be seen as person who tries to throw their weight around, your are always exercising influence in your relations with others.

Assumptions about power are often found in the person's use of language. If you say, "She was trying to intimidate me," for example, this indicates that you see an imbalance of power in which the other person tried to manipulate you into doing something you didn't want to do by scaring or threatening you. When one person seems to have more power than the other, this indicates an underlying view of power as something limited and finite.

There is only so much of it to go around, and one party has grabbed most of it. This way of looking at power can cause the participants in a conflict to make destructive moves in an effort to get back some of the power. When power is seen as limited, the parties struggle for their share because one party loses what the other party gets. it's very difficult for some people to see power any other way.

On the other hand, there is another view of power that seems more productive. It is power with others or "both/and power" (Hocker & Wilmot, 2007, p. 99). Women, because they are relationship oriented, tend to favor this kind of power. The assumptions in this view are different and a different kind of skills are needed to make it work. First, power is seen as pervasive and present in every social interaction.

Whether we yell at the other party, ignore the other person, or speak calmly, we are influencing the interaction and thus exercising some power. Secondly, power is neutral. It is neither good nor bad -- it's how you see it and what you do with it that warrants evaluation. Third, you have to have another person in order to have power. It doesn't exist if you are alone. It is a product of a relationship, and someone else grants it. Fourth, people want a balance of power in their relationships.

The things they do to accomplish a balance can be either destructive or productive. Fifth, power is not finite. There is not only so much to go around that must be divided equally or unequally. Both parties in a relationship can increase their power with each other. Finally, if conflict management is to be effective, a balance of power must be achieved. It is not necessarily a negative thing to try to gain more power in a conflict.

After all, a person's sense of self-worth depends on feeling competent and able to influence what is happening in one's life. How much power we perceive ourselves to have directly influences our sense of self-esteem. In a discussion of power currencies, Hocker & Wilmot (2007) say how much power we have depends on whether we have "currencies" other people want. In other words your power over another person rests on your having something to give them that they need.

For example, in the days when women had few rights and little power in their marriages, they did have sex (a valuable currency), which they could give or withhold in order to exert power. But it depends on the relationship what the currency is. Sex isn't a currency in a business relationship, for instance, and perhaps it shouldn't be used as a currency in an intimate relationship. Every person has potential currencies that can be used to gain power in a relationship.

Expertise, for instance, is power if others need it. Resource control is another form of power. For instance, when President Lyndon Johnson was in college he got into a position where he controlled all the student jobs on campus. Anybody that needed a job had to come to him. Jobs were his power currency at that time. Interpersonal linkages provide another source of power currency when you know somebody that could help somebody else.

Finally, communication skills such as persuasiveness or empathic listening can become power currency with people who have a need to connect with someone else and to be understood. All power is relationally connected. Being powerful is not a personal quality or characteristic or a "thing" that a person possesses. Somebody has to grant it to you because you have currencies they value. Power arises from the relationship dynamics. The situation helps to determine the power a person has in a relationship. Take, for example, the situation of domestic abuse.

The husband verbally abuses his wife and seems to have "all the power" in the relationship. However, in the history of the relationship, the wife communicated the message that she needs him, no matter what. Abusing power is a product.