What is the power gradient?

The power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More is the amount of social distance there is between one person and another.

The power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More 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... More organizations (where we conformed to our roles) we wanted a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More because that allowed us to coerceThe Industrial Age play where we goad, manipulate, order, mo... More the team to do what we wanted them to do. They would complyThe Industrial Age play of doing what we were told. More with their jobs. Here’s why power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More matters. Information and ideas flow inversely proportional to the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More. With a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More, 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 t... More 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... More vestiges ensuring separation of executives and workers.

With a flatter power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More, 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 t... More 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 t... More.

Measurable power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More 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 t... More 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 t... More:

• 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 t... More 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 t... More. The steeper the power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More, 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 t... More. Have a steep power gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More 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 selfThe part of the self that wants to project and protect an im... More.

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 gradientThe amount of hierarchical social distance from one person t... More 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.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Learn more by watching this Nudge – Leadership Nudge® 297 – Flatten the Power Gradient

Download our handout here – HANDOUT Power Gradient