Leader = Submissive = Dominant
It’s interesting that when someone talks about communications-you easily think of people speaking or even writing.
This fifth week in Wavemakers, we focused on communications. It’s a topic that’s very dear to me as it is the career path I am subconsciously drawn to.
Last year I even graduated my bachelor’s degree in international communications management (yay me!).
The topic that intrigued me the most was regarding feedback and the relationship between power dynamics.
But what’s interesting about the image of working in communications is that people think you are a marketing machine, a promotional engine that’ll advocate the s**t out of things. They forget that communications is the foundation of the web of social life.
Remember that cliché: communications is key?
Well, I hate to break it to you — it is.
I had a lecturer who repetitively mentioned throughout my years of study that we’re not doing rocket science, probably to lessen the pressure we were feeling to perform. And yes, it isn’t rocket science-which is part of what they call Exact Sciences, but it does correlate and depend a lot on behavioral science.
Which I think is the most fascinating science there is. The study of human behavior and what influences those behaviors is incredibly relevant to daily life to learn about.
See, the thing about communication is that it’s not just about talking to your colleagues or writing an email to your client, it’s beyond that. it’s about active listening, it’s about noticing visual ques, its reading behavioral patterns, it’s feeling someone else’s emotions.
Communications is more than you texting your friend on WhatsApp and sending cute GIF’s. It’s a give and take between sender and receiver of various forms of information.
Power Dynamics
As part of this fifth Wavemakers week, we did an exercise to map out some power dynamics with certain relationships we had. And this exercise is geared to help us reflect on the dynamic we have with another person on the level of agency you share with each other and whether either of you are friendly or hostile to the other.
I really enjoyed doing it because it was so intuitive. I felt like theory matched practice, and my beloved communications field did not disappoint ;)
I think the difficult part was when I began to reflect about communicating feedback to these people and how I envision our relationships in the future.
The thing about giving people feedback, is that you’re never sure how the other person is going to respond. But I guess that is the essence of feedback; you’re trying to change the way a person is treating you or at least change someone’s opinion about something.
And this brought me back memories of various experiences I had growing up and during my bachelor studies.
When I was studying and managing group work, I always acted dominantly. When possible I would try to be my friendly and caring dominant self but when I knew time wasn’t on our project’s side my hostile dominant behavior would take lead.
I always saw this as a control problem, like I was a control freak as they say.
I would feel the pressure to manage the group and always dreaded group projects (which was 99% of the program btw) because I knew I had to manage my dominant side as this was commonly viewed as the WRONG way to be.
You see, so many times when we speak about dominant personalities we mention them in a negative connotation. Some examples:
“Oh you’re just being too dominant. Why can’t you be more nice?”
“Let the others contribute and the dominant ones can back off a little.”
“How to deal with dominant personalities.”
It is so often communicated as if it’s a problem to be solved, as if it has no purpose or place in society. Something to stay away from but ironically at the same time, aspire to be in order to reach success.
Having a dominant power doesn’t necessarily mean we have an evil agenda to become a dictator — no.
Understanding the pressure of delivering something on time and speaking up for what you need — perhaps.
I’m not here to define what dominance in a relationship looks like but I do want to stick up for others who have been in the same situation as I have.
On the contrary, I think having a submissive person around is important and it is dang hard to learn the patience to take on this role when you are not used to it.
With a lot of experience embodying the dominant characteristic/role (most of my 28 years of life in fact), I’m challenging myself to learn the submissive role in a professional setting. And it takes a lot of conscious effort to remind myself why it’s important to me to continue trying.
But I’m reminded of my first Wavemakers week, my polarizing values are Passion and Calm. These feel exactly like the tug and pull of these exact values.
I love how interlinked learning your authentic leadership personality is!
A lot of our fears about being around dominant personalities is that they will dominate our course of life. But with the right mindset and in a safe environment, I invite you to be a scientist and experiment.
Try to keep an open mind about the power dynamics you have with a couple individuals and reflect on what level of agency you both have in your relationship together.
Which reminds me of something I learnt in high school: leaders need those who want to be led. Otherwise, who is there to be led right?
But most importantly, leaders don’t have to be dominant. I believe a lot of leadership could benefit from a more submissive-kind of leadership, where more agency is given to those being led.
I think for now my rule of thumb would be, be dominant when there’s time pressure. But if you’re going for a more sustainable long-term endeavor, some sort of submissive leadership approach would probably nudge and encourage those unheard voices you’ve been busy quieting down in order to get your urgent matters dealt with.
P.S. I recommend reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain to get a glimpse of how much we’re missing out by sticking to the bias that leadership = dominance.
P.P.S Enjoy stretching your perception!
