My name is Angelynn Scott, and I'm a major in Video Production and Film at Webster University. Here is my take on when language and power worked together to affect me in the past.
When I was a supervisor at a bank, I experienced several managing styles, most in the form of repressive power. This form of power dynamic caused me to ask myself if there was a better way of managing people.
Before I became a supervisor, I kept my head down and made sure I became extremely knowledgeable in my area where it got to the point where people were asking me about things pertaining to their jobs, and they began to wonder why I wasn't a supervisor yet.
I decided to climb the chain of command and I sent an e-mail to my lead's supervisor.
Shortly after that, I became a graveyard shift lead.
The graveyard shift was considered the most unruly shift out of all three of them, and it was expected of me to bring them up to par with the quality of work worthy of acceptance. By then, I had studied different managerial styles from various places of employment I had worked in the past. I figured out what worked and what didn't work from my experience. I began to devise a plan in order to turn my shift around and make it work for not just myself, but for everyone I managed. Without knowing it, I employed the second and third dimensions of power.
Using these methods, I was able to delegate tasks while working side by side with my employees. In my past experience, prior management looked like this:
In the end, I created an environment that went from the picture above, to this:
And all it took was a little:
- respect
- trust
- effective communication
- a clear direction, and
- using a second, and third-dimensional power dynamic built on being side by side with my employees instead of having a stereotypical boss vs employee relationship via first-dimensional power.
