Power Literacy in Practice

How workplace decisions are shaped before process even begins

My second-ever post (←) on Substack was about the foundational competencies required for an “uncompliant” approach to Human Resources. These are deeper capacities that determine whether HR can operate as anything other than an administrative function that everyone loves to hate.

One of those fundamentals was Power Literacy, and at the time, it appeared as a section within a broader exploration of why traditional HR education consistently falls short.

I want to give this topic the attention it deserves with this post, as I feel it’s the condition that shapes how every other skill functions in practice.

When I think back on any HR education I’ve had, it’s fair to say that the coursework is designed as though authority is evenly distributed and decision-making is rational. But in real organizations, these assumptions just don’t hold up. Power moves through hierarchy, proximity, identity, reputation, revenue... It determines whose judgment is trusted and whose version of events carries more weight. Any HR function that ignores this reality is operating with an incomplete framework.

Power literacy means understanding how those forces operate in daily interactions, escalations, and decisions. It requires seeing where discretion actually lives, how it’s exercised, and which risks are generally accepted as the cost of doing business.

The Contradiction

HR is expected to guide leaders, protect fairness, manage conflict, and uphold culture. At the same time, HR often lacks final decision authority, enforcement power, and structural protection when disputes involve senior leadership. HR professionals are taught to rely on process, policy, and neutrality as substitutes for power.

The problem is that:

• Process does not carry equal weight across an organization

• Policies do not apply evenly when the people involved hold different levels of authority

• Neutrality does not land the same way when one party has more credibility, more protection, and more access to decision-makers.

In practice, neutrality functions as deference by allowing existing hierarchies to determine outcomes without being made explicit. Neutrality frames harm as a misunderstanding and shifts responsibility onto process design instead of power dynamics. HR professionals are then judged on outcomes they never had the authority to shape.

When Power Weaponizes Process

In the post I mentioned earlier, I shared a story about working with a senior leader who used HR systems to undermine me. I won’t repeat that story in full here (→ but it’s definitely worth checking out). What matters is not the specifics of the individual involved but the pattern itself.

Powerful actors do not need to violate policy to cause harm. They can stay technically compliant while manipulating interpretation, tone, timing, and narrative. They understand how credibility travels. They know which concerns will be taken seriously and which will be dismissed as “personality conflicts” or “communication issues.”

In those situations, HR is placed in a structurally impossible position. Boundaries get reframed as obstruction, expertise becomes interference. Decisions are personalized and then contested through the very systems HR is responsible for administering.

I can’t emphasize this enough: the outcomes of high-stakes workplace decisions, things like investigations, performance decisions, and conflicts, rarely hinge on who is actually right. They’re determined by whose version of reality aligns with power.

A significant moment in my career came while navigating a major conflict with a colleague senior to me, when an executive bluntly told me, “You may be right, but his words carry more weight than yours.”

Cold, hard facts. Painful facts, but facts nonetheless.

That sentence clarifies something HR education tends to obscure. Organizations do not evaluate credibility through principle; they evaluate it through power. Seniority, revenue generation, relational capital, and institutional protection shape whose perspective defines the narrative.

HR is expected to operate inside that reality while pretending it does not exist, aka, remaining “neutral.” This is why so many capable, thoughtful HR professionals end up exhausted, doubting their judgment, or exiting the field altogether.

The missing prerequisite

Power literacy does not turn HR into an adversarial function. It does not require constant escalation or confrontation, but it does require precision.

With power literacy, HR can anticipate where process will be insufficient. The distinction between formal authority and real influence becomes obvious, and the conditions under which neutrality protects the system instead of the people inside it are easier to identify.

Without power literacy, HR tools lack the conditions required to function as intended. Performance management, investigations, culture initiatives, and values statements rely on models of fairness that won’t work under real power dynamics. With power literacy, those same tools can be designed more honestly, with safeguards that reflect how decisions are actually made.

The refusal to accept the status quo depends on understanding power as it actually operates.

