Influencing Authority; Its Not on Any Org Chart

NO one likes power grabbers, but there’s nothing inherently obnoxious about building and applying true authority to help your company or organisation achieve its goals.

Good employees with good ideas almost always face antagonism from entrenched interests. In these cases, one needs power to prevail in the inevitable politically charged battle.

Unfortunately, formal structured authority (clearly drawn up or laid out in organisational charts) doesn’t always work with peers or superiors, and it can generate stiff resistance and resentment. When used raw, nakedly or illegitimately, it will appear as 'coercion'.

Informal Power
Sometimes, informal power can be much more effective, and it doesn’t have to follow a hierarchy. Such influence can be exercised, say, by an executive assistant who controls a manager’s calendar, or by a midlevel manager who trumpets her team’s outstanding sales record but leaves out its soaring costs when seeking a budget increase.

Power and Influence, learn to identify all sources of informal and influencing power

The simplest to spot is the power of personal characteristics, which is more than just charisma. Just as some individuals appreciate certain traits, like kindness or empathy, organisations also value personality types.

The old school
An old school manager can be a genuine, square shouldered, company person in how they appear. They are never too slick and often look slightly over-used, not to mention, worn out. They can handle high-pressure situations, calmly, stoic and with a dry sense of humour. They have a personality that harmonises well with the organisation.

All this brings about a sense of deference from senior managers and an apparent uncanny ability to ensure that his ideas are listened to and will be sustained. Possibly all this will be justified by the feeling that he is just making 'good sense' but it is based more on his organisational credibility. Something akin to 'street cred'.

Negative power
Unfortunately, this kind of power is often most obvious in the negative. We all know about hard-driving managers, everywhere who have a real talent or 'knack' for generating cultural friction. Some will even confirm that this is a deliberate tactic, their management style.

Obstructive
This type of manager can be competitive when the company was trying to become more collaborative, more results focussed when the company is building good process, more interested in individual accountability (Blame!) than in fostering a culture of respect and dignity. This is very much the 'bull in a china shop' management style, which went out of use decades ago, it violates everything the organisation is trying to achieve, and it will lose you that next promotion. Even if, on merit points alone, you probably deserve.

Resources
Another source of power that transcends the traditional hierarchy is control over or ring fencing, resources. This exists when someone has the discretion to withhold an important resource, whether this is something tangible, like a signature on an expense form, or intangible, like access to a senior executive or knowledge on how to best use a piece of software. Executive assistants, benefits managers and other intermediaries, can have immense powers of resource control.

Decisions
An equally effectual power base involves control of a different kind, over the premises of a decision. Just because you don’t have the power to make a decision doesn’t mean you can’t influence or steer its outcome. A smart employee knows how to order, stress and withhold information when making a presentation. Some manipulative meeting organisers, will place controversial issues at the end of a long meeting, when everyone is too exhausted to put up a fight and site this as getting a 'tactical' advantage.

Raven and French
In 1959, two social psychologists Bertram Raven and John French laid out an authoritative taxonomy of power in society, which remains the basis of the field today. They discovered that attempts to influence others work best when perceived as legitimate. One source of legitimacy is reciprocity, the nagging sense of obligation felt when someone does you a favour. How often have you heard 'You owe me one!'.

Alliance
This “favour” mentality is the root of another informal base of power: alliance. Whether between reciprecating peers or between mentor and mentee, alliances involve an exchange of support or resources that can be cached, owed and redeemed at a later date. Effective power brokers build extensive alliances all around an organisation, so they can request and withdraw support, as and when required or build a quantum reputation for being able to do so.

Reputation
A reputation for power is another potent base. Everyone loves a good-natured boss, but a boss incapable of exercising authority, is ineffective and just wide open to abuse and domination. Instead, it is prudent to exercise your capable power, early and clearly.

Confirmation Bias
Psychologists use the term “confirmation bias,” it is the tendency to interpret actions in light of one’s original impressions or experiences. Confirmation bias can also explain the “golden child” phenomenon: when an employee enjoys years of success based on an initial positive impression. It can also be readily transferred or transmitted down through an organisation but if lost, it is almost impossible to regain, inside the same organisation.

Influencing
Many business schools offer excellent courses on mastering the essential techniques of informal influence. This is very rightly based on the criteria that intelligence, dilligence and hard work doesn’t guarantee any kind of success in business.

Unfortunately, many people who have spent years in a politically charged work setting very quickly come to learn how to acquire, apply and counter informal power. It is a self fulfilling philosophy because if you don't learn this lesson early on, you are not going to last long and you will definitely not be promoted, allegedly.