How can you rise above ‘order-taker’ status?
You want fries with that PowerPoint? Follow this guidance to become a respected leader who wields more authority, influence and corporate clout.
How can you go from being inundated with others’ tasks to delegating, deciding and dictating the terms?
The dreaded “order-taker” status might be the gripe of all gripes for communicators across the land. Does this sound familiar?
“I need you to write a press release. The world cares about this.”
“We fired our social media person. Can you just add that stuff to your to-do list?”
“Hey, you, communicator person: Make this into a flyer, and print out 500 of them.”
“Just make this crisis go away. Also, please order lunch for the team.”
“We definitely need a video to go with this.”
Communicators often get lumped and bundled into larger, more respected departments, whether that’s in marketing, in HR or, heaven help you, in IT or sales. Regardless of where you sit, there’s a tendency to treat communicators as a back-of-house, downstairs service department.
This unfortunate power dynamic places you directly under a cascade of tasks, updates, collateral, busy work and the whims of fickle execs—unless you can shift the balance of power.
How to command more respect
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