Power: Leadership for the Common Good

Adam Nicholas Phillips invites readers into a timely reimagining of one of the most misused and misunderstood forces in public life: power. Against the backdrop of America's 250-year democratic experiment, and drawing from global wisdom traditions, Phillips contends that power need not be a zero-sum struggle. Instead, it can be a generative, healing force--shared rather than hoarded, given rather than grasped.

Power explores how courage and humility can coexist in leadership, how descent can be a form of strength, and how ordinary decisions--raising children, mentoring a colleague, standing with the vulnerable--can ripple into extraordinary change. Bringing in a range of voices and insights as well as practices inspired by both contemplative mystics and democratic reformers, this book offers a new grammar of power rooted in generosity, responsibility, and beloved community.