Who can be interrupted, who reaches information first, whose mistake is written into the file — these too are power. A workplace's democracy is understood not from the values statement on the wall but from what its least powerful worker can say in the face of injustice.
When we think of power at work only as the boss’s authority over the employee, we miss the finer relations of everyday life. Who can interrupt whom in a meeting, who reaches information first, with what facial expression a request for leave is met, and whose mistake is forgotten while whose is written into their file are also parts of power. Two people holding the same title on the official chart may have very different real room for movement.
The large effect of small powers
Micro-power usually operates through powers that look small. The person who prepares the shift rota, the employee who alone understands the technical system, the assistant who arranges the manager’s calendar or the informal spokesperson within a team can affect the lives of others. None of these people may be the boss; yet because they command information and access, they hold the doors through which decisions must pass.
When authority is unclear, holding anyone to account also becomes difficult. Asked why an employee’s request was delayed, everyone points to another process. Nobody has openly said “no,” yet the thing has not been done. The strength of micro-power sometimes comes not from deciding but from being able to slow the path of a decision.
Whose right is visibility?
Not every piece of labour done at work is equally visible. While the person who gives the presentation receives the applause, the employee who prepared the data, corrected the errors and carried the team’s emotional load may be forgotten. Being close to the work the manager can see may become more valuable than the work itself. Employees thus devote time not only to producing but to displaying what they produce.
Remote work and digital tracking systems did not change this so much as give it new forms. Appearing online, replying fast and showing oneself in constant motion can turn into the proof of working. Activities hard to measure — thinking, waiting, reading, supporting someone else — lose their value. People learn to look busy in the system before they learn to do good work.
Closeness, loyalty and small privileges
Even in institutions said to apply the rules equally to everyone, closeness to managers is an important source of power. Whose joke is laughed at, whose private life is known, who sits with whom at lunch can all affect a career. Because these relations are unwritten, discrimination is hard to prove. The person promoted may be talented; but which talent counts as worth seeing may have been determined by networks of closeness.
When employees notice this order they begin to manage not only their work but their relations with managers. They soften criticism, support decisions they dislike and display a visible loyalty. Even if the institution says openly that it does not demand obedience, the system of rewards tells everyone which behaviour is expected.
How do employees govern one another?
Micro-power does not operate only from the top down. Employees within a team can also force one another to conform to norms. Someone who does not stay for overtime may be counted selfish, someone taking leave as a person abandoning the team. A culture of self-sacrifice that management never directly demanded is maintained by the employees themselves. Once everyone starts watching how much everyone else works, the boss’s constant supervision is no longer needed.
This order grows stronger especially in insecure environments. When people are turned into rivals for promotion, contract renewal or keeping their jobs, it becomes hard to talk about shared problems. If one employee’s success means another’s elimination, a silent competition takes the place of solidarity. Management can establish more control over divided employees with fewer orders.
Declaring horizontality is not enough
Some companies say they have abolished hierarchy, that everyone is equal and free. Erasing titles and using an open-plan office does not by itself remove real differences of power. If pay, dismissal and the distribution of resources are still determined by a small group, horizontality remains a cultural slogan. Indeed, making the official hierarchy invisible can obscure who is to be held to account.
Building freer relations at work requires not only good managers but real decision rights for employees. We need structures in which pay, performance criteria, working hours and the division of tasks can be discussed; in which information is not held by a few people; in which objection does not turn into a career penalty. Micro-power may not disappear entirely, because people will continue to affect one another. But its turning into a permanent superiority can be prevented.
A workplace’s democracy is understood not from the values statement on its wall but from what its least powerful employee can say in the face of injustice. Power is sometimes hidden not in great management decisions but in why a person’s voice drops when they ask for leave.
The hardest form of micro-power to notice is seen in who can speak comfortably without any explicit rule. Everyone’s opinion may be asked for in a meeting, but those who can interrupt the manager and those who must soften their sentence repeatedly do not have the same freedom. Some employees’ anger counts as determination, others’ as being difficult. One person’s mistake is recorded as experience, another’s as incompetence. These differences, invisible on the official chart, produce powerful effects over time on promotion, projects and access to information.
Remote work and digital communication did not abolish these relations; they changed their form. Whose word is returned to in an online meeting, from whom fast replies to messages are expected, for whom constant availability turns into a measure of loyalty have created a new language of status. Someone working from home may feel obliged to display more activity in order not to remain invisible. Because the green online marker, response time and a full calendar are measured more easily than the quality of the work, they become the proof of existence. As freedom becomes independent of place, surveillance spreads across time.
Micro-power does not flow only from manager to employee. An experienced worker can govern a newcomer through access to information, an accepted group within a team can quietly punish the one left outside, a customer rating can determine an employee’s income. This does not mean “everyone is a little powerful, so we are equal.” The effect of small powers depends on the large structure supporting them. A low customer rating becomes power only because the company converts it into a penalty without explanation.
For freedom at work it is not enough to replace a bad manager. How pay is determined, to whom tasks are distributed, how objections are recorded and on whom the burden of care falls must be visible. Rotating facilitation, open decision notes, pay transparency and real representative power for employees make it harder for small privileges to turn into permanent offices. Horizontality is not a declaration of intent but institutional labour that regularly measures and redistributes where power accumulates.