Top-down, Meet Bottom Up (Elite Power, New Power, and Sharing Power)

Social change often requires top-down and bottom-up to work together. To do this, we need to encourage and develop leadership in communities, and encourage those with power and privilege to share and give up power – to practice equity. This essay reviews two recent books, Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans’s New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World and How to Make It Work for You, and offers tips for how leaders can be more equitable in their work for community and social change.