36 Power: Stop Hiding Your Rolex Under Your Sleeve

Are you highly capable—but watching less competent people rise while you stay stuck?

 This episode explains why that happens—and what ethical leaders must do about it.

Many good people avoid power because they think it’s dirty, selfish, or unspiritual. That mistake leaves leadership to louder, less qualified voices—and costs families, teams, and organizations real progress.

In this episode, we confront an uncomfortable truth: power isn’t the problem—ignorance of power is.

What You’ll Learn

• Why hard work alone doesn’t win – and why leadership books often mislead well-intentioned people
• Why power is neutral – and how avoiding it makes you vulnerable to those who understand it
• The “Rolex under your sleeve” mistake – relying on competence while ignoring visibility and positioning
• The real sources of power – expertise, trust, title, access, and perception—and how leaders misuse them
• Biblical wisdom on power – stewardship, humility, and responsibility (not denial)
• Why visibility beats performance – and how to ethically control your narrative and influence

The Challenge

Ask yourself: Where am I pretending power doesn’t exist?
Because avoiding power doesn’t make you holy—it makes you irrelevant.

If you care about your family, your team, and the future of the organizations you serve, this episode is a must-listen.

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Transcript

Welcome to the episode on power. Power isn't an evil ignorance of it is. And I also wanna talk about Jeffrey Pfeiffer, who's a Stanford professor, Machiavelli and Scripture, because they all agree. Power is important and some people don't want to admit it. Welcome home, my leadership, friends.

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Let me also start with a confession. Most leadership books lie to you, not maliciously, and I hope that I can bring some truth, although truth is elusive, right? But the books just skip the uncomfortable parts about a. Values, and they tell you, work hard, be kind, keep your head down, make that extra call.

Results will speak for themselves. You'll become productive if you do this. And Jeffrey Pfeiffer, the Stanford professional and professorial guy walks in and says, yeah, no, that's not how it works. And you're like, oh, I've been doing it wrong all these years. And many of us have. And today we're talking about power because

we don't want the villain version of power. We want the positive version, not the corrupt politician version of power. We want the real version and people study politics to use power to their ends. That is evil. And here's the line you're going to hear me say again and again because this is how I believe it matters.

Power like influence is neither good nor bad. It's how you use it. My grandfather used to say, it's not what happens to you, it's how you handle it. And he was a pretty good guy. If that sentence or the both sentences make you uncomfortable, congratulations. 'cause I think you're paying attention.

So let's talk about Professor Pfeiffer and what he's really saying in my opinion. He's a Stanford professor and he wrote a book with an almost rude title power. Why? Some people have it and others don't, and most of us don't have a lot of power compared to the most powerful people, but it's a very small percentage of people that have a lot of power and and I find that often they do good things and they make positive differences, and that's why they get the

power position, and it's easy to find negative things that anybody has done, but I'm not doing affirmations. I want you to be authentic. ER's claim is simple and dangerous at the same time, success is less about competence. Oh and more about understanding power dynamics. So the incompetent person that understands power dynamics might be in charge.

And we see that quite regularly, especially if you have some economics training people do things that. Hurt the macroeconomics all the time, especially politicians with little knowledge of macroeconomics. But Pfeiffer understand is something that leaders don't like to admit. The most skilled people often lose, and that's unfortunate because when they lose, they don't want to go back in again into the arena.

The most visible people often win. And morality doesn't automatically come with promotions, right? Pfeiffer used this as evidence that performance doesn't speak for itself. Perception speaks first, and power is self-reinforcing.

Once you have it, it multiplies power that is, and again, underlying this.

Power isn't evil by itself. Blindness to power is.

And Pfeiffer didn't invent this. machiavelli could be credited with this centuries ago. So let's stir the pot a little bit. Pfeiffer didn't invent this thinking is what I'm saying, but he said it out loud and polite company and. He has the economic pedigree.

Nicolo Machiavelli though wrote the Prince in 1513 and basically said, if you don't understand how power works, someone else will use it against you. And rule you is their ways of thinking. Because back then people did rule. Machiavelli wasn't saying be cruel. He was saying Don't be naive.

