When it comes to leadership, one thing that continues to baffle me is the perception of the relationship between position and influence. Many new leaders believe that the bestowing of title and authority gives automatic passage to greater influence over others in the organization. Yet we all know of people in our respective organizations that have positions of leadership but have low influence over others – and we know of people in organizations that have not been formally “knighted” as leaders, yet have tremendous influence over what others think or do. Why does this happen? What are the dynamics that influence a supervisor’s leader effectiveness?
Though there are many factors that affect this, in my mind a key consideration has to do not with the position or authority a person has in the organization, but rather with the relationships that person has developed with others. What strikes fear in the hearts of many leaders is the recognition that followers hold the cards: If a staff member doesn’t have a condition of mutuality, trust, common purpose, respect (the conditions we all expect to have with others with whom we form relationships) with their boss, it is unlikely they will support or try hard to carry out the spirit of the wishes and directives of that boss. There are a million ways to sandbag a directive without being discovered. There are a million ways to sabotage initiatives without doing anything overtly damaging (Often, just omission of key items can do the trick.) Will people “take the hill” for their boss based on the leader’s position or power? Or will they because they have an affinity with them, they don’t want to let him or her down, they are part of a common cause, they know the boss would take the hill for them? Position doesn’t do it – a strong relationship, even without the position, often will.