Extract from Influential Leadership: A Leader’s Guide to Getting Things Done
The roles you play and how you manoeuvre yourself into the limelight.
To become powerful it certainly helps to get yourself into a good position. Position means much more that simply being given a particular role or title by your organisation, even though this type of position is the most understood and easy to recognise.
Beyond this, you have people who are given temporary positional power as project leaders, managers or sponsors. All of these have been given responsibilities by the organisation and the power to do certain things. Other powerful position sit to the side of organisation control. Union conveners, spokespeople and staff representatives can all exert significant influence on organisational life.
Then there are the myriad positions within the social fabric of the organisation. Party organisers, newsletter writers and “go-to” people all have positional power. This can even go as far as the company joker – the life and soul of the Christmas party who has the position (attention) and can flatter or ridicule with equal mirth those he likes or dislikes.
Formal positions
Formal positional power is based on the control of:
- People: How they are recruited, rewarded, deployed and dismissed.
- Resources: Such as facilities, processes and raw materials.
- Markets: Authority to engage with the markets and customers of the organisation.
- Money: Deciding on which project, programme or division to favour.
- Information: The insight into what is going on, be that management information, market intelligence or communication mechanisms.
To a large extent, formal position works because of the responsibilities and permissions bestowed on the individual by the organisation. It is also clear that the ability to influence is also found in the expectations placed of an individual in a given role.
For example, roles such as Operations Director usually comes with the authority to decide where to allocate resources (physical and financial) and control over large numbers of people. It is also generally viewed as mission critical for the organisation. Alternatively, being the Compliance Officer means having the ability to veto plans on the grounds of legal requirements or to avoid reputational risks – at least in theory.
There are many other roles within organisations which are formally created that can provide the incumbent with significant power if positioned well. These include consultants, mentors, coaches, researchers – the list is long. The extent to which these can provide power will vary depending on the way they have been created and the powers which have been vested into the role. Just giving someone a title doesn’t make them powerful.
For all of these roles, the influence comes from the degree to which they own decision-making authority in a realm that is considered to be important. I’ll get into more detail on this in the next chapter.
Informal positions
There is also a multitude of roles where the positions have not been formally created. Instead they have become initiated by the individual. Clever people are able to position themselves where they can become influential by virtue of the support they give, or the value they bring.
This includes mentoring, coaching, and consulting too. You don’t have to be formally given these roles for friends to come to you seeking your help and support. And the more you do this, the more influential you will become, at least in their eyes.
Some informal roles are quite functional:
- Organiser: Such as the Christmas party, or planning the quarterly team building event.
- Facilitator: Helping two people to resolve their differences, or leading another team through a creative brainstorming or problems-solving process.
- Communicator: Volunteering to write a department circular or blog sharing news, or even offering to write up the minutes of a meeting.
- No. 2: Although not formally recognised, most teams have an individual who is usually regarded as the second in command – the one everyone turns to when the boss is away.
Others are more social in nature:
- Confidant: The person who everyone turns to when they have a problem and need to talk something through.
- Joker: There is one in every team. Their role is to lighten the mood, release the tension and help everyone to have a good time at work.
- Gossip: Speaks for itself.
- Friend: Everyone needs friends, even people in high places.
What you may notice about the roles above is that they are voluntary and the success (or power) which can be gained from the relationships they build varies depending on the abilities of the individual holding the role. They also demonstrate that you can gain positional power without necessarily gaining formal approval.
An extension of this comes from informal groups. There is a wide array of groups which emerge organically in large organisations. These are collections of individuals who recognise that they have something in common and they usually cross over the usual functional boundaries. As soon as they notice this and start to communicate, they become an informal group. They are informal because they have not been designed and created by the organisation itself – instead they have self-organised. However, all of them can develop to the stage where they begin to look very formal. Chapter 5: Understanding Your Leadership Arena will go into much more detail on this topic.
Strengthening your position:
- Clarify your formal terms of reference – your decision making authorities.
- Extend the scope of what you currently do. What are others not doing that you could do?
- Write down and agree additional responsibilities as soon as it becomes clear you can fulfil those duties.
- Ensure your decisions are reinforced by proactively managing your superiors’ expectations. If you think someone is going to appeal, get in their first.
- Forge alliances with other decision makers so you can support each other.
- Make sure to use the power you have got.
- Stay alert to change and competition.
Finding a position:
- Look for opportunities to create informal groups. Find the commonality between talented people and make a role for yourself.
- Keep close to HR and Talent Management people. You may be surprised how influential they can be when your boss is selecting her successor.
- Remain vigilant for changes to the challenges your organisation faces. How could you help? Spot a problem, volunteer to find the solution.
- Find additional ways you can help senior people. What can you make their life easier, their work more successful?
- Keep your ear to the ground and dialogue with your network about what is really happening in the organisation.
Colin Gautrey
Provocative Coach/Mentor | Specialism: Impact and Influence
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