Status, Hierarchy, and Well-Being in Construction: What the Research Suggests
- Amy Powell
- 4 days ago
- 8 min read
Walk onto any jobsite and you’ll feel it: an unspoken pecking order that shapes who talks, who listens, who gets called into tough meetings — and who gets blamed when things go sideways. Hierarchy in construction is real. It helps us make fast decisions and keep jobsites safer. But it also hides something we don’t talk about enough: status — and the ways it quietly influences how people behave, speak up, and hold up under pressure. This post looks at Status in Construction — how the mix of respect and influence shows up on site, how it affects teams, and why it matters for people’s well-being.
I recently dug into a 2021 research paper on Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes that frames status as a portfolio — the mix of respect and influence someone carries across the different groups they move through, and how that mix affects teams and individual well-being. The research isn’t written about construction, but it maps cleanly to how we work and can translate directly to our construction environments and help inform us on feedback, leadership approaches and communication.
Below is a plain-language translation of the research paired with an applied lens from my work at Well Works. My aim is tactical: turn the research into tools you can use on site to keep people safer, more effective, and more willing to stick around.
A brief overview of the research
Please note: The authors are careful to note that these findings describe patterns and associations, not prescriptions — which makes them useful as a lens rather than a formula..
They define status as the “relative level of respect, prominence, and esteem that an individual possesses within a group,” and point out that people don’t carry a single status. Instead, they carry a status portfolio where two things matter (Fernandes et al., 2021, pp. 57–58):
Status average: how respected someone is across places they work.
Status variance: how much that respect jumps up and down between groups.
Across five studies the researchers found a steady pattern: higher status variance — being influential in one group and overlooked in another — tends to increase perspective-taking and helping behavior, but it also raises anxiety and erodes personal well-being (Fernandes et al., 2021, pp. 59–60; pp. 70–71). In short: the people who bridge teams and see the bigger picture often pay a psychological price for doing so.
How this shows up in construction
Those of us in construction rarely run with a single pack. We move between crews, meetings, job sites, the office, and stakeholder conversations — sometimes multiple times in a day. With each move, expectations and influence change.
Practical examples you’ve likely seen:
A PE who carries responsibility but not the field authority to act.
A foreman who runs the crew but may have little voice in planning.
A superintendent respected onsite but second-guessed in the office.
Those transitions create high status variance. They explain why many construction professionals are great at situational awareness and problem-solving — and why the same people report higher stress, fatigue, and frustration.
Why our flexibility matters — the upside and the cost
Construction’s strength is its flexibility: people move between crews, meetings, job sites, offices, and stakeholders multiple times a day. That agility is a competitive advantage — it’s how we solve problems fast and keep projects moving. But it’s also a big reason we see high status variance. Every move changes expectations, authority, and influence, so a person’s standing can be very different from one group to the next.
That dynamic produces two predictable outcomes. On the upside, it creates the bridge-people who can see the whole job, translate between field and office, and step in where the bottleneck is. Those people make teams smarter and more adaptable. On the downside, moving between status contexts repeatedly takes a psychological toll: higher anxiety, greater fatigue, and the sense of being pulled in competing directions. In short, the very flexibility that helps us deliver work also increases the hidden load on people — especially those who carry influence in some places and little in others.
If you want the upside — better problem-solving, stronger coordination — you have to protect the people who deliver it. That’s why Status in Construction looks like both a capability and a risk: we get better problem-solvers, but only if leaders make progression clear, reduce unnecessary status threat, and support bridge work.
How status in construction shapes safety, voice, and team well-being: a “team brain” lens
The research focuses on individuals, but these dynamics quickly show up at the team level. I encourage leaders to think not only about individual brains, but about the team brain — the collective average of a team’s actions, reactions, and behaviors over time.
Status dynamics appear in how teams communicate, respond to pressure, and handle challenges. One practical way to read those dynamics is through three team states I use with leaders: Survival, Status, and Legacy. I use this framework to help leaders measure and maintain team strength. Teams move between these states throughout a project; the goal is not to avoid the Survival Level entirely, but to recognize it early and avoid getting stuck.
Survival: when status feels threatened
Survival Level, is firefighting mode. Energy goes to putting out fires that feel like they’re multiplying. It is when we notice our team's health declining. Signs include:
High stress and frustration
Defensive or unproductive conflict
A drop in care for safety and quality
A sense that problems are multiplying and out of control
The research helps explain why this level is so exhausting: persistent status threat and uncertainty increase anxiety and narrow cognitive resources, shifting people toward self-protection instead of problem-solving (Fernandes et al., 2021, pp. 59–60). The survival level isn’t failure — projects and teams will inevitably move through it. The problem is when we don't address it and let it fester. If a team stays here too long, blame, withdrawal, and silence — especially around safety — begin to replace accountability and collaboration.
Status: safety, contribution, and momentum
When teams move out of Survival Level and into a healthier Status Level, people no longer feel like the “sick animal in the back of the pack," and remain in pure reactionary mode. They feel safe enough to contribute, speak up, and invest energy in the group.
