How Do You Spend Your Status?

Status comes with privileges, obligations, and currency.

The influence tied to status can be used to open doors for others and make them feel special, or it can be hoarded and nurtured for personal satisfaction.

Leaders who focus only on the personal benefits of status miss a tremendous opportunity to motivate and inspire people. In contrast, the best leaders can’t wait to spend their status on others.

Every leader accumulates some status through results, relationships, title, and reputation. The greater their status, the more potential influence they have.

Good leaders view their status and influence as a currency meant to circulate, not a privilege to hoard. They spend it deliberately on those around them who need a lift-up, an opportunity to showcase their skills, or a moment to feel special.

So they make sure a team member has a seat at the table, a young athlete receives attention from their peers, a neighbor gets a job interview, or a colleague meets their hero. They spend their status to change lives through the smallest acts of generosity.

Leaders then learn that the more they use their status to help others, the more their reputations and influence grow.

The question isn’t whether a leader has status. Almost every leader does, in some measure. The question is what they spend it on. Do they use their status to touch the lives of others, or merely to make their own station more comfortable?

Leaders who want to spend their status well start small. They look for one person each week who could use an advocate, an introduction, or a word of credit in front of others.

They ask themselves before every meeting, email, or decision: Who could benefit from the influence I have here? Then they act on the answer, even in the smallest way.

Status spent on others doesn’t disappear. It compounds. The leader who gives status away generously always ends up with more of it. The leaders we remember the most aren’t the ones who climbed the highest, but the ones who reached back to lift others.

Spend some of your status today. Someone is waiting for the moment only you can give.

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Spend more time with this leadership idea... Ask ALEX to to suggest a few practical ways you might circulate your status effectively. Continue this discussion with ALEX here.