Title: Power Distance Information
Course: PIM: Teaming 2: Self and Other Awareness

Power distance is about a society's attitude toward inequality and authority -- how a group deals with people's different levels of status and their access to power. It is particularly manifest in workplace relations.

People in societies with high power distance accept hierarchy and hold that inequalities in power and status are natural. Those with power tend to emphasize it, hold it close, and distinguish themselves from those without it. Authority is reinforced through external signs such as titles, and authorities are expected to be distant from subordinates. Those with power, however, are also expected to accept great responsibility and to look after those beneath them. Subordinates are not expected to take initiative and are closely supervised.

People in societies with low power distance view inequalities in power and status as largely artificial and tend to emphasize equal rights and power sharing. Those with power, therefore, tend to minimize the differences between themselves and subordinates so as to be approachable and to delegate and share power to some degree. Subordinates are rewarded for taking initiative and do not like close supervision.

(Based on concepts developed by Geert Hofstede and adapted in Storti, C. (1997). Culture matters: The Peace Corps cross-cultural workbook.)