Status does not necessarily mean being at the top. What people want is:
Proof their effort matters
A sense that their skills contribute to a larger purpose
Respect and value within the group
This aligns closely with the research findings. Lower anxiety and higher well-being tend to emerge when status is more stable and predictable, allowing people to focus on challenges rather than on protecting their position (Fernandes et al., 2021, pp. 59–60).
When status is stable and predictable, anxiety drops and well-being improves. Teams show greater trust and endurance, recover faster from setbacks, solve problems proactively, and need less constant top-down direction. This is where most teams do their best work.
Legacy: the longer-term payoff
The Legacy Level isn't a permanent level, but more of an outcome that becomes possible once teams are out of Survival and operating in a healthy Status Level environment. When people feel secure, valued, and able to contribute, they begin to invest not just in today’s tasks and to-do items, but in the longer-term impact of the work itself. In construction, that legacy may take many forms: a project people are proud of and share with friends and family, a strong safety record, a team others want to be part of, or a standard of work that carries forward beyond a single job.
Why titles and progression still matter
Some organizations have considered removing titles to ease promotion tension. The research suggests caution. Status doesn’t disappear without titles — it just gets blurry and muddy.
For those early in their career, titles often signal progress, expectations, and belonging. If we remove these titles without replacing them with clear development pathways, uncertainty and anxiety increase.
It’s not whether titles exist or not, but whether people understand:
How they are growing
What responsibility looks like at each stage
How their contribution fits the team’s success
Clarity reduces anxiety; ambiguity amplifies it.
Promotions, titles, and the pressure points leaders report
Construction leaders tell me they often face two problems: people asking for promotions before they’re ready, and talks about removing titles to remove politics. Both create risk. Status remains even when titles don’t — and when pathways aren’t clear, status threat rises.
Make development concrete. Replace vague promises with a short skills-and-responsibilities checklist for the next role. Show exactly what “ready” looks like.
Use staged experience. Offer acting assignments or on-ramp projects so people can demonstrate they can carry the role before the title changes.
Set milestones and timelines. Agree on 2–4 measurable checkpoints and a date to reassess. This removes guessing.
Build shadowing and mentorship. Pair candidates with role holders or sponsors who guide them through the transition.
Recognize non-title progression. If you reduce titles, replace them with skill bands or levels that show progression and responsibilities.
Honor bridge work. People who move between groups add value; recognize their load with workload adjustments, formal recognition, or compensation where appropriate.
Practice the promotion conversation (scripts below).
Short script for leaders
When someone asks for a promotion before they’re ready: “I appreciate your drive. Here’s what the role requires day-to-day [brief checklist]. You’re strong at X and Y. Let’s set three milestones to hit in the next three months and then reconviene. I’ll be here to help along the way.”
Practical implications for leaders
These are field-ready actions that reduce anxiety, keep progression meaningful, and protect team performance:
Make progression visible. Use titles, skill checklists, or visible pathways that show what comes next. If you remove titles, replace them with clear development signals and checkpoints.
Lower the status cost of speaking up. Use language and routines that make it safe to raise concerns. Start toolbox talks with “What could stop this work?” instead of “Are there problems?” — it turns speaking up into shared responsibility.
Protect the bridge-people. PEs, foremen, and others who move between groups carry extra load. Check in with them, acknowledge the hidden work of bridging teams, and redistribute responsibilities if needed.
Train for status-aware communication. Build short scripts or training support for managing up, down, and laterally so status differences don’t shut conversations down. Practice asking for help, giving critical feedback, and escalating safety concerns.
Watch the team brain. Use quick indicators — the tone of morning huddles, how often people raise safety concerns, whether crew conversations are solution-oriented — to spot slips from Status back into Survival and intervene early.
These are intended to be tactical tools to support both performance and well-being in high-pressure environments.
Closing thoughts
Hierarchy is part of how construction gets done. The important question is how that hierarchy is experienced by the people working inside it.
The research on status portfolios explains why some of our best connectors are also the most strained. Pairing that insight with an awareness of team-level Survival and Status dynamics gives leaders a practical way to spot when teams are struggling — and what to do about it.
Improving well-being doesn’t require eliminating hierarchy. It requires making status visible, navigable, and humane.
For practitioners, this work gives language for what many teams already experience in real time. For leaders, it points to small, tactical changes that protect people who bridge teams and reduce the hidden costs of doing the work well.
For researchers, this work offers insight into how status dynamics affect well-being; for practitioners, it offers language for recognizing what many teams are already experiencing in real time.
References:
Fernandes, C. R., Yu, S., Howell, T. M., Brooks, A. W., Kilduff, G. J., & Pettit, N. C. (2021). What is your status portfolio? Higher status variance across groups increases interpersonal helping but decreases intrapersonal well-being. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 165, 56–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2021.04.002
Full-text PDF available here: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/OBHDP%205%2013%202021_0e5198f8-42f4-4143-b437-7fc0a28aba49.pdf
Amy Powell — Founder & CEO, Well Works. I translate research into tactical leadership and communication tools for construction teams. Learn more about our research-informed work and programs at livingwellworks.org.
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