Kashbox Coach Note: Leadership Coaching
In today’s complex and dotted-line organizational culture, your job frequently requires buy-in from people outside your direct authority. Influencing people who report to someone else can prove daunting—and an even greater challenge if you confuse the principles of leadership and authority. (They’re not the same.)
Contrary to what you may have learned in leadership training, you can effectively guide people outside your realm of authority. To do so, you must understand what leadership truly is and how it appears to those who seek it.
The traditional leadership development models require control (authority) to “make” people do what they must do. Pulling rank, so the thinking goes, forces them to fall in line and meet goals and objectives. Fortunately, this has become an outdated philosophy that, we have come to realize, ignores basic human behavior.
Leadership coaching uses a modern take on leadership, which includes attitude and habits.
Leadership vs. Authority
People apply themselves and do their best when they want to, not when they’re forced to. From a motivational standpoint, they seek interest, satisfaction, purpose, inspiration, and personal reward. A sense of value and accomplishment encourages engagement—a virtually impossible prospect when they feel they’re being controlled.
Leadership fosters inspiration, whereas authority produces obligation. Authority is the supervisor’s responsibility to direct, decide, and delegate. It is sometimes misused for personal gain.
In contrast, leadership establishes goals or visions and inspires people to achieve them—a process accomplished through influence. Those influenced positively will follow willingly (the essence of true leadership).
Leadership success depends on knowing how to influence people and breed a desire to follow (instead of trying to mandate it via formal authority). Following a leader is a choice based on desire; trying to mandate it is misguided and ultimately doomed to fail.
Influence is the foundation of leadership, according to Clay Scroggins, author of How to Lead When You’re Not In Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority (Zondervan, 2017). “Leaders who consistently leverage their authority to lead are less effective in the long term than leaders who leverage their influence,” he writes. Again, human behavior is the driving factor.
While almost everyone has the ability to influence others and lead in some capacity, many leaders fail to be inspirational and fall back into their default position: an insistence on asserting their authority. Numerous research studies confirm that positional authority does not guarantee effective leadership. Strongly wielded authoritative power has led to some of the poorest leadership outcomes.
Your ability to influence people will determine whether you can lead those who report to others. To increase your sphere of influence, work on mastering the following principles.
1. Be a Worthy Leader
Show others how reliable, trustworthy, and respectable you can be. You don’t need to have formal authority over them to do this. Noble leaders naturally exude these attributes.
Followers want to be associated with successful leaders. They listen to leaders with admirable traits, seeking hope, encouragement, and professional possibilities. Patricia Simpson advises that you must also demonstrate confidence if you want others to work with self-reliance in Leading Without Authority, a July 2016 Leadership Institute article.
Remember: People are watching you. They’re searching for character in their leaders and appreciate working for individuals who improve their lives at work. They want to admire, respect, and follow authentic leaders.
Your identity relies heavily on how you view yourself. Knowing your abilities, limitations, values, mission, and perspective allows you to accurately self-assess. Followers, colleagues, and superiors will judge you on these factors, so you must continually work to improve your skills. You’ll be rewarded with greater trust.
People value leaders who have everyone’s best interests at heart, including those outside your direct authority. Leaders who care about others are worth following. Being helpful, especially when there’s no direct benefit to yourself, commands respect and influence.
Scroggins notes that your motivation and ambition should focus on achieving something. Followers want to participate in your achievements as long as your goals aren’t self-serving. Selfless leadership should generate a matching level of enthusiasm. (Both draw attention from a distance and are contagious.) It doesn’t take long for the workplace to recognize where they originated.
Dedication to excellence, without the intrusion of one’s ego, is a catalyst for inspiration and influence. Take ownership of the quest for positive change while giving credit to others—a potent combination for growing a following. Listening to others’ ideas and valuing their input forges a collective ownership.
2. Promote Relationships
People-focused leaders enjoy the greatest professional success, as influence is founded on relationships. Erica Hersh suggests in Leading Outside Your Authority, a 2015 article for the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, that people find it easier to follow the ideas of someone they like, respect, and trust.
