Leadership Without Positional Authority

When you’re the boss or a principal in the company, you have more opportunities to formulate the vision and values of the organization.  How do lower ranking members of the workforce demonstrate leadership and why should they?  It is easy to do a good job to earn one’s pay.  It is safe to fit into the culture and avoid making waves.  Whereas leading is confronting and risky and makes a person stand out in the crowd.  Leadership means the buck stops here. There is a lot of untapped human capital in people who want to lead but lack positional authority.  If you are the boss, find out how to optimize that capital.  If you are not the boss and you want to lead, learn how to be a leader anyway and take positive action.

Ways to Lead Even When You’re Not the Boss

• Cultivate and Demonstrate a Few Personal Leadership Qualities – Observe effective leaders and identify the qualities they possess that make them great.  Some of these qualities may include: persistence; clarity of purpose; flexibility; a collaborative approach; straightforward vision, moral code; competence; compassion, good communication skills and the ability to be detached yet passionate about the possibilities of the future.
• Coach-Up - Support your positional leaders to carry out the organizational vision and live by the company values.  Many bosses know it is critical to listen to feedback.  People in lower ranks are usually too afraid to tell them the truth.  Ask your positional leaders if they are open to receiving feedback.  If they say yes, you have the opportunity to coach-up, meaning you can hold them accountable to lead well.  If they say no - then come up with another way to support them in being the type of leaders you want to follow.
• Ask Effective Questions - When things get off course ask appropriate questions such as:  What is our main objective in doing this?  What is our desired outcome?  How can we focus on the solutions rather than expanding the problem?  How does this fit into our vision, mission and values?  What strategy might work better than this one?  After some well placed questions, you can create a clearing out of the confusion and people will look to you for leadership.
• Share Your Vision - Most companies are full of people who want to succeed personally, professionally and as an organization.  There are very few true slackers in the world, I have found.  Most people have a vision for what the company could become.  Yet, very few are asked about their visions. Often those inspiring visions get lost in day-to-day operations and the bottom-line focus.  If you are a leader, with or without positional authority, you need to share your vision for the organization.  Share it with everyone around you, above you and below you. This, of course, means you need to put it into words first.

Coach’s Tip - You may not have enough positional power in your workplace but don’t overlook your strength.  Strength is more sustainable than power anyway. Your strength comes from your commitment, clarity and willingness to say what others won’t or cannot say.  The key is to use a charge-neutral approach (not hyped-up or suppressed.)  If you wait until you are angry and blow up or if you sulk and withdraw when things are going poorly, you might never be seen as a leader.

Anne Neal, Organizational Coach – Dialogue Partner
720-493-9900     Fax 720-529-1228
www.vision-mission-strategy.com