dealing with unfair authority (and people in power who shouldn’t be)
Hey friends!
We have all dealt with people in authority who weren’t exactly shining examples of what it means to be a leader. This could be a politician, principal, teacher, anyone in your life that makes decisions about your life that aren’t in your best interest. It’s never a fun experience, and in my own life I often walk away from interactions with these kinds of people feeling ‘less than’, like my opinions and value are unimportant. I have found, in my personal experience, that this often occurs with adult men. As a young girl, I would often feel ‘stepped on’, dismissed, and swept under the rug in these interactions.
One of the things I hate the most is having aspects of my life and comfort under the control of people that I do not trust to treat it with respect. Unfortunately, I’ve also found that oftentimes there was very little I could do about it, but over time I’ve developed some strategies.
Here are some ways that I’ve coped with dealing with people in authority who I believe did not earn their power:
I separate the organization from the people running it. I can love a place - a country, company, or organization - while feeling dejected by the people running it. I’ve encountered places in my life that I loved, that had values I understood and connected to, that did a lot of good in the world and for me. However, the people in charge of these places seemed to have a lack of understanding of what their own empire represents. I found that it’s ok to love a place and acknowledge the corrupt leadership that may be occurring.
I explain my perspective. Now, I’ve written a lot of long letters explaining exactly what went wrong, what should’ve happened, who was responsible and how I felt about it (my friend lovingly calls these “screw stuff up” letters… well, that’s the clean version ;) ). Some I’ve kept in the drafts, and some I’ve sent. The point of these letters or emails is never to engage in a power play, instead the idea is to show the people I’m sending it to that I am a human being, I am not a pawn, and I won’t be treated without respect and remain quiet about the experience for the benefit of someone else’s reputation. Now, most of the time, these letters or emails are met with a picture perfect PR response that goes something like this: “Thank you for your feedback, we’ll take your thoughts into consideration in the future.” Translation: we got your email, we’re going to do absolutely nothing, stop bothering us.
I understand the difference between cordiality and respect. I, like you, am under no obligation to hold respect for someone who has proven through their actions that they do not care about my well-being. I don’t particularly have an interest in this person’s position of power. At the end of the day (to the best of my knowledge) they are also a human being like myself, and they treated me indecently. That does not mean, however, that I would go out of my way to be rude or mean to these people. While I may feel justified in doing so (and I may, at times, actually be justified in doing so), retaliating with anger, it can be even more empowering to choose maturity.
I hope this was helpful <3
Journey Strong!
Strongly,
Linda Paige
