Influence Over Authority
People don't want to be managed.
And yet, the top-down control style of management is still very much alive and common.
This, despite increased evidence that authoritarian style leadership hurts team performance.
There is a more effective way of leading others; through influence.
At first glance, leading through influence seems easier because you are actively 'controlling' less. But it is for that reason that it is more challenging. It requires patience, restraint and nuance.
It's easy to simply tell people what to do and then get angry when you don't get results. Anyone can do that. It's also terribly ineffective.
Leading with influence requires stronger leadership but the outcome is much more effective. Today, we'll cover some of the benefits to choosing this more skillful approach. This is a topic with a lot to explore and we'll get into actionable strategies in some upcoming newsletters.
Engagement
People do their best work when they are fully engaged. Getting them to that point means creating an environment where they feel connected to and motivated by their work.
This is one way in which leading with influence is more effective. When you lead through control, you limit the likelihood that others will meaningfully connect to the work. This happens because you are requiring them to do things in certain ways that are counter-intuitive to how they would normally operate.
When people feel less connected to the work, they are going to feel less motivation towards it. In these scenarios, employees will give you the bare minimum because there's less incentive or tolerance for them to bring their full abilities to a task.
You want your team in a position where they can bring their natural talents and style to their work. Sure, there will be some guardrails or parameters that they need to follow. However, the fewer restrictions you place on how the work is completed, the more of themselves they'll be able to bring to the task and the more engaged they will be.
Innovation
This engagement doesn't just keep employees feeling more fulfilled. It also leads directly to more innovation.
When you require that everybody does a task the same exact way, you lose this creativity and innovation. You also send a message that there is little room for innovation within the role.
Not controlling every aspect of a task allows people to figure things out and try new approaches. This experimentation allows processes to evolve and improve over time. As breakthroughs happen, your team's experience deepens and they become even more masterful at their roles. It becomes a cycle of continuous improvement.
Efficiency
Engagement and innovation are aspirational goals for any team. But there are also practical benefits to leading through influence. It makes teams more efficient.
When you repeatedly control methods, people develop a learned helplessness. They'll read your signal that there is only one acceptable way to do things. This works fine when things always run perfectly, but that's not the world we live in. As soon as a new challenge or situation emerges, employees won't have the license or tools to solve the problem themselves.
This is how bottlenecks are created on teams. Because there's little psychological safety, the team goes to the manager for any decision that requires nuance, judgment or creativity. Even if an employee thinks they know the answer, they'll come to you to avoid even the potential for a bad decision.
Leading with influence requires a shared vision. This becomes helpful when employees navigate gray areas. They navigate uncertainty better. You can't prepare them for how to handle every unexpected variance that may occur but if they share the vision and have the freedom to problem solve, they'll be equipped with the right tools.
This Week's Action Items:
Identify one aspect of your teams work that you can loosen control over in order to boost engagement.
Where in your business could you boost innovation by extending more trust to your team?
How could you more effectively spend your time if you improved efficiency by removing yourself as a bottleneck?
