From power to purpose:
What social dominance theory can teach us about leadership and workplace culture.
Most organisations are designed around power:
titles and office location
who gets access to flexibility
reporting lines, and
who speaks first and last in meetings.
All of these give us insight into who holds the power and who is expected to ‘get on board’ without complaint.
In fact, our workplaces are packed to the brim with symbols of power and hierarchy - some so subtle and unchallenged that we don’t even recognise them as what they are.
We’ve all had one of ‘those’ bosses, right? The one that insists that you always meet in their office. The one that always speaks first in group meetings, that chooses the lunch location and the leather-bound diary instead of the pleather (despite the budget cuts). The one that won’t share their diary so others know where they are, but will insist on others being transparent, present and always available in the office. The one that says, “don’t question, just do.” The one that - when called out - has the potential to lash out.
One theory that gives us insight into how power structures shape behaviour between leaders, managers and employees, is Social Dominance Theory (SDT), first explored by Sidanius & Pratto, in 1999. It’s a fascinating theory of how societies maintain group-based dominance. It can be applied when looking at the relationship between, for example, indigenous communities and colonising powers, how the popular bully the unpopular at work or school, how parents maintain dominance over their children, and how leaders build and maintain power in workplaces over and above everyone else.
SDT argues that groups organise themselves into hierarchies that advantage some and push others into subordination. Should that hierarchy be threatened, then action (sometime extreme action) can be taken to re-establish the power structure. These hierarchies are sustained not just by formal authority, but everyday norms and beliefs that make power differences feel natural and justified.
In workplaces, hierarchy is explicit. What is left unexamined is how hierarchy can be (and often is) the primary force shaping our behaviour.
At the leadership level, dominance often appears as assumed legitimacy. The perspectives of leaders are treated as inherently more strategic, even when they are further removed from the front-line where their strategy is put into action.
While not often easily recognisable, it can be seen when challenge is interpreted as threat, or when alignment with a leader’s opinion is more rewarded than insight or exploration. Behaviour then shifts as a result: leaders want less bad news, they become confident in cherry-picked data that reinforce their position, and they unintentionally distance themselves from the operational reality. If you think about it, the very act of the withdrawal from operational reality could be seen as another attempt at reinforcing the hierarchy, as we humans have historically assigned differing value to each of the leadership levels that grows with the paycheck, the further you get from the frontline. How convenient! (Check out this article collab from Kristine Posthumus and I “Your people aren’t difficult”, that touches on this.)
Middle managers experience the strongest tension between power and purpose. Positioned between layers they are both holders of authority, and subjects of it. This means their role straddles the most uncertain of tightropes - as both the powerful and the powerless in equal measure. SDT suggests that they both need to appease the ‘overlords’ to maintain their position - such as through managing up through deference - as well as keep the employees in check which means managing down through control. Purpose, in this case, becomes secondary to survival. Managers focus on delivering what is instructed, rather than questioning what is needed.
It doesn’t just affect managers though. Employees can feel the effects of this dominance through the silencing of their voice. When power shapes whose contributions matter, those at the bottom quickly learn to self-censor - regardless of whether they have something critically important to say. Effort reduces to what is rewarded. If you wanted to see the dangers of this, you only need to look to Boeing’s recent and well publicised failures that resulted in fatalities, and Amy Edmonson’s entire back-catalogue of research on psychological safety. To be clear, this isn’t necessarily disengagement through apathy, but through adaptation. Survival. The system trains people that purpose is less important than the position you hold, and silence means safety.
The impact on our businesses can be significant. Information is repackaged, manipulated as it travels upwards as we seek to ‘sell the situation’ in a way they’ll accept. Decisions are made without the insights of those closest to the work (who - while they may hold less authority in terms of power - often hold infinitely more authority in terms of perspective of on-ground performance). Innovation stalls because the challenges that are necessary to make, feel unsafe. And our brains don’t do unsafe well. We avoid it at all costs. Over time, the voices shut down and leaders can mistake quiet obedience for ‘team effectiveness’.
But what if we moved beyond power - to purpose? What might be possible if we were unified around the impact of our organisation and the value of the voices, rather than the symbols within it? Shifting from power to purpose requires more than a powerpoint deck and an inspirational statement. It requires changing the forces that shape behaviour. Purpose itself only becomes the organising principle when it has more influence than hierarchy. This means it requires a deliberate and consistent commitment to disrupting the power structures, some examples being:
baking into your people and culture plan, events where employee voices are elevated and valued and truth can travel up (and not just instructions down)
trialling programs like reverse mentoring
rewarding leaders for curiosity and recognising complexity, and not just certainty and reductionism
equalising the power of voices across the levels, through leaders that share their power with those less powerful
equipping managers with the skills to translate purpose across the layers
giving leaders the emotional resilience to manage the messy as our systems of power shift, recognising that fear of powerlessness will surface (because it usually does).
Through all of the disruption, we might recognise that by loosening our grip, we do in fact get more control.
I don’t think the answer is eliminating hierarchy all together. Like all things, it can be useful. Instead, I ask you to consider what is doing the shaping of behaviour in your organisation and your team - power - or purpose? When we consciously rebalance our teams and workplaces, behaviour - over time - usually changes. At the very least, employee voices gain more confidence, commitment deepens, and decisions improve as they learn the strategic goalposts. Connections between the layers become interdependent (not independent) - and performance usually follows. Not because power has disappeared or leaders are somehow less powerful, but because power is no longer the point.
Davina Jones is the Director of Life and Career Coaching, based in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Australia. She specialises in leadership coaching, collaboration and capability, and loves working with middle managers and their teams to help them connect more authentically, so they can do their best work together.
