Tips for Coping with Fluctuating Authority

 For many of us, the power we feel at work — how much, when it occurs, and around whom — can fluctuate. This can result in a surprising increase in stress and a decrease in well-being. Fortunately, there are ways to address the negative fallout from such emotional rollercoasters. We have provided a few strategies to help you reduce the frequency of power fluctuation in your own life and to cope with the inevitable power fluctuations you may experience on a daily basis.

• Be deliberate with scheduling tasks. Consider reviewing your calendar from the past week to identify the types of experiences (meetings, tasks, etc.) that prompted you to feel more and less powerful. Then, try to schedule future tasks in clusters according to how powerful or powerless they tend to make you feel. You probably don’t have control over how busy you are, but you likely have some control over when certain experiences occur during the work week or day and should take advantage of this scheduling flexibility to minimize power fluctuation frequency.
• Give your work a routine. Do your work in a way that is consistent and repetitive when possible. Creating routines not only increases the predictability of your work flow, but it also makes it easier to navigate the multiple roles you have to play in your job.
• Create a role-transcendent identity. Power fluctuation harms well-being, in part, because it can generate cognitive dissonance.  Instead of thinking that you’re a “boss” or “subordinate,” try to embrace the nuances associated with being a “problem solver,” “relationship builder,” or “change enabler.” Integrating your different work-related selves into a single role-transcendent identity will help prevent you from experiencing disparate and conflicting mindsets.
• Actively manage your wellbeing. As much as we’d like to avoid power fluctuations and their associated distress at work, some amount of it is inevitable. Fortunately, there are a variety of steps that employees can take, including expressive writing exercises, social sharing, taking short work breaks, and mindfulness exercises, to name a few. Importantly, all of these interventions are easy, cheap (or free), and can be done just about anywhere.