“Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. In this sense, power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
On January 20, 2025, on his first day of office and in contrast to the celebrations of Martin Luther King, Jr. day, President Trump signed a significant number of executive orders aimed at dismantling our legal rights, civil right, and even constitutional rights (e.g., birthright citizenship). One of the first executive orders asserts, without reference to data or research, that “(t)he injection of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”
As LLC’s recent research and report, Leadership and Race: A Call To Each Other, demonstrates, the notion that success hinges solely on “hard work, merit, and equality” is a dangerous oversimplification that is “integral to white supremacy and have been part of the fabric of America since its founding.” In short, this is a strategy that keeps power in place and concentrated in a select few. It purposefully gaslights and ignores the enduring impact of systemic racism on individuals and communities of color. Yet, this intentional omission of historical and current experiences of racism is the norm we are already experiencing. The amplification in an executive order is disappointing, but not surprising. Our leaders and movements have been addressing this, and are ready to continue to address these dense narratives around leadership and race. We are not capitulating or giving up, we are instead moving beyond and imagining even more.
“Seeing the limitations of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as we’ve known it, social good actors are exploring new language orientations and ways of thinking about the relationship between leadership and racial justice.”
- Leadership and Race: A Call To Each Other
LLC’s purpose is to support leaders in building and strengthening our infrastructure and systems through a liberatory leadership lens. This is how we make leadership a site of transformation. We believe, and our research continues to point to our collective power, and we must be smart, strategic, conscientious, and values-aligned in our use of power. As Martin Luther King, Jr. advises, we can’t ignore it, abuse it, or abdicate from our power because we are responsible for the wellbeing of each other and because power is “necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice.”
In 2025, LLC will continue to explore with you how Liberatory Leadership offers opportunities for powerful transformative leadership. We are committed to:
- Intentional engagement through our facilitation;
- Research and shared learnings on healing, change, equity, and collective liberation;
- Holding space for deepening conversations and relationships within our social good sector.
- Mostly, we’ll continue to shine a light on the experiences of and bright possibilities shared by BIPOC leaders and all those who are currently and have been historically excluded.
More than ever, we’d like to hear from you. Please reach out if you’d like to collaborate, share learnings, participate in our offerings, or invest in future conversations, learning communities, and research.
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