Three Kinds of Authority

Brian: There we go. Now how’d that feel?

Sydney: A lot better.

Jon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Brian: Without screaming and yelling at each other, it was a lot more confrontational, and you had a lot more positional authority, Sydney. You know, which having that kind of…you know in life there are three kinds of authority: there’s command authority like in the military, right, where you have to follow the chain of command; there’s demand authority, like when you work at a company and you have to be demanded by your superiors; and then there’s earned authority. Which one do you think’s the best?

Sydney: Um, I feel like it’s more like demand, positional authority. But I am trying, it seems like as a woman I’m trying to make up for it a little bit. So, it’s more like a demand, as well. Like, you will respect…

Brian: Right. Right. Right. But in actuality, in life, the best kind of authority to have is earned authority because you earned that position.

But you see what I’m saying? If you understand those three little basic rules it’s real easy to figure out sometimes where your character fits into the spectrum of things because of that. Does that make sense?

Sydney: Yeah, it does.

Brian: Okay. Cool. That was much, much better.