#563 Handling the Power Imbalance: What Every Leader Needs to Confront

Handling the Power Imbalance: What Every Leader Needs to Confront

Picture three people walking into your office: a new intern on their first day, your most important client, and an investor who has just been briefing the board. Most leaders would insist they treat all three identically. Leadership expert Niels Brabandt argues, in this week's episode of The Leadership Podcast, that this claim rarely survives scrutiny, and that the gap between how leaders believe they behave and how they actually behave is precisely where the imbalance of power takes root.

Niels Brabandt says the topic had been on his mind for some time, prompted by a steady stream of listener emails and by a familiar pattern in the news: organisations expressing public shock after leaks reveal a culture in which abuse of power went unaddressed for years, sometimes decades. “That is exactly the imbalance of power,” Brabandt says. “So you need to know how to handle it.”

Start By Acknowledging Your Own Status

The first step, according to Niels Brabandt, is uncomfortable for many leaders: acknowledging their own status, whatever its source. He is careful to frame this as description rather than blame. Brabandt uses his own background as an example. Raised in a small village in northern Germany by two parents who prioritised education, he went on to complete three master's degrees while working full time and building an international consulting business. “This is privilege, whether you like it or not,” he says. “Address it.”

He points to a very concrete effect of status: when he begins a new interim management assignment, people who do not yet know him tend to look him up on LinkedIn. The moment they see his academic credentials, their behaviour changes. “They treat me differently,” he says. “And we have to address that power.” Leaders who refuse to acknowledge this dynamic, Brabandt argues, are operating in a different reality to the people they lead, whether they intend to or not.

Conscious Abuse Is Bad. Unconscious Abuse Is Worse.

Niels Brabandt draws a sharp distinction between conscious and unconscious abuse of power. Conscious abuse is never acceptable, he says, but it at least carries the possibility of recognition, apology and repair. Unconscious abuse is more corrosive precisely because the person responsible does not realise it is happening. “Everything will go south from there,” he warns. Without awareness of one's own status and power, leaders cannot reliably tell which category their behaviour falls into.

When Structural Misconduct Becomes Public

Brabandt is direct about how these dynamics play out at scale. He cites the case of Harvey Weinstein, where multiple out-of-court settlements over many years allowed misconduct to continue rather than being addressed. He also references London's President's Club, where alleged misconduct persisted for years until an undercover journalist exposed it publicly, after which the organisation collapsed almost overnight. “Structural problems often arise from a long-standing history of misconduct,” Brabandt says. Once such behaviour becomes public, he argues, no one inside the organisation can credibly claim ignorance. “Silence is violence, and passivity is complicity. That applies to absolutely anyone, no exception.”

Building Systems That Actually Work

For decision-makers looking to implement change, Niels Brabandt's starting point is simple: begin with the people. He points to organisations with genuinely sustainable practices, regular anonymous surveys, whistleblower contacts, confidential helplines, or protected filing systems where concerns raised in annual appraisals are actually followed up rather than filed away and forgotten. “As soon as people see that when we address things, actual change happens, then people will address it in the future as well,” he says. Where nothing changes after a complaint, employees will, understandably, eventually take the matter to the press.

Teams themselves are not exempt from responsibility, according to Brabandt. He describes a recurring pattern in large law firms, where new hires are told during interviews that a partner will periodically berate the team, and that this is simply how the firm operates. Accepting this framing, he argues, makes the team, and its leadership, complicit. “As soon as you have systems in place where people know there's a structure, there is a process, there is some procedure that's going to help me,” he says, meaningful change follows quickly.

What This Means for Decision-Makers

Niels Brabandt's message to business leaders is unambiguous. The imbalance of power exists in every organisation, regardless of size or structure, and pretending otherwise is never a sustainable strategy. Leaders who honestly assess their own status, build genuine channels for people to speak up, and hold both leadership and teams accountable for addressing misconduct early are the ones who build organisational cultures that withstand scrutiny, rather than collapsing under it. “If you have any kind of questions, of course, feel free to contact me anytime,” Brabandt concludes.

Niels Brabandt

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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify

For the videocast's and podcast's transcript, read below this article.

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Podcast and Videocast Transcript

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

When someone tells you something, it's actually not relevant who tells you something. Or— or is it? No, we are all the same to everyone, aren't we? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. All humans are equal. And of course, in the workplace, "Bring your full self." Yeah? We are all equal, aren't we? So people are seriously telling me they are the same to absolutely anyone.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

I'll give you a simple example. Let's say you sit in your office and three people come in. One is the intern on their first day. The second person is your most important client. And the third one is the investor who's now instructing the board on that day. And you think you treat them all the same. You clearly don't.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And when you are on the other side of the game, and you are the investor, or you are the CEO, or you are on the board, you probably know this moment that you think you treat them all equally. However, you probably know, either consciously or subconsciously, that this is not really the case. And this is what we're going to talk about today: how to handle the imbalance of power.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Why do I chose this topic today? So first, a number of emails arrived, and I pushed this topic forward for quite a bit. Or pushed it back, better to say. And many cases where suddenly organizations stood in general public and say, "How could this ever have happened?" because of leaks showed an organizational culture where abuse of power was all over the place for years, sometimes for decades, and no one did anything about it. That is exactly the imbalance of power. So you need to know: how do you handle the imbalance of power?

