What's Your Status?

In my studies about performing and writing plays, one of the things that I learned was that there is always status in every scene. If two people are in a scene, one of them has higher status than the other and then for the rest of the scene there is a kind of struggle over that status. The one with lessor status strives to win, the won with higher status strives to preserve.

It may not hold up for EVERY scene, but if you watch for it you'll see how prevalent that is.

Why is that?

Could it be that in LIFE we also struggle for status? Could it be that when we sense that we are being treated as if our status is lower than others that we do not like that and work to change it?

If, as a leader, you visibly treat your team members as underlings, they will notice. If you treat them as equals -- keeping in mind different levels of responsibility -- as equals your team members will respond with more initiative. Isn't that more of what you really want?

Whether or not you like it or support it, people care about status.

You can simplify the struggle by treating people as equals. Adding to someone else's status does not subtract from your own, unless you're on the stage. And even then your audience will like you better and do more for you.

-- doug smith

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