Borrowed Power Vanishes When the Institution Does

May 8, 2022

Power comes in two fundamentally different forms. Borrowed power derives from a position, title, or institutional role: it can be granted and revoked by whoever controls the institution. Owned power inheres in the person: skills, relationships, proprietary knowledge, and reputation that persist regardless of institutional affiliation.

"Bureaucrats have only borrowed power. The moment the institution that grants their authority ceases to function, their power vanishes." Samo Burja

Most people systematically confuse the two, both in themselves and in others. A CEO whose employees would not follow her to a new venture has only borrowed power. A researcher whose reputation rests on an institutional affiliation rather than the quality of her work has only borrowed power. The test is simple: strip away the title and see what remains. If the answer is "nothing," the power was never the person's to begin with.

This confusion produces predictable errors. Organizations over-invest in controlling positions (because they believe the position is the power) and under-invest in cultivating the people whose owned power actually makes the institution function. When those people leave, the institution discovers that the titles it distributed so carefully are empty vessels.

The distinction also explains why bureaucratic resistance to change, while formidable in the short term, is ultimately powerless against a determined live player. Bureaucrats wield borrowed power; the live player who restructures or replaces the institution can revoke it. The bureaucrat's leverage depends entirely on the continuity of a structure that the live player is not obligated to preserve.

If you cannot tell whether your power is borrowed or owned, it is borrowed.