Show interest in people and regularly communicate how much they’re valued to cultivate healthy, mutually beneficial relationships. This strengthens your influence and builds a stronger following.
Your ability to pitch ideas and win over opinions directly relates to your relational strengths. One way to measure influence is by the number of people who adopt your perspective. Strong relationships are characterized by cooperation, collaboration, and implementation.
They also develop into networks, where influence is compounded. You may not have relationships with everyone you’d like to influence, but a growing network of followers helps cement your reputation, creates further connections, and brings beneficial supporters on board. Working with a leadership coach can help identify opportunities and how to navigate them. People within the network will rally others who will embrace your efforts. You can grow a solid support base by leveraging relationships within a network.
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3. Build Credibility
Hersh says that demonstrating credibility helps compel people to work with you. People trust leaders whose ideas make sense and have a history of effecting positive change. Nothing beats a track record of making things happen. People seek leaders with the insight to pinpoint needed improvements and the skills to implement the necessary changes.
Part of being credible is the ability to think critically yet openly. Your capacity to see things objectively—and realistically—engenders trust. Leaders who openly tackle and overcome obstacles regularly and positively are deemed credible. Be a critical thinker, not a critical person.
Scroggins suggests building credibility by continually forging ahead and rejecting passivity, especially when things don’t go your way. Become known for never giving up while putting the organization’s needs ahead of your own.
Be a role model by behaving like a team player. Demonstrate that you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and eschew the “it’s not my job” mentality; you’ll earn respect and enhance your credibility.
Show others that “good enough” is not good enough. A powerful role model sees a need that no one else addresses and works toward remedying it.
4. Challenge the Status Quo
The toughest test you’ll face when working outside your authority is challenging the system. By questioning the status quo, you insinuate that change is needed. Upper-echelon managers may think you’re brooking their authority or accusing them of doing something wrong. Some may take your comments personally, unable to separate the policy from the personal.
Followers may also resist your efforts, fearing the potential fallout. However, a leader with great people skills, influence, and a following can successfully institute positive change at even the highest levels.
Leaders use leadership coaching to develop skills that may not be natural or intuitive.
Navigating these treacherous waters requires a multifaceted approach:
- Ensure that your motives and values are honorable and evident. Changes perceived to be self-serving or inappropriately critical will be rejected quickly.
- When expressing your thoughts and concerns, pay attention to your body language, tone, verbiage, and timing.
- Consider hiring a qualified professional leadership coaching program to offer helpful direction and work with you on your relational skills.
- Communicate why you’re challenging the status quo. Declare your noble intentions from the start.
- Simpson advises presenting compelling solutions instead of merely identifying a problem. Develop a reputation for being a problem-solver for your boss with everyone’s best interests in mind. Paint a picture of positivity and mutual benefit.
When you’re in tune with your boss’s needs, you’re in the best position to lead change. Followers will happily join your efforts if you’ve worked to establish solid relationships and taken the time to understand others’ personalities and styles.
Choose your battles, and be willing to let some things go. Learn to accept the possibility that some of your ideas will be rejected. Recognize that you’ll take some wrong turns to find the right ones. The entire process is yet another opportunity to grow professionally as you expand your sphere of influence.
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5. Enlist Colleagues’ Support
You’ll build an even stronger position when you harness the influence of peer-level leaders.
Reach out to these colleagues positively, sincerely, and nonthreateningly. By working together, you have a greater chance of convincing higher-level managers to move forward.
Present solutions as vehicles for achieving joint benefits. This approach can be a compelling start to improving the status quo.
6. Show Initiative
Anticipate leadership opportunities—and be ready when the call to action arrives.
Better yet, recognize that “each of us has a unique opportunity to create something right where we are,” as Scroggins says. It doesn’t require special authority, a fancy title, or having a corner office…Don’t shrink back until someone calls your number.
We encourage our direct reports to be self-starters. Seize every opportunity to lead by example.
Creator of the KASHBOX: Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, Habits
Helping You Realize Your Potential
I help people discover their potential, expand and develop the skills and attitudes necessary to achieve a higher degree of personal and professional success and create a plan that enables them to balance the profit motives of their business with the personal motives of their lives.
