I actually had multiple people respond to my previous post and comment that their favorite part was the point I made about informal authority. Informal authority is such a cornerstone of my leadership philosophy that I was sure that I had written a full-length post dedicated to it, but after reviewing my archives it turns out I haven’t! It definitely deserves a post of its own, so here it is:
Formal authority is vested in you by the company and your title. It is given to you when others are placed under your leadership; it is an awesome power and a powerful tool, and is best left completely unused.
Informal authority is earned through your actions and your reputation, and cannot be given or faked. It is the true currency of leadership, and the invisible steering wheel with which real leaders guide their organizations. In a healthy organization with a positive culture, informal authority is all that is necessary to keep a team aligned and productive.
Formal Authority Apocalypse
As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, most of my ideas about proper leadership come from experiencing the opposite for so long from so many different sources. I have seen what bad leadership looks like so clearly and so pervasively, that it crystallized in me a determination to never subject anyone else to the kind of “leadership” I had suffered. Formal authority is the tool of those leaders that I have spoken of.
You can recognize a weak leader by their consistent use of imperatives and self-reference: “do this…”, “I need this…”, “this is what you will do and how you will do it…” They dictate a vision to their subjects, whose sole purpose is to execute on their master’s plan. Any attempt to question, deviate, or even propose an alternative results in the wielding of their formal authority; a constant reminder that things will be done their way, because they’re in charge.
If you ever find yourself in a situation like the above, leave. Not because it’s a miserable work environment, even though it is. Not because it will stunt your career growth and professional development, even though it will. Not because of any high-minded, moral objection to this behavior, but because it is a failing strategy. A weak leader who dictates from on high creates an organization where ideas are only generated from a single mind, where discussion is silenced, independence crushed, and initiative discouraged.
A workplace like this will be out-competed quickly by organizations where ideas win the argument no matter their source, where disagreement is encouraged, and initiative rewarded. The command and control model of corporate authority is obsolete, and working at an organization where leaders have to lean on their formal authority is a dead end. People in these organizations are promoted based on relationships and their ability to follow orders, not to think or creatively problem solve. If you are good at what you do, you should avoid this situation at all costs.
Punctuation Matters
How do you avoid using your formal authority, but still manage an organization effectively? How do you drive the agenda, execute on a plan, but avoid all of the pitfalls described above? It can be as simple as the usage of punctuation.
I mentioned above that weak leaders lean on their formal authority by issuing commands and using terse imperative statements which leave very little room for discussion or disagreement. If you instead turn these statements into questions, you invite discussion and disagreement. An employee is far more likely to voice an opinion after “would you do this?” than after “you will do this.”
A team of smart motivated individuals doesn’t need to be told what to do and how to do it. They merely need to know what the priorities are, and they can take the rest from there. Denying creative, intelligent people a forum for discourse or disagreement will result in their departure from the organization, leaving only mindless sheep in their place. Always leave the door open for disagreement from your team, and when someone walks through that door welcome them.
After asking one of my team members if they would do something, they often point out other priorities that they believe are important. What ensues then is a collaborative discussion about what is most critical and why. Some of the things they bring to my attention I had either forgotten or did know about at all. How could I have made the best, most informed decision about priorities without that discussion?
Informally Persistent
Informal authority builds credibility in the eyes of your team. They see you as someone who values them and their opinion and is secure enough in your position to accept disagreement. People are much more likely and willing to put in the extra effort for a manager that they believe truly hears them and plans that they feel some ownership over.
Like in all things in life, it is necessary to observe and recognize your own behavior. Try to be attuned to your tone and how you delegate work. Be aware if you are encouraging discussion and welcoming differing ideas, or if you are often commanding and dismissive of alternative views. It may not even something that you are aware of until you look for it.
If you ever find yourself trying to use informal authority, but having to fall back on formal authority to achieve your aims, take a step back and review the situation. At some point, I believe that all reliance on formal authority is an indication of an underlying systemic issue: Are you trying to achieve the wrong thing and your team is trying to tell you? Do you have team members that take your attempts at collaboration for weakness and become obstructive? Are you too focused on your goals instead of those of the team and its members?
All of those are situations that can be dealt with and resolved, but only if they are recognized for what they are. Don’t mistake a systemic or cultural issue for a failure of informal authority. Informal authority won’t necessarily be effective if there are other issues present, but that’s not a reason to abandon it; it’s a reason to fix the problem that’s causing it to fail in the first place. If you start with the view that all appeals to formal authority are a failure in leadership and should be addressed as such, then you’re on the road to creating a healthy productive team.