This is the Secret of Status & how to make heads turn.
Posted on: Monday, May 15, 2017 Category: Blog (58)Uncategorized (59)
< 1 min read
We are obsessed with status and power. Why? Because people with these hold all the cards. They get their way. Over the years, people have started to use these words in the same way – like they mean the same thing. But they are, in fact, very different.
Perhaps the best way to explain the difference is this;
Status is given to you.
Power is about control over things. Things that other people want and value.
So why do these matter? Well hierarchies are fundamental to the way that we construct all of our social interactions. They emerge spontaneously and help us make sense of our daily interaction with institutions like work and school.
Status can be described as the prestige, respect and esteem that others award us. It can be thought of as an index of the worth that others place on us. Most importantly, it is about how we interact with others.
Because other people award us status, they can also take it back from us. So status isn’t given to us because of our title (that is power – your title gives you power over certain resources), it is given to us because we have earned it through our behavior.
So essentially, to improve your status, you must be outwardly focused, think about others. Take into account their points of view and be sensitive to how you treat them. People who seek status are concerned about the impression that they make on others. They seek to be regarded as respectable and commendable and behave in this way. When this happens, society continues to award them status and they either maintain or grow their status level.