Maybe you’re familiar with this type of thing, and off the top of your head, you can name a few situations where power dynamics played a major role in an outcome. But if you aren’t, then allow me to paint a picture for you:

An employee, Maya, raises concerns to HR about her manager’s behaviour following a disagreement over priorities and resourcing. Since the disagreement, she reports being excluded from meetings and being subjected to heightened scrutiny. Some of what she describes sits right on the edge of targeted behaviour; however, more information is needed.

Maya is visibly exhausted and distressed. She shares that she has tried to address the situation directly and informally, without success, and has reached a point where continuing under these conditions feels unsustainable. She is asking HR for support.

Her manager, Roman, is not just a manager. He’s a senior leader overseeing a strategically critical function tied to a major organizational initiative. The work is behind schedule, highly visible, and under scrutiny from the board.

HR reaches out to Roman to better understand the situation. He acknowledges tension but frames it as a performance issue, citing delivery pressure and missed expectations. While HR raises concerns about Maya’s well-being and the impact of the current dynamics, Roman emphasizes the urgency of the work and expresses concern that HR involvement could slow progress at a critical moment. HR insists that an urgent mediated conversation will help course-correct before any further damage is done.

Shortly after that interaction, HR is contacted by Gabrielle, a member of the executive team who works closely with Roman. Gabrielle raises concerns about “over-interpreting interpersonal conflict,” notes Roman’s importance to the organization, and suggests that escalating the issue would create unnecessary disruption. HR is advised to “let this one go.”

Once the project wraps, Roman is publicly recognized for delivering under pressure and credited with steering a high-risk initiative to completion.

Around two months later, during a broader reorganization, Maya’s role is eliminated.

What is Power Mapping?

Power mapping is a diagnostic practice that helps you understand where authority, discretion, and protection actually sit in your organization, particularly in moments of tension, conflict, or decision-making.

Most HR processes fail not because they are poorly designed, but because they are built on the false assumption that power is evenly distributed. Power mapping starts from a different assumption. Power is uneven, contextual, and relational, and any process ignoring that reality will crumble under pressure.

A Note on Uncompliant Tools

The following tool was born out of my own frustration and reflections as I struggled to understand power dynamics at work early in my career.

One of my goals for Uncompliant is to design tools and exercises that people will actually use, because they respect your time and deliver real value. Tools that don’t feel like a punishment. Like when you agree to participate in a “quick” survey meant to take ten minutes, and three hours later, you’re still not done, but if you stop now, you just wasted three hours of your life, so you have to keep going. I don’t want to do that to anyone.

At the same time, I don’t believe reading about power, critical thinking, or systems change is enough. Understanding something conceptually is useful, sure. But applying it, even briefly, is what actually changes how you see and move through work.

So with that in mind, I want to introduce what I call Power Mapping Mad Libs (Mad Libs, please don’t sue me).

My son loves Mad Libs. He’s eight. He will use the word penis every chance he gets, and I have to regularly remind him that penis is not a verb. Or an adjective. We will not be using penis here. Unless, of course, the situation you are navigating at work involves penises, in which case you may want to skip this exercise entirely and go straight to legal counsel.

Power Mapping Mad Libs

Think about a current work situation you’re navigating or one from the past, where the outcome was not ideal, and/or unexpected. This should be a real situation, no hypotheticals.

Fill in the blanks as directed.

In this situation, _________________________(name of the strongest outcome shaper) had the greatest influence over the outcome, even though they were not formally responsible for ____________________________________________ (the decision/process).

The decision they most influenced was _____________________________ (the outcome that became inevitable, restricted, delayed or removed).

________________________ (the person expected to handle the process) was formally responsible for managing the issue.

Their authority was limited by _________________________________ (the constraint; person, external pressure, reputational risk, etc.)

The outcome ultimately protected ____________________________ (the person and/or group whose position, reputation, or influence was preserved).

The cost of that outcome was absorbed by ____________________ (the person who carried the emotional, professional, or relational impact).