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So welcome to this week's episode.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

When we talk about the imbalance of power, the first thing we have to address here is: this imbalance of power exists. Even when you say, "We're a mid-sized business," somewhere, you almost need to be a family business where you cannot fire anyone because they are— they are legally family, and you cannot fire them even if you wanted to because they all hold equal shares. So as soon as you talk about power, power is there. Ignoring that power is there is an approach which is never sustainable. Because especially in moments of conflict, power plays a role, and we have to address that.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Number 1, step number 1 always is: always consider your status. I give you an example here, and very important for me is: I am not blaming anyone on where you come from or tell you off for it. However, when you come from a very privileged background, when people know you can easily afford the most expensive lawyers, when people know the money you have, there's more where that came from. You're running 8 businesses, you don't care about people, they know that. And maybe you acted in a way that they probably saw that already and you didn't even realize. Status is a thing. And you have to see, if you like it or not, where do you come from.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And I can very simply tell you: I come from a very small village in northern Germany, grew up there, and worked my way up to where I am today with the international business I run. However, this is still an intact family where I grew up. I had two loving parents, I grew up in a stable household. This is— and of course, due to being a family of public servants, education was in the focus. So they really took care that I went to school, that my marks were okay. And they— they allowed me to behave bad on all counts, left, right, and center, from coming home with ripped jeans or having smashed in a window with my football. However, as soon as the marks went down, consequences were there very quickly. And that is privilege, if you like it or not. It is privilege. Address it. Address it.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

I give you a very simple example. When people tell me, "How can you do 3 master's degrees besides full-time working?" Here's the secret: I have no family and no children, I'm traveling constantly, so during evening hours I have some time left, and I use them during the week, I think reasonably wisely. So there's no special trick, but it is status. You have to address the status.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And when I go somewhere as an interim manager, and I am down to earth due to where I grew up, I worked in a factory when I was young, I worked my way up from where I am to where I am today. However, I know that when people don't know me, they hear, "Oh, that's a new interim manager. What's his name? Niels Brabandt. Let's look on LinkedIn." Oh. And then they see 3 master's degrees, they see a couple of reasonably well-established educational institutions, and they treat me differently. And they also expect me to have a reasonable level of power, so they treat me differently. And we have to address that power.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

If you do not address power and status, you live in a different reality than anyone else you're leading. Reality. And very important is: what people perceive as reality when it comes to status is always the starting point. It can shift from there by your behavior and words. However, you have to address that status is there in the first place, whether you like it or not. If you do not have this awareness, if you do not have the awareness of power, it simply means you're ignorant on that matter. And then very often you abuse power, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And the subconscious acting is the worst one. The— the conscious acting is really bad. Abusing power is never acceptable. But when you abuse power consciously, you probably know afterwards, "That wasn't great." You apologize, and you hopefully repair it afterwards. If you subconsciously abuse power, it means you don't even realize when you're doing it. Everything will go south from there. So be aware that you need to be aware of your status and your power, if you like it or not.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And of course, when you now say, "Well, I am in that situation, so how should I deal with it?" So very important is: when you are in that situation, the first aspect you always have to see is: where is your organization? Some organizations have a very healthy organizational culture where they address certain aspects and then they move on from there. However, sometimes you have organizations where, as soon as you rise through the ranks, you see a couple of behaviors where you think, "Hmm, bit weird." Or let's say, "Bit unacceptable." Or let's say "Wildly unacceptable." Or you say, "That's massively overstepping the mark." And the question is: how do you act here?

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

Most of these aspects, when you see things such as Harvey Weinstein back in the days, that happened for years and years and years. There were— there were numerous out-of-court settlements with Harvey Weinstein, and no one did a thing except telling people, "Oh, can we settle out-of-court and move on from there?" instead of what they should have done, say, "We fire you on the spot," and you need psychological help from there. No, they moved on because they said, "Yeah, you know, brings in money, so I think that's okay, isn't it? We like money, don't we?" And this kind of structure is the problem. Abuse of power often is institutionalized. And that is why sometimes people say, "Institutionalized organizations are not there to help you. They are there to establish the power as it is in place and keep it that way."

