Say It With Authority

Today I witnessed a supervisor trying to exercise authority over a co-worker, and was a little taken aback by the lack of grace with which she went about it. When first she told him what she wanted him to do, it was in such a whimsical tone that he could very easily have believed she was joking. When he still didn't do it, she began to argue with him. At last, as a last resort, she prefixed the directive with, "I'm a coordinator!"

It seems to me that this is a rather poor way to assert one's authority. I think she very likely would have been successful on her first attempt if she had made it clear by tone of voice and body language that she was issuing a directive and not submitting a suggestion. Allowing the exchange to escalate into an argument only strengthens the notion that a subordinate has a choice. Finally, I think that waving one's title under the nose of a subordinate, like a cop with a badge, is not only undignified, but also undermines the authority of the waver supervisor. One might as well shout, "You may not listen to me, but you'll listen to my title!" Effective, perhaps, but hardly ideal.