What Is Soft Power, Really?

On power, care, clarity, and why leadership doesn't have to look one particular way.

I've been thinking about how we talk about power.

Especially in leadership.

We tend to recognise it in certain people. The ones who speak confidently, command attention, make decisions quickly, and seem perfectly comfortable taking up space.

We call them natural leaders.

But what about the person who notices what's happening beneath the conversation? The one who asks the question nobody else thought to ask? The one who sees a problem coming long before it becomes visible to everyone else?

What about the person who can challenge an idea without humiliating the person behind it?

Are they any less powerful?

I don't think so.

And that's part of why I wrote The Soft Power Manual.

So, what is Soft Power?

To me, Soft Power is the ability to recognise and exercise the power you already carry, with awareness, care, clarity and intention.

It isn't a personality type. It isn't a leadership style reserved for introverts or empathetic people. And it certainly isn't about being agreeable.

It's about understanding that power takes many forms, not all of them immediately visible.

Sometimes power is the authority to make a decision.

Sometimes it's the ability to bring people together, challenge an assumption, create clarity, or see something that others have overlooked.

Sometimes it's knowing when to speak.

And sometimes it's knowing when to walk away.

Soft Power asks us to look beyond the familiar performance of leadership and recognise the many ways people shape the world around them.

Not everyone needs to lead in the same way.

The problem with how we recognise power

I've spent much of my life moving between different worlds.

Growing up in Aceh, living through conflict and the tsunami, and later building a career in Australia taught me that power isn't always held by the people who appear to have the most of it.

I've seen people with impressive titles struggle to bring others with them.

And I've seen people with very little formal authority hold communities together, create opportunities, and change the direction of things.

Yet in organisations, we often continue to reward the most visible expressions of leadership.

Confidence gets mistaken for competence. Assertiveness gets mistaken for authority. And the person who speaks the most can easily be mistaken for the person with the most to contribute.

Of course, confidence and assertiveness aren't bad things.

But they aren't the whole story.

When we define leadership too narrowly, we don't just overlook people. We overlook the value they bring.

There's power in the margins

One of the ideas I explore in The Soft Power Manual is what it means to lead from the margins.

The margins can be uncomfortable places.

You might be the only woman in the room. The only person from a different cultural background. The youngest, the oldest, the person without the right title, or simply someone whose way of thinking doesn't fit the prevailing norm.

Being on the outside can mean having to work harder to be heard.

I don't want to romanticise that experience. Exclusion is real, and it has consequences.

But I've also learned that being at the margins can give you a different perspective.

You notice patterns. You learn to read people and situations. You see the rules that nobody has written down. You become aware of whose voices carry weight and whose contributions disappear.

That perspective can be powerful.

Not because exclusion is a gift, but because the knowledge we develop through navigating it deserves to be recognised.

And sometimes, the person who isn't at the centre can see the whole room more clearly.

Soft doesn't mean passive

This is probably the misunderstanding I encounter most often.

When people hear soft, they sometimes think gentle, accommodating, hesitant, or unwilling to confront difficult things.

But care doesn't require us to avoid conflict.

And empathy doesn't require us to surrender our boundaries.

You can care about someone and still disagree with them.

You can listen deeply and still make a difficult decision.

You can be compassionate and still hold someone accountable.

In fact, some of the most caring things we do as leaders are also the most uncomfortable.

Giving honest feedback. Naming a problem everyone is avoiding. Refusing to let poor behaviour continue. Making a decision that won't please everyone.

Care without clarity can leave people confused. Clarity without care can leave people diminished.

I believe good leadership needs both.

Soft Power isn't about choosing kindness instead of strength.

It's about questioning why we were taught to see them as opposites in the first place.

You don't need a title to have influence

Formal authority matters. It gives people decision-making rights, resources and responsibilities that others may not have.

And we shouldn't pretend everyone has equal access to those things.

But authority isn't the only way people shape what happens.

Think about a meeting.

There's the person who chairs it. The person who makes the final decision. And then there's the person who asks a question that changes how everyone understands the problem.

That question might shift the entire conversation.

Or think about the colleague who brings two opposing perspectives together. The person who notices someone being excluded. The one who names an uncomfortable truth without turning it into a personal attack.

These are acts of influence.

They may not always be recognised or rewarded. But they matter.

And recognising your influence doesn't mean accepting unfair systems or doing endless invisible work for free.

It means understanding where you have agency, where you need support, and where the system itself needs to change.

Leadership isn't a performance

I think many of us spend far too much energy trying to look like leaders.

We learn how leaders are supposed to speak. How confident they're supposed to appear. How they should enter a room, respond to challenges, or demonstrate authority.

Some of those skills are useful.

But there's a difference between developing your capabilities and feeling that you must replace your personality to be taken seriously.

You can learn to communicate more clearly without becoming louder.

You can become more decisive without becoming dismissive.

You can strengthen your presence without performing a version of yourself that feels unfamiliar.

And you can be ambitious without treating every interaction as a competition.

This doesn't mean we never need to adapt. Leadership requires growth, discomfort and sometimes changing how we behave.

But adaptation doesn't have to mean abandoning ourselves.

The question isn't, How do I become the kind of leader everyone expects?

Perhaps a more useful question is:

What kind of power do I already carry, and how can I use it more intentionally?

Why I wrote The Soft Power Manual

I didn't write this book because I had discovered the perfect way to lead.

I don't believe there is one.

I wrote it because I wanted to challenge some of the assumptions we've inherited about leadership, identity and power.

Part memoir, part reflection, and part invitation to question what we've been taught, The Soft Power Manual draws on my experiences across cultures, communities and organisations.

It explores the contradictions of being visible and invisible. Of caring deeply while needing boundaries. Of holding responsibility without always holding authority. Of wanting to contribute without having to perform someone else's version of confidence.

But ultimately, it's not just my story.

I hope it creates space for other people to recognise something of themselves.

Perhaps a strength they've overlooked.

An experience they've underestimated.

Or a way of leading they've never quite had the language to describe.

Because I don't think the world needs everyone to become the same kind of leader.

I think we need to get better at recognising the many kinds of leadership already around us.

Taking the conversation beyond the book

Since publishing The Soft Power Manual, I've been thinking about what happens when these ideas leave the page and enter real life.

What happens when you're navigating a difficult manager?

When you're stepping into a bigger role?

When you know you need to speak up but don't want to lose the qualities that make you who you are?

Or when you're at a crossroads and trying to understand what matters to you now?

These questions rarely have neat answers.

And that's part of why I've started Soft Power Leadership Coaching: a space for one-to-one conversations about power, identity, influence and the realities of leading in complex organisations.

Not to give people another personality to adopt or another formula to follow.

But to help them see their situation more clearly, recognise the power available to them, and decide how they want to move forward.

Because sometimes the most meaningful shift isn't learning how to look more powerful.

It's recognising that power may have been there all along.

And deciding what to do with it.

Vida Asrina Dhulst is the author of The Soft Power Manual and the founder of Soft Power Leadership Coaching. Her work explores power, identity, care and the many ways people lead beyond conventional expectations.