And I think people often think of Machiavelli as. Violent and rude and evil, and so they think that that's how you get power, but that's not it. He actually separated how the world ought to be from how the world is,

and Pfeiffer does that in modern language.

So that's how they kind of overlap, right? Machiavelli's intentions don't matter if you lose power and pfeiffer's competence doesn't matter if no one notices.

And Gary Vanerchuk is about the attention economy, right? Same engine, different century, different language. And neither of these guys say power is good or bad.

And that's why I say power like influence is neither good nor bad. It's how you use it.

Let's talk about Weber Max Weber, Raven, the Science of Power. Max Weber, one of the founders of sociology. Now sociology is a subject that I wish I would've studied. Uh, have no formal education there. I have a lot of business application working with human factors, engineers and anthropologists that use sociology tools, but the ability to get things done even against resistance is something that sociologists look at.

No moral language, just mechanics, right?

The French and Raven broke into power categories would be. Legitimate power. So that's your title, right? Expert Power, what you know, reverent Power. Who trusts you? Reward Power, what you control. Coercive Power, what people fear losing. I look at that as uh, also motivational, but pfeiffer's Insight. Most people rely on only one.

Usually expertise. And you think your expertise because you know something is gonna get it across, but maybe if you just know something it won't, and they wonder why they're ignored. So people get angry and turn to protests in the streets. And I'm saying expertise without visibility is like a Rolex under your jacket sleeve.

If you have the best knowledge and the best ideas on a way to way to go, that's nice, but it's useless if nobody sees it. So work on getting your ideas seen, and scripture knew this long before Stanford and other people talked about it. So let's bring a little scripture in because the Bible is pretty honest about power.

Luke 1610.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And you see this in mentorship relationships all the time where people get trusted with a little thing and then they get more. And that verse assumes power will increase. Like in , mentorship and influence will expand and. An interesting part of this is that character determines what's gonna happen next.

How did you do that? How did you handle that small task? Not whether you get influence, but whether you survive having it because to whom much is given, much is expected, right? And that's why I think we're all leaders. We've all been given a lot. Matthew two Zero though, when disciples argue about who's greatest, Jesus doesn't say power is wrong, he says.

Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant. Well, that's interesting because you should be a good guy if you have servants, honestly. And he redefines the use of power, not the existence of it. Jesus obviously had influence and crowds that were so big that were hard to contain, and he just refused to weaponize it.

Again, power like influence is neither good nor bad is how you use it.

Okay. Let's wrap this up into why it matters for leaders, brokers, and builders

in modern language, humor. Everyone knows how the most qualified person isn't running the meeting. The loudest person is okay. Not maybe that funny, but. Everyone is quietly annoyed with that loud person, but they're still following them. That's power, right? In real estate, the best agent doesn't always win.

It might be the loudest one, the one positioned. So the most positioned agent often wins and visibility beats virtue. When virtue hides like the Rolex under your sleeve, Pfeiffer would tell you, control the narrative, control, access, and control your alliances and relationships. Scriptures would tell you similar things about stewarding your power to with humility, because if you don't, the power will own you.

And both of these things are true, but let me lock this in because. I might need to say this so that I get it as well as you get it. Power like influence is neither good nor bad. It's how you use it.

Money. Other resources work the same way. Fireworks the same way. Leadership works the same way. Power amplifies who you already are. I'm not the first to say that. That's why avoiding power doesn't make you holy. It makes you irrelevant. It isn't humility if you're just quiet and you're sitting there like a Rolex under the sleeve and you aren't helping people.

So please help people. And relevance is where service actually happens. So bring your Rolex talents out. Let's reflect a bit. So here's your leadership question for the week. Where are you pretending power doesn't exist that you have and you can use to make the world a better place? Where are you relying on confidence?

Instead of positioning yourself to get actual attention and, and do something good in the world, and if influence increases in your life tomorrow, are you ready for it? Because powers come in whether you study it or not, and there will be opportunities in 2026 or whatever year you're listening to this.

Better to understand it better, to steward it better, to use it for good ahead of the person that might do it for evil. Empower your leadership and elevate your image with God in mind. Bless your week. 

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