Personal Authority

General Prayuth, our PM, and his many lookalikes. 

Earlier this month, I was asked on Facebook by an Australian friend if it was true that the Thai PM had presented a cardboard cutout of himself to a press gathering for them to question instead of him.  Well, it was true.  Apparently, a number of cutouts of the PM had been made for the annual Thai Children's Day.  The creative idea was for children coming to visit parliament to see friendly images of their PM.  The PM took it one step further and presented his cutout lookalike to the press for them to quiz on the day.  This is an exhibition of how authority is exercised in an overly hierarchical society, where status and position are everything. 

Remember back in December at my workplace, there was a robust discussion which impacted upon me?  Well, I decided I had to act as one staff member too many had gotten angry with me once too often.  Something was wrong or not being understood and I needed to act as the one with responsibility in the place.  So I initiated an assessment of myself in my role among the staff to which all replied.   

The big issue as always is communication and I recognise my faults.  Involving people but in Thailand, also at play are culture and the exercise of power Thai style.  It is fascinating for me to be in the middle.  What I see as an outsider is two opposing forces - one is the general expectation to have much discussion while authority is ultimately exercised in an autocratic style and by a Thai. The expressed expectation by some is that authority be exercised in a more autocratic style and not in shared, western liberal ways which is my style. 

I am not sure what I am caught in the middle of as I may be the boss in name but the reality is that I am the outsider, the foreigner in a Thailand, never being aware of all that is going on around me.  I am not complaining.  I know my place and that is okay.  I am just naming my situation where I feel inadequate in the midst of the unknown.

In response, the position I am assuming is that we all have our personal authority within our shared reality.  As we work together, we need to each respect the other's personal authority, no matter who they are, just as the other respects mine. 

My chosen response gives me a way of approaching what I experienced at our first weekly staff briefing which I have initiated on receiving the staff assessment of my role.  What I observed was how senior figures exercised their authority, either given or assumed.  In part, it is culturally determined; in part, is is personally determined.  I observed the senior Thai male among the group making a point with a smile but what he was saying was a serious matter for him and he was asserting his own authority.  I would name it as a power play.  It does concern me.  Basically, not to follow what he was saying regarding an upcoming work meeting could be read as a possible action against his own self-assumed authority.  He exercises authority and power as he has learnt it in his culture and so it can be quite autocratic.  That needs to be respected. 

Culturally and from every other perspective, I decide to respond by listening, hearing the point and standing back to decide what is best within the total picture, acting with my own personal authority, acting for compromise and not come in and act as an autocrat.  That would just be destructive and self-defeating.  I will encourage staff accordingly to assume their own power in good and healthy ways, making the decisions they need to make and thus exercising their own personal authority.  We respect each other and thus work together, even if in somewhat dysfunctional ways.  We are dysfunctional together? 

Amazing Thailand!  Amazing humanity!