The Petty Power Problem

Why is it that when people have just a modicum of authority, they often overdo it?

You see it in the flight attendant who talks down to passengers as though they’ve never flown before. At the DMV, where employees seem to get a strange joy out of reminding you that you’re missing one form out of the twelve they require or granting you a license is a personal favor. With police officers whose “respect my authority” stance quickly overshadows any sense of actual community service. The HOA board member who’s made it their life’s mission to patrol the neighborhood like it’s a gated kingdom. Or the state worker who can approve or deny funding, and wields that power with a smug shrug. 

Someone once told me: Never get on the bad side of small-minded people who have a little authority. And honestly, that may be one of the realest things I’ve ever heard.

See, it’s not the authority that’s the problem. It’s what happens when that authority becomes the only thing that gives someone a sense of worth. When someone has little control in their own life, they cling to whatever scraps of power they can find and the rest of us pay for it in sighs, side-eyes, and unnecessary “rules.” When someone’s entire identity hinges on being “the one in charge” in a very limited space, they often inflate it. It’s not about service, fairness, or even doing their job well, it’s about making sure you remember that they get to say yes or no. Their authority is so fragile that they have to flex it at every opportunity.

And it’s exhausting for the rest of us.

Maybe the real question isn’t why they do it, we know insecurity when we see it. Maybe the real question is: why are we forced to tolerate it? Why have we designed entire systems travel, licensing, benefits, law enforcement, where the gatekeepers are the very people most likely to abuse their little sliver of power?

What’s wild is how we’ve built entire systems that reward that behavior. We give the smallest gatekeepers the biggest keys the person behind the counter, the one who stamps the form, approves the claim, or waves you through the metal detector. And when that little sliver of power gets to their head, we call it “protocol” or “policy.”

But authority without empathy is just control.

And control without self-awareness turns into cruelty disguised as professionalism.

The people who truly have power, the kind that changes lives, moves things forward, or builds something meaningful rarely have to prove it. They don’t need to humiliate to feel seen. They don’t need to bark orders to feel respected. Teal leadership doesn’t need to be loud, and if you’re truly in control, you don’t have to remind people of it, your work, your fairness, and your consistency speak louder than your bark.

But until the system changes, all we can do is spot it for what it is: petty power dressed up as importance. And decide not to let their small-mindedness shrink us.

So the next time someone flexes their “little power,” just remember, small authority can’t handle big peace. And while they’re busy proving they matter, you can move in silence, knowing you already do.