What happens when we choose to lean into our influence?
When Jonathan Rozenblit and I are working with emergent leaders — those who may or may not yet have titles in the workplace — we frequently hear things like “I’m not anyone’s manager so I can’t make the kinds of changes that will really improve people’s working lives here.” Or: “I’m just a manager — I’m not an executive, so no one is going to listen to my ideas for positive change.”
What’s curious is that both Jonathan and I have heard titled leaders all the way up the hierarchy to the top of the stack express the frustration of having a vision that they feel stymied from realizing. Even more curious is that we’ve heard this in cases where that vision shares common ground with what others in their organization are simultaneously expressing (but perhaps not to that titled person).
This experiential data tells us that having a title is not a slam dunk for having influence.
We also have observed across many organizations and contexts that not having the title automatically doesn’t mean that we have no opportunity for influence.
Inspired by these observations and nudged by our own experiences Jonathan and I, each via our own paths, have come to recognize that influence must therefore have a source different than title.
We can be sure that this isn’t just idle philosophy. Our experience tells us that when we work in systems and, daily, effect change in those systems, we do this through supporting people to make positive healthy change in those systems — and Jonathan and I typically do this without management or executive title.
This is why when we say “modern leader” we’re making a distinction that is best expressed as practicing leadership — and practicing leadership has nothing to do with having or not having a title.
We claim that practicing leadership is the act of choosing to behave in such a way, based on the situation at hand, that influences, in big or small ways, people to achieve their desired objectives.
We start from this definition to help those we work with untangle from the self-limiting idea that “I can’t even think about doing that because I don’t (yet) have the (right) title.”
Move beyond black and white thinking
We don’t say this naively: we are not saying that you can do anything in an organization without mandate, pie-in-the sky “all things possible in all organizations.” We and many other modern leaders — some titled, some not — have certainly found ourselves at various times operating in organizations without the mandate to do what we were doing, and sometimes it’s been tough going.
Rather, we invite our coachees and learners to step away from black and white thinking.
Having a title doesn’t give you the success you seek via free mandate to do whatever you want, if you don’t first do the inner work and then outer work to nurture the connection with people that then allows you to motivate through creating the conditions that allow them to show up as the best versions of themselves.
And, when you show up from an intent to do that inner and outer work, using it to create the conditions that allow those around you to show up as the best versions of themselves, not having a title doesn’t stop you from influencing that organization toward positive change.
Our invitation: take your focus off the title and instead consider investing in growing the influence that comes from your own inner and outer practices.
For deeper exploration into how to develop your inner and outer practices that create the conditions for influence, join us in the Leadership Practitioner Connection — a professional network dedicated to equipping and empowering anyone, regardless of job title, with practical skills and tools to practice leadership.
