Power Wears Many Dresses
Power does not always arrive in a tailored suit or with a title printed neatly on an office door. Sometimes it walks in wearing sneakers and laughing so loudly the room can’t help but turn toward it. Sometimes it wears a headwrap and speaks with a voice so soft you have to lean in—and then realize you’re hearing the most important thing said all day. Sometimes it looks like a mother making sure her children eat before she does, building resilience in ways the world rarely applauds.
I have learned that the world often underestimates power when it is wrapped in gentleness, creativity, or care. We’ve been taught to see power as loud, forceful, and commanding, but that’s only one language it speaks. Real power also moves quietly—through art that shifts culture, through a teacher who sees a child’s potential before anyone else does, through the steady leadership that builds without breaking.
The problem is, when power doesn’t fit the dominant image—when it isn’t white-knuckled, sharp-voiced, and packaged in authority—the world can miss it entirely. It can dismiss it as “nice” or “helpful” instead of recognizing it for what it is: transformational.
But here’s the truth—these quieter forms of power are the ones that last. They are the ones that rebuild after the loud kinds of power burn out. They are the ones that turn vision into reality, communities into families, and moments into movements.
Power wears many dresses. It wears jeans, uniforms, saris, Sunday best, and sometimes no shoes at all. It sits in boardrooms and at kitchen tables. It speaks on stages and whispers at hospital bedsides. It does not have a single face, voice, or posture.
And me? I intend to wear them all. I will lead in heels and bare feet. I will carry my power into spaces that expect it and into spaces that never saw it coming. I will let it be bold when boldness is needed, gentle when gentleness will win the day, and always, always mine—no matter the dress it’s wearing.
Because power is not what you put on, it’s what you carry with you. And I plan to carry mine everywhere.
