Of course, the question in the title is absurd. A more appropriate question will seek to answer a combination of inquiries: are you looking for someone who will follow your instructions? Are you looking for someone who will correct you when you’re mistaken? Are you looking for someone who will speak up when they know the ship is on a collision course with an iceberg? Are you looking for someone who will risk offending you at the moment for a better outcome?
We can sum up all these inquiries in a single trait called Power Distance. The idea was first proposed by Dutch psychologist and professor Hofstede. The idea is that people from different cultures respond to a power dynamic according to their cultural conditioning and their own perceived and accepted position in a social hierarchy. To provide an example, an average interviewee in Israel will write to an interviewer with follow-up questions if required. But in India or the US, an average interviewee is more likely not to have direct access to the interviewer even after interacting once. What seems natural to the Israelite candidate, may seem like a cultural shock to others. This is in part due to the difference in cultural conditioning. This inherent sense of power, whether high or low, is termed as power distance: how distant the individual finds him/herself from power. More the power distance, the more subjugate the individual will be and vice versa.
So, why is it important to write about?
I read more than a dozen job listings on different platforms, all of them mention different parameters such as remote work, part-time, full-time, etc. Wouldn’t it be useful to provide an approximate expected scale of power distance? If such an option is provided, it comes with an added responsibility on the hiring organization’s part. The responsibility of figuring out what they’re looking for and then making a commitment to it, not changing it. While the individuals need to assess themselves when it comes to power dynamics and pursues relevant career opportunities.
What seems like a small idea or a tweak in an option, such practice may help individuals to transcend their current power distance and decrease it if they wish to. The sense of power is a learned trait. It can be modified with deliberate practice and a supportive environment. Of course, implementation of such ideas isn’t without probable negative consequences. One of such negative effects may be the creation of dead-end cycles. An individual may keep seeking only those opportunities that meet his/her current power position, risking the individual to lose himself in a perpetual employment nightmare. Forever stalling the vertical growth. It is also possible that an organization may fail to correctly identify their power requirement, setting wrong expectations from the outset. Whatever the negative consequences may be, we must address this somewhere in our practices and then iterate our way up.
Again, there is nothing wrong if you’re looking for someone who needs to follow the protocols of a sophisticated gas-chromatographer machine and analyze blood samples. Also, there is nothing heroic if you want to hire people who find it difficult to be compliant. In the range of such cases, we need to be aware of what kind of individual we are looking for. This will be helpful not only to us, as organizations, but also to individuals to find a more fulfilling career path.
No matter how advanced our civilization becomes, the hierarchy of power will remain an integral part of the system. Better to learn about it and make the best use of the mechanics.