Five Principles of Good Power
Lead hard change through service, belief, discernment, stewardship, and resilience
- Difficulty
- Expert
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
The Five Principles of Good Power form a leadership system for doing hard things positively. Begin by being in service of another person's or group's goal before pursuing your own return. Build belief by addressing both rational evidence and human emotion. Decide what genuinely needs to change and what core identity should endure, using respectful tension to surface difficult trade-offs. Steward technology by pursuing its upside while guarding against foreseeable harm at the same time. Finally, cultivate resilience through perspective-giving relationships and an attitude that keeps attention on controllable action. The principles reinforce one another: service creates purpose, belief creates followership, discernment protects identity, stewardship protects the long term, and resilience keeps the change alive through setbacks.
Origin
Ginni Rometty developed these five principles retrospectively from personal hardship, decades at IBM, major acquisitions, and a ten-year corporate transformation, then presented them in her book Good Power.
Core principles
- 01Fulfill another person's goal before your own
- 02Hard work needs belief in both the head and the heart
- 03Progress requires respectful tension rather than forced agreement
- 04Preserve the core while modernizing what no longer works
- 05Long-term responsibility and resilience sustain positive change
How to run it
- 1
Be in service of
Identify the goal of the people you intend to help and fulfill it before your own. Accept that your return may arrive later and indirectly.
Pro tip Name the outcome that matters to them beyond the immediate transaction.
Watch out Serving a transaction is not the same as putting another person's goal first.
- 2
Build belief
Give people logical reasons and personal reasons to commit. Make the future meaningful to the organization and beneficial to the individual.
Pro tip State explicitly what you know and how you feel.
Watch out Fear can force short-term compliance but suppresses ideas and durable commitment.
- 3
Know what changes and endures
Use tension to distinguish outdated practices from the core identity worth preserving. Modernize the enduring core rather than copying another organization.
Pro tip Ask trusted customers what they rely on you to be best at.
Watch out External pressure can make changing everything feel safer than choosing.
- 4
Steward good technology
Capture the technology's benefits while identifying and mitigating its downsides in parallel. Take responsibility even before regulation requires it.
Pro tip Design the safeguard alongside the capability, not after harm appears.
Watch out Short-term upside can hide trust-destroying long-term consequences.
- 5
Be resilient
Use varied relationships for perspective, focus on what you control, and compartmentalize problems once they have a plan. Address conflict rather than allowing it to consume attention.
Pro tip Treat quality time with varied relationships as oxygen, not a luxury.
Watch out Resilience is not ignoring disappointment or carrying every problem at once.
In the wild
Under pressure to imitate newer technology companies, IBM tried many paths. A customer reminded Rometty that IBM's value was running mission-critical systems. IBM modernized that enduring identity around AI, cloud, and Red Hat while divesting peripheral businesses and changing how work got done.
→ The transformation centered the company on a modern version of its durable strength instead of making it a poor copy of a competitor.
While integrating PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting after similar industry combinations had failed, Rometty was candid about what people disliked and repeatedly explained the path forward. She also addressed personal problems, such as delayed expense reimbursements, to show that the human impact mattered.
→ Honesty, hope, and personal attention helped sustain belief through a risky integration.
Common mistakes
Serving only the transaction
Optimizing for an immediate quota or return removes the larger reason people commit to difficult work.
Forcing change through fear
Fear may produce compliance, but it closes down innovation, ideas, and long-term followership.
Demanding perfection
Ignoring progress makes difficult work feel unwinnable and reduces how much people accomplish.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for leaders mobilizing people through consequential change that requires trust and endurance.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for trivial, purely transactional tasks that require no shared belief or sustained commitment.
From the transcript
“be in service of. Do not serve. It is the soul of good power and it means fulfill someone else's goal before your own. That…”
“The only way to do hard things is to appeal to someone's head and their heart.”
“the harder the climb, the more disappointments you will have.”
From the episode
Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO: Fortune’s “Most Powerful Woman” Shares How to Lead with Purpose
Ginni Rometty