Personal authority - we all have it

Personal authority is our ability to stay centered, set clear boundaries, and choose our response, even when under pressure.

The authority part doesn’t relate to job titles or fancy signatures, and it certainly doesn’t refer to whoever shouts loudest in meetings. It’s simply a quiet, grounded sense of knowing where we stand and being willing to hold that line…. calmly.

“When you lose your shit…”

I’m not a huge fan of Taylor Swift’s music, but I do admire her business mind and outlook on life. Recently, I heard her on a podcast discussing her fiancé’s (Travis Kelce’s) football coach. The Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid is well known in the NFL for being consistently calm and poised in intense games. She was sharing some leadership advice she took from him…

”When you lose your shit, you lose your leadership.”

She was praising how steady and calm he is, even under huge pressure.

And it’s true. The moment we snap by raising our voice, firing off the angry email, slamming the door…. we might feel powerful in that moment, but we’ve actually given our authority away.

In that moment, we’ve handed control of the situation (and of our emotions) to the other person.

That’s where personal authority really matters. It’s about turning that moment of frustration into a moment of internal power.

External authority vs personal authority

Almost every workplace still recognizes external authority. These are the titles, the span of control, the budget decisions, and more.

But applying personal resilience in modern work has less to do with all of that and more to do with how we can stay centered when things get messy. It’s those moments when a client speaks to us in a way that crosses a line, when someone takes credit for our work, or when we receive that passive aggressive email in our inbox.

In those moments, personal authority looks like this:

• Composure under pressure: we don’t vanish, and we also don’t explode.

• Clear boundaries: we know what’s okay and what’s not.

• Aligned behaviour: our words and actions match our values.

And the link to resilience is quite obvious. The more personal authority we have, the faster we adapt and recover to move forward with presence.

Why this matters for resilience

Without personal authority, everything feels like it’s happening to us. We feel walked over, we stew on conversations, we end up resentful.

But with personal authority, we accept that we’ll still have hard days, but we’ll exercise the control over the one thing we can: ourselves. Because we’re the only ones who can truly choose our response.

In a world of constant change, restructuring, and rising emotional load at work, personal authority is preventative resilience. It protects our energy, our self-respect, and our ability to show up again tomorrow.

Here are some small, practical ways to build personal authority in real time. Some of these might feel incredibly basic, but often when aiming for clear communication, we don’t need to overcomplicate it.

1. Pause. Possibly the most important one. Before we respond, we need to create an extremely valuable gap between the trigger and the response. We’ve all flipped emails back that we’ve regretted, or made an unfortunate sarcastic comment in a heated meeting. Add two seconds and one breath before we respond. That tiny investment pays off and, believe it or not, those tiny pauses are where resilience lives.

2. Look people in the eye. This isn’t a power stare, but rather just steady, calm eye contact. We’re trying to communicate that we’re there, we’re not shrinking and we’re comfortable in ourselves. When people feel shame or fear, we’ll naturally look down or away. Returning our gaze (even briefly) is a physical way of communicating that we’re allowed to be there.

3. Lower the voice. Most of us instinctively raise our voice when we feel we’re not being heard. Authority usually lives in the opposite direction with a slightly lower tone and a slightly slower pace. It also acts to calm the room and our nervous system. We signal to your brain that we’re not in danger, but rather we’re just in a conversation.

4. Be clear. Personal authority loves clean, simple language. We can’t waffle and express our feelings in a whimsical way. Rather we need to be direct. Examples are sentences like: “This doesn’t work for me because…” or “I’m not ok with that timeline.” From there, we can get into solution mode. We’re not attacking, but rather we’re just stating our reality, clearly and respectfully.

5. Use a boundary phrase. This is a phrase we’ve rehearsed in advance for when things cross a line and creates some consistency. This one comes in handy when talking to children (I have two young boys). For example, if one of them says something clearly out of line, I try to be consistent with my wording so they get used to the notion that this means what it meant last time. Often it’s as simple as “I’m going to leave this conversation and I’ll be ready to talk when we can both talk calmly.”

The important piece of all of this is that we’re trying to remove the emotion in the moment. If we want to maintain our personal authority, there’s no room for dramatic insults and character attacks. The focus just needs to be on our way forward.

Titles and positions mean nothing when it comes to our personal authority. Our personal authority is maintained when we can stay true to ourselves, even when things get hard. And that, more than any job title or shouting match, is what really makes us resilient.

Until next time friends, stay resilient

Carré @ Resilient Minds