Neutrality functioned as __________________________________________ (describe what neutrality did in practice), primarily benefitting ___________________________________ (name who it served).

The decision was justified using ______________________________________ (policy, process, timing, business needs, precedent) rather than an explicit acknowledgement of power.

Given this power configuration, the actions realistically available to the person responsible were _____________________________________ (be precise about what was possible).

The actions they did not have access to were __________________________________(be precise about what was constrained or unavailable).

Example

Let’s fill in the blanks using our story from earlier…

In this situation, Gabrielle had the greatest influence over the outcome, even though they were not formally responsible for addressing Maya’s concerns or determining how the issue would be handled.

The decision they most influenced was whether to have a mediated conversation to work toward a resolution.

HR was formally responsible for managing the issue.

Their authority was limited by Roman’s strategic importance, executive alignment around delivery, and the organization’s low tolerance for disruption during a critical initiative.

The outcome ultimately protected Roman’s role and the uninterrupted completion of the initiative he led.

The cost of that outcome was absorbed by Maya.

Neutrality functioned as non-intervention framed as pragmatism and restraint, primarily benefitting Roman and organizational continuity.

The decision was justified using business urgency rather than an explicit acknowledgment of power.

Given this power configuration, the actions realistically available to the person responsible were raising concerns, proposing mediation, documenting the issue, and escalating internally.

The actions they did not have access to were meaningful intervention, initiating a formal investigation, altering leadership accountability, or resolving the situation.

Here’s what we can now see:

• Influence sat outside formal accountability → Gabrielle shaped whether the issue would escalate, despite not being responsible for managing the concern or accountable for its resolution.

• Responsibility exceeded authority → HR was expected to respond to Maya’s situation but lacked the power to determine next steps.

• Protection activated upward → As soon as risk appeared, organizational credibility and discretion were extended to Roman due to his strategic role and proximity to leadership.

• Risk transferred downward → Maya experienced the downstream impact of decisions made to protect organizational priorities. Additionally, HR risked its credibility for failing to resolve employee concerns.

• Neutrality preserved institutional priorities → Non-intervention was framed as neutrality, allowing leadership to remain unaccountable while the work continued.

The purpose of walking through a concrete scenario like this is not to litigate the outcome, but to show how power becomes legible once you know where to look.

Now What?

Power mapping does not tell you what to do. It tells you what is true.

• If influence sits outside formal accountability, that’s power

• If responsibility exceeds authority, that’s power.

• If non-intervention preserves existing hierarchies…power.

• If consequences accumulate at lower levels of the organization, you guessed it…

Once the map is visible, you may realize escalation is required earlier than you thought, or maybe it will help you identify where additional decision-makers need to come in. Power mapping may also help you recognize that a process needs redesign because it assumes conditions that just don’t exist.

In some cases, power mapping clarifies that the organization is not willing to act in alignment with its core values. That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s also actionable because clarity prevents self-blame and helps you make informed choices about how and where to invest your effort.

Power mapping is not a tool to validate cynicism. And it doesn’t excuse harm or justify inaction.

It’s also not a demand to fight every battle or escalate every issue. Sometimes the most responsible choice you can make is to document, make a few simple process adjustments, or disengage from situations where authority and accountability are fundamentally misaligned.

Seeing power clearly won’t guarantee a better outcome, but it will surface how decisions are actually shaped, allowing you to respond to reality instead of mistaking inevitability for personal or professional failure.

Dear Uncompliant: Power literacy edition

Have you ever been instructed to remain neutral in a situation where power was clearly shaping the outcome? Or held accountable for decisions you did not have the authority to make? Maybe you’ve watched harm be reframed or minimized because of who caused it (I mean…who hasn’t?).

If you want to go deeper on the topic and have a question for Dear Uncompliant re: power literacy, you can reply directly to this email or send me a DM on Substack.

P.S. Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of collaborating with Andrea Chiarelli on a workplace fable about effort, ambiguity and the hidden costs of vague leadership. Check it out here:

Lean In