The signals of workplace submissiveness

Deference is all around you, unfortunately.

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Animals have evolved many different ways to signal submissiveness to their more powerful counterparts. Lower-ranking chimpanzees might greet a dominant chimp by producing a breathy sound known as a pant-grunt. Hanuman langurs present their hindquarters. Spotted hyenas of both sexes (yes, both) have a habit of displaying erections to acknowledge that they sit lower down the pecking order. Chickens invented the very concept of pecking orders.

The spotted hyena would not survive for long in most organisations. But patterns of deference and dominance are as natural for humans as they are for other animals, and the workplace is no exception. Most companies have organisational charts that show who outranks whom. Job titles are used to advertise not just what a person does, but also where they sit relative to others. Sometimes, hierarchies are obvious. In the armed forces, people must salute their superior officers. But deference shows up in other less explicit ways, too.