Rank Is a Drink Best Served Mixed

Of course it had to happen on a holiday weekend. The rainiest weekend of the spring. Our septic backed up, and with no one available to help, we dug up the earth, well, mud actually, lifted the 100-pound concrete slab, and tried to unclog it ourselves. Without the right tools, after an hour of futile poking we finally called it and asked our neighbor for help.

He came over, sized up the problem, and, importantly, had the right tools. After about 30 minutes, he got things running again. Such a nice guy. And as he was leaving, almost as an afterthought, said, “You know, your gate’s squeaking. It’s slightly off the hinge and could eventually break the nut. I can fix that.”

Beyond singing the praises of my good neighbors, I came away marveling at how dependent I felt. Dependent, and then grateful. As I flushed the toilet and heard the tank empty and fill as it should, I realized how quickly, at any moment, things can go pear-shaped. And when they do, our lives are in other people’s hands.

Your car breaks down and you call the mechanic, hoping they can fix it, hoping they have a loaner for you, and praying it won’t cost too much. An iOS update crashes your computer and you’ve lost all your emails, at the mercy of a tech support person halfway around the world who may or may not be able to help. Your back goes out, and you have to ask your friend to pick up your kids at school.

We depend so often on the kindness of others. But we also depend on our ability to be helpless, to navigate these low-rank moments. And they’re not uncommon. If I tracked my sense of rank over any given week, it would look like the stock market: some days up, some days down, with sharp plunges and big jumps mixed in.

That’s normal.

What’s not normal is never having your rank drop. As I write in my book, rank is a drink best served mixed, not straight.

The problem is, we’re not always good being in a low rank state. Life tells us to chase high rank, and once we get there, to cling to it. And being dependent, vulnerable, and at the mercy of someone else’s goodwill, can feel uncomfortable. It’s more comfortable when you can organize your life to avoid those experiences, something a high-ranking role affords. When you’re the boss, the most popular in your friend group, have seniority, or just have lots of money, you can make things easier for yourself. You can set the time and place of meetings, or skip them altogether. You can pick and choose whom you engage with. You hire out those tasks you don’t like. In other words, you can eliminate a lot of role conflict. The problem is, avoiding that discomfort, and eliminating role conflict, comes at a cost.

Role conflict is the stress of juggling competing responsibilities — family, work, friends, self-care — and it’s a constant part of life. High rank minimizes, and in some cases, does away with that juggling act. That sounds appealing, but the tension of role conflict, and of moving up and down, in and out of high and low ranking roles is how we develop emotionally and socially.

Low rank teaches us how to reach out and ask for help, to make friendships, take risks, and deal with rejection. When we don’t have easy access to resources, we rely on others, and that reliance makes us better at relationship and makes us better humans. We have to sharpen that fundamental skill set of being vulnerable, kind, cooperative, and resilient.

Role conflict teaches us to navigate competing loyalties, and in doing so, builds our capacity for empathy and our tolerance for loss. Do you leave work early to see our kid’s piano recital and disappoint your boss, or disappoint your kid and score points with your boss? Being pulled between competing obligations forces us to imagine what others feels. It builds the muscle of enduring someone’s disappointment, of having to say no, of making a sacrifice, and of dealing with regret and loss.

In fact, being open to low rank is essential for leadership, for occupying a high rank role. A leader who is afraid to appear vulnerable and weak would minimize or hide problems, and try to muscle through problems without knowledge, without resources, and without engaging others to help find a solution.

Nothing makes you more vulnerable than the inability to be vulnerable. Your strength comes from your willingness to have nothing to lose. If you can’t lose an argument, walk away from a disagreement, admit defeat, or apologize for a mistake, you have placed your feelings of worth in the hands of another and made yourself open to manipulation.

These moments of utter helplessness — the hard moments, the roles you didn’t choose, the criticism, even the clogged septic tank — feel uncomfortable because they’re supposed to. That discomfort is the relationship muscle working. The more we arrange our lives to avoid it, whether hiring it out, delegating, not asking for help, or simply not showing up, the weaker that muscle gets, and the less connected we are to each other.