“The boss can carry chairs too” — leadership and power distance

Before a large meeting, Karim is helping Olek set up the room and carry chairs. Marek watches from the side.

— You’re seriously carrying chairs with them? You’re their boss.
— I’ve got hands.

Karim sees ordinary help. Marek wonders whether too little distance risks weakening a leader’s authority.

What really happened

Karim helps move the chairs because he sees no reason why a management title should exempt him from ordinary shared work. To him, the message is: “I am responsible for this team, but I am not a more important human being.” Marek reads the same scene through a different model of authority. If a leader behaves exactly like everyone else, he may worry that the visible cues reminding people who ultimately decides and takes responsibility begin to disappear. The disagreement is not really about chairs. It is about whether authority should be visible in everyday distance between leaders and employees.

What the research says

People differ in how natural they find explicit hierarchy and distance between managers and employees—often described as power-distance orientation. Research on leaders who downplay status and behave with humility generally finds many benefits, but the strength of those effects depends on employees’ expectations and the surrounding culture (Jeung & Yoon, 2016; Chandler et al., 2023). More recent criticism also cautions against treating “leader humility” as a universally beneficial magic trait, because some studies may be capturing broad liking for the leader rather than specific behaviors (Lee et al., 2026). The safest conclusion is that reducing distance can help, but not everyone automatically reads it as strength.

How to handle it

Authority does not need to be built by avoiding ordinary work. It is better built through clarity, consistency, competence and accountability. Karim can carry chairs and five minutes later say just as clearly: “This decision is mine, and I am accountable for it.” If the team is accustomed to greater distance, a less hierarchical style may need to be introduced gradually. The general rule: you can reduce interpersonal distance without blurring role responsibility. Warmth and a clear mandate are not opposites.

How Empatyzer and Em can help

Empatyzer can help Karim and Marek see that leadership distance is not a neutral detail for either of them. Culture-8 can highlight differences in expectations around hierarchy, while personality and motivator data may show differences in the need for status, closeness and independence. Em can therefore prepare Karim for the fact that an egalitarian style may build trust for some people while making others wonder where the boundaries of the role actually sit. The answer does not have to be more distance; often it is enough to pair informality with clear decision rights and accountability. Micro-lessons help leaders understand that authority does not have to rely on status symbols—but when those symbols are reduced, the boundaries of the mandate need to be even clearer.