26 Improve your Communication Skills
Status
We can define status as the rank we
grant to another person in
relation to us. We normally measure it along a simple (some
might say simplistic) scale. We see ourselves simply as higher or
lower in status in relation to the other person.
We confer status on others. It’s evident in the degree of
respect, familiarity or reserve we grant them.
We derive our own
sense of status from the status we give the other person. We do
all this through conversation.
Conversations may fail because the status relationship limits
what we say. If we feel low in status
relative to the other person,
we may agree to everything they say and suppress strongly held
ideas of our own. If we feel high in status relative to them, we
may
tend to discount what they say, put them down, interrupt or
ignore them. Indeed, these behaviours
are ways of establishing or
altering our status in a relationship.
Our status is always at risk. It is created entirely through the
other person’s perceptions. It can be destroyed or diminished in a
moment. Downgrading a person’s status
can be a powerful way of
exerting your authority over them.
Power
Power is the control we can exert over others. If we can influence
or control people’s behaviour in any way,
we have power over
them. john French and Bertram Raven (in D Cartwright (ed)
Studies in Social Power
, 1959), identified five kinds of power
base:
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