Ethical Adulthood with Andrea Fiondo: Capacity 3 — Recognizing Power

Capacity Three: Recognizing Power

In this installment of Ethical Adulthood, we move into Capacity Three: recognizing power and taking responsibility for its effects.

When we hear the word power, we often think of large systems—governments, wealth, institutions.

But the kind of power explored here is much closer.

It shows up in everyday relationships:

partners, friends, family, colleagues.

Power is not just authority or intent.

It shows up in:

• who has more options

• who has more safety

• who is more likely to be believed

• who can leave—and who has to stay

• who carries the longer impact when something goes wrong

When power goes unrecognized, it quietly distorts fairness, repair, and responsibility.

This episode offers a practical way to begin noticing power in real time—

without collapsing into guilt or defensiveness.

The core question:

If I act exactly as I want to right now,

who absorbs the cost—and who is protected from it?

If the answer isn’t me,

then power is operating.

And responsibility follows.

Series: Psychological Capacities for Ethical Adulthood

1. Tolerating Discomfort
2. Repairing Harm
3. Recognizing Power (this episode)

— Calibration: Capacity, Limits, and Responsibility

1. Grief
2. Acting Without Guarantees

— Andrea Fiondo

Kundalini Yoga in Detroit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Ethical Adulthood, Capacity Three, recognizing power and taking responsibility for its effects. Power exists whether we think about it or not. And for this conversation, I'm talking about relational power, the kind that shows up between people. So before we go further, I want to ground this in something very ordinary. When we hear the word power, many of us think about large systems, government, wealth, institutions, people with obvious authority. But what I'm talking about here is much closer than that. Power shows up in everyday relationships all the time, between partners, between friends, between family members, and between colleagues. And part of the reason it's hard to see is that we tend to misread what's happening in some very predictable ways. One, we feel something and we assume that that feeling defines reality. If I feel hurt, then something wrong must have been done to me. And if I feel calm, then I must be the reasonable one. Two, we confuse intention with impact. Well, I didn't mean it that way, becomes the end of the conversation instead of the beginning of repair. Three, we assume symmetry when the situation isn't actually symmetrical. We say we both contributed, even when the impact wasn't equal. Four, we don't recognize power unless it's obvious. We can see authority or money or control, but not things like emotional detachment, credibility, or the ability to leave. Five, we protect ourselves before we orient to what is actually happening. We move quickly into defense before we've really understood the situation that we're in. And six, most of us were never taught what ethical behavior looks like in real time. So we fall back on questions like, am I right? Am I wrong? Instead of asking, what is mine to do here? So when we talk about power in this way, we're not talking about something abstract. We're talking about learning to see what is already happening in ordinary, everyday interactions. So here's what I mean. Power shows up in simple, concrete ways. It shows up in who can leave a conversation and who can't. If I can walk away and be fine and you can't, then I have more power in that moment. It shows up in who can wait and who has to respond quickly. If I can take my time and you're left sitting in uncertainty, that's my power. It shows up in who will be believed. If you and I tell the same story, and people are more likely to believe me than you because of my role or my status or how I present, that's power. And it shows up in who will recover more easily. If something goes wrong between us and I can move on without much consequence, but you carry the impact longer, that's power. So this capacity is not about guilt, it's about being able to see this clearly and let that awareness shape how we act. Because when we don't see power, we make predictable mistakes. We talk about things being fair when they aren't actually fair. We assume symmetry when there isn't any. We call something neutral when neutrality is actually causing harm. And sometimes we become harsh or dismissive without realizing how much weight our position is carrying. So, what power is in this framework, power isn't mainly about domination. It's about leverage and consequence. Power means one person has more options than the other, more safety than the other, more credibility than the other. And one can absorb more without it costing as much. And here's something subtle. Often the person with more power feels less emotional intensity. That's right, the person with more power feels less emotional intensity. So if I feel calm and you feel activated, it can look like I'm the reasonable one. But that calmness may not be neutrality, it may be insulation from consequences. So what power is not? Power is not being upset, being loud, being articulate, being wounded, or even being morally convincing. Someone can be in real pain and still hold more power. Power isn't about who is right. Power is about who carries more consequence. How power affects repair. But when power is uneven, well, impact doesn't land evenly. The person with less power often feels more of it, and for longer. So what happens? The more powerful person says, We both need to take responsibility. And that can sound reasonable, but if the impact wasn't equal, that request isn't actually neutral. Or we say, let's meet halfway. But halfway isn't meaningful if we didn't start from the same place. Or we call it a misunderstanding when something actually landed hard and needs to be addressed directly. So the core principle here is if you have more power in a situation, well, you have more responsibility. Not because you're worse, but because you have more room to move without causing harm. If you can absorb more without being harmed, then it's on you to absorb more. So how do we recognize that? So if you're unsure, ask. Who has more options right now? If this ended, who would be more affected? Who would be believed? Who has backing, social, professional, institutional? Who can afford to be misunderstood? You don't need perfect answers. You just need enough awareness to realize this is not equal. So there are a few areas where people get tripped up here. We confuse our pain with powerlessness. We can be deeply hurt and still hold more power. We assume equality because intentions are equal, but equal intent does not produce equal impact. We use fairness language to avoid responsibility. Well, we both did things can be true and still avoid the imbalance. And we wait for the other person to go first. When if we hold more power, the responsibility starts with us. So what does ethical use of power look like? Well, it's not dramatic, it's not self-erasing. It looks like pausing before reacting, initiating repair without being asked, taking in discomfort instead of pushing it back out, not needing to be understood first, and not using calmness, logic, or status to shut things down. And honestly, it can feel unfair. Like, why do I have more to do here? But that feeling is often the signal. It's showing us where something needs to adjust. And I want to put a clarification in here before I move on. This does not mean tolerating abuse at all. It does not mean accepting false accusations, and it doesn't mean losing your boundaries. Power awareness is not self-erasure, it's accuracy. Why does this matter so much in ethical adulthood? Because when certainty falls away, people often then reach for neutrality. Or they say everyone's perspective matters equally. But power differences don't disappear just because we feel uncertain. So part of ethical adulthood is being able to say, even if I'm confused, even if I'm hurt, I still have more power here. And that changes what is mine to do. One grounding question before I end this capacity on power. If I act exactly as I want to right now, who absorbs the cost? And who is protected from it? If the answer isn't me, then power is operating. And responsibility follows. So before we go further, we need to get clear about limits, about what's actually available to us in a given moment.