A Suburban Epiphany in New Jersey
I still vividly remember flying to the United States in 2014 with my engineer colleagues from the UAE for a series of technical trainings. We wandered into a leafy New Jersey suburb — the kind you only see on American TV: quiet streets, manicured hedges, and the soft hum of a distant highway. We were visiting the headquarters of a major technology company in the construction industry, and the office felt worlds apart from the rigid, fluorescent-lit workplaces we were used to in Dubai. It had an airy, inventive calm — glass walls, soft lighting, open lounges—and an unspoken rule that conversations mattered more than titles.
That was where I met him — the company president originally from France — standing casually by the coffee machine. What surprised me wasn’t his résumé but what it deliberately left out.
“I’m not an engineer by profession,” he said with a shrug, amused at my reaction. Inside an engineering-driven organization, he confessed he built his path through a Wharton MBA and sharpened his instincts at McKinsey advising Fortune Global 500 giants. He did not begin with the legitimate authority one might expect in a technical company. His early influence came from something else entirely — expertise, trust, and credibility. Referent and expert power, he smiled, were his true engines.
By golly, that stayed with me. It was the punchline of our suburban epiphany: formal power is often overrated. Real influence — the kind that moves people and decisions — comes from someplace deeper.
Power in Philippine Workplaces
Back home, the lesson made even more sense.
Filipino workplaces are famously hierarchical. Titles shine here; they mean something. They open doors, command deference, and to many, validate one’s existence. Authority isn’t just a job description — it is a status symbol, almost sacred, a badge that whispers: I matter.
And if you happen to be the narcissistic type, a position is not just part of the job — it is oxygen. Strip it away and a creeping irrelevance appears, swift and merciless, like lights going out in a narrow hallway.
This craving for titles is understandable. We are, after all, a society where traditional structures still shape us: elders before the young, managers before staff, and titles often setting expectations. Seniority, credentials, and “kilala ko ang kilala mo” still grease the corporate machinery. In many companies — especially family-run ones — formal authority is treated as currency you spend to be heard.
But here’s the quiet irony: Even in a culture obsessed with rank, titles do not always determine who people follow.
Often, the true influencers are the ones who calm a tense room, soften conflict, explain processes no manual can articulate, or serve as the emotional center of a chaotic team. That colleague — the one people approach for help even without supervisory authority — often wields more real power than half the managers on the payroll. Filipino culture, with its emphasis on pakikisama and relational warmth, gives enormous room for this. (To be continued)/PN
