Interviewing Across a Power Gradient
Launch library · evergreen read
A subject speaking about someone who holds power over them, an employer, a superior, an institution, faces real risk in candour that a more neutral conversation would not carry, and an interviewer needs to account for that risk explicitly rather than simply asking the same questions regardless of context.
Protective measures matter more here than in a typical exchange: careful attention to anonymity, clear conversations about how the material will be used, and genuine patience with a subject who may need considerably more reassurance before speaking freely. Rushing this trust building tends to produce a thinner, more guarded account than patience would have earned.
The resulting material, when it is obtained ethically and with real care for the subject's safety, often carries particular value precisely because it required overcoming a genuine and reasonable reluctance to speak candidly in the first place. That value comes precisely from the care taken to make candour genuinely safe in the first place.