The power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” is the amount of social distance there is between one person and another.

The power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” is the feeling of “how much more important are people in the next tier in the hierarchy than we are” and “how much more important are we then people below us.”

In Industrial AgeThe period when humans developed large complex organizations based on machines. Factories, assembly lines, plantations, and railroads were dominant during the Industrial Age. The Industrial Age organizational design was optimized to use humans to reduce variability and comply with their masters’ instructions. This fundamental structure shapes our organizational design and language today. organizations (where we conformed to our roles) we wanted a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” because that allowed us to coerceThe Industrial Age play where we goad, manipulate, order, motivate, inspire, or threaten people to do what we want them to. Using influence, power, rank, talking first, talking more, or talking louder to bring people around to your way of thinking. Coercion sounds like: I need you to be a team player. Everyone needs to get on board. It's time to fall in line. We are ready to go, right? The new play for leaders is Collaborate. the team to do what we wanted them to do. They would complyThe Industrial Age play of doing what we were told. with their jobs. Here’s why power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” matters. Information and ideas flow inversely proportional to the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”. With a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”, very little information is going to flow up. It’s going to be highly curated, massaged, and will be worded just right. These examples of steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” i.e., my carpet is thicker, my office is bigger, I have a private parking spot, I have a private executive dining room– are Industrial AgeThe period when humans developed large complex organizations based on machines. Factories, assembly lines, plantations, and railroads were dominant during the Industrial Age. The Industrial Age organizational design was optimized to use humans to reduce variability and comply with their masters’ instructions. This fundamental structure shapes our organizational design and language today. vestiges ensuring separation of executives and workers.

With a flatter power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”, you will get more information and ideas flowing up. You’ll hear more about what the team is trying to do. Now you feel the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” toward your boss, but it’s very hard for you to feel it going down. As leaders we need to take actions to flatten the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”.

Measurable power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” indicators:

• salary or pay rate
• office size
• carpet thickness
• physical separation such as reserved parking spots and private dining rooms
• access to particular people and inclusion in particular meetings
• stripes on sleeves
• seating location (distance from the top boss)
• number of and attractiveness of assistants (male or female)
• amount of talk time allocated
• tolerance of tardiness
• Share of Voice – How much more someone talks than others in the room, meeting, etc. Share of voice is the proportion of words attributed to each person in a conversation and is an excellent indicator of the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” within an organization. If there are four people and each person says exactly 25 percent of the words spoken, you have a perfectly balanced share of voice. If the leader says 100 percent of the words and no one else says anything, that share of voice is completely skewed.

Immeasurable but felt indicators of power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”:

• the meeting doesn’t start until the most senior person shows up
• punishment runs down the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” not up
• who chairs the meeting
• who sums up the discussion
• who allocates actions
• who we look at for reactions

Protocol and training do not remove the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”. The steeper the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”, the harder it is to tell your boss something they don’t want to hear. Here’s the rule with power gradients: the censoring of information is directly proportionate to the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.”. Have a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person to another. A proxy for power gradient could be pay scale, office size, equity, age, longevity, skill level, attractiveness, and carpet thickness. Information flows inversely to the steepness of the power gradient. Steep power gradients inhibit communications, variability of ideas, and creativity. In psychology, this is close to the term “social gradient.” and employees will carefully censor their communications to the boss. They will edit out bad news, draft and reword emails, and stay silent when the boss has suggested an idea, whether they think it is a good one or not. They will invoke the be good self.

One workplace where this is most visibly researched is in the cockpit because the crew is recorded. In our new book, Leadership Is Language, we retell the stories and cite several studies of pilot and copilots interactions. Here is a story from a pilot who describes the power gradient as an “invisible wall” and “lack of warmth.” In his blog post from Plane and Pilot Magazine, Dustin Joy describes his personal experience with handling a mistake in the cockpit appropriately named “Crew Members Need To Speak Up In The Cockpit: The most useless warning is one that never gets made.”