Authority and Power - Are They The Same?
Women find it difficult, in many cases, to show their authority on the issues that they are experts in.
Let’s examine for a minute the issues of authority and power and try to shed some light on this issue from a different angle.
Have you noticed that the word Authority has in it the word Author-ity. This means that the idea behind authority is that the person who is in authority has meaningful issues to deliver. They have more wisdom, more knowledge, more experience than others and are in a position of authority on a specific topic.
The issue becomes complicated when it comes to the corporate world where some people have bosses that know less than them and they became an authority not because of their knowledge but because of their title.
When you are in a position of authority but you know that your people know much more than you, most people would start working out of force (not power). That’s when authority is being misused.
The definition of Power is the ability to act . Most bosses act not out of inner power but from power that was given to them by their title and not from their own inner power. Therefore we will find that so called authority will act not because of their power but due to their position and title that was given to them.
If we wish to become an authority we will need to develop our inner power which comes with self-esteem and confidence and has nothing to do with the title that we carry, the diplomas that we have or even the years that we have.
I believe that we are all born as authorities in our own field. I mean who else knows what YOU like, think, or dream better than you!.
Of course that is not enough to become an authority. However, if you’ve ever looked at kids (before education and school hit them and in most cases destroyed them…) they act out of authority. They are very clear about what they want, what they think and how things should be. Sometimes they are too clear for us adults and we try to educate them and tell them: “shush, you don’t say those things in public”… or; “that’s not polite to say such a thing” (even when we think the same..)
Somehow we’ve lost our natural authority in life and we are looking for other people to give us the permission to be an authority and to recognize us as an authority.
I believe that each time that we are willing to share our knowledge, our experiences, our success and failures; we demonstrate our leadership and teach other people who are willing to listen.
This for me consists of authority. Authority doesn’t mean that you need to know it all. On the contrary many of those people that had the I-know-it-all attitude are the least authority people that I have met.
See what you can do today in showing your authority.
