The Problem With Authority: Understanding Resistance and Fear

“Everyone has a problem with authority.”

In the first week that I was school Principal I remember one of the teachers taking me aside and making a point of saying this to me.

What did she mean? Was she warning me about the parents and the teachers and how they would react to the new programs I was introducing? I didn’t understand why she was telling me this until I was in the middle of the school year.

Firsthand experience with resistance to authority

I began to see that any resistance that I found in dealing with teachers or parents had to do with their image of me as an authority. It seemed that the staff noticed everything I said with a greater attention than others around me.

I began to feel that I could not be natural, and that I had to watch everything I said. I was experiencing first hand the pressure that comes from authority.

When I wanted to introduce a new idea to the staff I began to feel that certain members were resisting me. Often, it was not the idea itself that they were resisting, but rather myself who was introducing it.

These staff members did not want it to be apparent that I was telling them what to do. They were afraid that others would think them to be weak in the presence of authority.

I was disturbed that the authority figure that upset their balance happened to be me. I found it hard to believe that my image as an authority could instill fear in them.

The problem with authority

I read various management books and realized that I could have changed the atmosphere and made it seem as if we were all involved in a team effort and introduce the same ideas with less resistance by using special “techniques” to get them to do that.

This would have probably worked, but something disturbed me about using “techniques” to communicate with my fellow human beings. What wasn’t being addressed and what was being avoided by “techniques” was the problem of authority.

What I would have liked to ask was to have a meeting with the staff and parents about our relationship to authority.

Why is it that we resist authority?

I would have liked to understand what is at the root of it.

I could have told them then how difficult it was for me being in a position of authority and suddenly seeing all my relationships change with the people around me.

I could have told them how lonely it felt to have everything I said weighed in their minds as to whether they were going to resist it or not.

I could tell them how it worried me to see that I could instill fear in them just by being a school principal, a figure of authority.

But I did not do any of these things, because, to tell the truth, at the time I myself was afraid of the authority of the staff and of the parents. Sadly enough I too resisted them, in that first year of being Principal.