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So structural problems often arise from a long-standing history of misconduct. When you see something like the President's Club in London, where for years and years, obviously, misconduct seemed to have happened allegedly, and then some journalist undercover went in there, made it all public, and the President's Club then fell apart overnight, where they said, "Oh, we're so sorry, but this can't be repaired. I think we stop with it." Yeah, bit late. Very late. But at least you stopped it now.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So when you have structural misconduct, you either step up and change that very quickly, because as soon as everything comes to public, you can never claim, "I didn't start it." You can never claim, "It was not me starting it, it was there before I started." As soon as you were there, and you either copied it or you didn't say anything. It simply means, in a very simple phrase, silence is violence, and passivity is complicity. And that applies to absolutely anyone, no exception. So when the structure is there, the structure of a structural organizational-led abuse of power, when this comes to public, you will be, as they say, "We have to let you go," meaning you get fired for your misconduct. And you deserve that, in this case. So you better, in that situation, when you see there is an abuse of power or questionable behavior, you better change things very, very quickly. And I can tell you, the quicker the better.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And of course, now a justified question is: how can we implement that? So how can we make sure that we implement that in a way that is actually sustainable? So here we go. Start with the people. That is the very first thing. You always start with the people. You ask people, and some people have a very— some organizations have very sustainable practices. There is probably a monthly or even biweekly anonymous survey, or they have whistleblower contacts, or they have a helpline, or they have an anonymous filing system where people can, anonymously, in protected spaces, complain about misconduct. Or they can address things earlier, in annual appraisal interviews, and they are actually followed up, not just filed somewhere in HR and nothing happened ever after.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So always start with the people. Because as soon as people see, "When we address things, actual change happens," then people will address it in the future as well. As soon as they see, "Okay, misconduct happens, and I filed something, and yeah, nothing ever happened from there," then they of course will go to press sooner or later. They will of course put this to public, because rightfully so. What else should they do?

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

However, of course, we also have to question here: what is the role of the team? When you are in a team that accepts misconduct simply by telling people, "This is how we work here," this is also debatable behavior. And by the way, as team lead, you are then equally guilty of it. I lost count of the large law firms where people told me, "Oh, yeah, you know, once per month one of the partners comes here and just yells at you. They are all stressed. This is how things work here. This is how we work. Just get on with it."

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So first things first. Niels Brabandt, me, I am not stressed by that. I was a professional referee. I got out of stadiums where multiple thousands of people said, "Hang him, hang him." I got out of there. I am calm with absolutely anything. But this is not about me. This is about other people who probably cannot handle this that well. So teams need to address it. And as soon as you have systems in place where people know there's a structure, there is a process, there is some procedure that's going to help me, I am aware of that. The leaders are aware of that, team lead up to the board. Then behavior and the sustainable approach to better behavior regarding the imbalance of power will happen immediately.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And when you do it the way, as we spoke about it today, your organizational culture is going to become a lot more sustainable immediately. And I wish you all the best putting this in practice in your organization. And when you now say, "That sounds rather complicated," might be, might be, doesn't have to be, but might be. If you have any kind of questions, of course, feel free to contact me anytime.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

So when you now watch this on YouTube, feel free to leave a like there. Thank you very much for doing so. Subscribe to my channel, thank you very much for doing so as well. On top of that, of course, always feel free to leave a comment. I'm always looking forward to having any kind of discussions with you, and I'm looking forward to seeing that in the comment section. And of course, when you now listen to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, feel free to leave a review there, 5 stars. Thank you very much for doing so. Because we do all of this free of charge, and I will keep it like that, but of course I'd like to have some positive feedback if you like it. So thank you very much for doing that as well.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

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Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

If you now say, "Hey, we need really specific help. We need a trainer, speaker, coach, consultant, mentor, a project interim manager, someone who's hosting our events for the night, or whatever else for the day." Yeah, feel free to get in touch. nb-network.biz is my website. Feel free to go there, and I'm always looking forward to hearing from you. If you want to drop me an email straight away, drop me an email, nb@nb-networks.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you there as well.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And of course, we have live sessions. If you go to expert.nb-networks.com, put your email address in there. No worries, you only receive one email every Wednesday morning. It's 100% content ad-free guarantee. In this email, you get full access to all the podcasts, video casts, all of it, all the articles. No charge, no paywall. In other places, you will find paywalls. There, there is no paywall at all. And what you're also able to do is, you will see the date and the time. So in this email, which you receive every Wednesday morning, just once per week, you will see the date and the time and the access link for the next live session. We just had one, a brilliant one recently. The next one is coming up soon. We at least have one per month, so I'm looking forward to seeing from you there. When you say, "Hey, for our organization, we need a private one, can we do that?" Of course. Get in touch and we take it from there.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

And of course, on top of that, feel free to follow me on social media, connect with me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram. And of course, you can also leave a like on Facebook, or you can simply subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Or you can do all of that. Very important is, as soon as you reach out to me, I answer every single message within 24 hours or less. Meaning, if I don't get back to you within 24 hours, it means I most likely have not seen your email. Or, well, emails I definitely see, but if you reached out on some platform, sometimes Instagram puts you in the other folder, or Facebook doesn't show your message on the Messenger. If that happens, just use a different platform. I'm always happy to answer. When I see your message, an answer within 24 hours is a 100% guarantee. So I'm looking forward to hearing from you there.

Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc

The most important thing, however, is always the last thing that I say here: apply, apply, apply what you heard in this podcast. Because only when you apply what you heard, you will see the positive change that you obviously want to see in your organization. I wish you all the best doing so. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Get in touch anytime. I'm looking forward to being in touch with you. Answer guaranteed within 24 hours or less. And at the end of this podcast, as well as at the end of this video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say: thank you very much for your time.