Experimentation Reading List: Leading without Authority

As Optimizely’s Experimentation Program Manager for our Product organization, I’m constantly looking for content that helps me play bigger with experimentation. This month I’ve been thinking a lot about best practices for great leadership. As a Program Manager, I’m tasked with leading a big effort, but often comes down to leading without authority.

While an executive title can be helpful when a final decision needs to be made on a heated topic, when trying to get buy-in for large programs and ensure their success, inspiring people to want to help has been the most effective for me. If you’re excited and genuinely care about your program and share that enthusiasm frequently, others will be interested in partnering with you. That said, outside of constantly pitching my program, what are tactics and frameworks I should keep in mind when trying to get people to support my programs?

If this is something you’ve been pondering yourself, keep reading below.

1. How To Lead When You Have No Authority by Matt Russell

• Leading through influence is key to making an impact, whether you’re in a position of authority or not, “…when people want to follow you they will always give you their best; while, if they only follow you because they have to, they will always give you the bare minimum that they can get away with.”
• Matt’s focus on trust as key for great leaders is well captured by, “Trust is not an action or a resume, it is a feeling that others have about you. This feeling comes from two things: 1) a belief that you have their best interests at heart, and 2) a confidence that you have the ability to help them.”
• As someone who frequently jokes about the need to “create a culture of FOMO” around her programs, I’ve personally seen the the power of telling an impactful story and Matt notes this as well, “I did this by sharing the greater purpose or “why” of the effort. I communicated how this effort would help us do something meaningful — and I said it with enthusiasm.”

2. Learning to lead through influence, not dominance by Heath Evans

• Heath’s focus on the power of influence builds well on the article above with more focus on the dynamics within meetings and encouraging leaders to not hold tightly to their authoritative roles. He notes, “For the great leader, however, this presents the chance to create more leaders. They do not fear that they will lose their role, but rather they play the role their team needs them to play, demonstrating their versatility and ability to adapt and only stepping in as the team requires.”
• He highlighted an interesting infographic around meeting dynamics (included below) that demonstrates the different roles people can play in conversations and how to recognize patterns for the type of “player” you are most frequently. He recognized in himself that he often takes the “Oppose” stance, which in some situations can be detrimental to the team. Not always sharing his challenging opinions allowed others to lead conversations and conversations to not get derailed unnecessarily. You can read more on the Kantor model [here]

3. TED Talk: How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek

• From Simon Sinek, author of “Start with Why” — this is a well delivered, punchy TED talk covering how companies and leaders inspire people, with a key tenet being, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
• Similarly to Matt Russell above, Simon highlights that inspiring people is the most powerful way to impact change within others, “Leaders inspire us, we follow them because we want to, not because we have to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.”
• This is because “When you start with “why” it speaks directly to people’s behaviors and then they are able to rationalize it with the tangible things we say or do….We can get all the facts and figures, but something can still not feel right, that’s because where we make those feels right decisions in the brain, there isn’t a capacity for language, so that’s the closest we can get.” (Pictorial depiction above)

4. Empowering people (even when they don’t want it) by Elizabeth Ayer

• Give your team space to do their best work. Ayer shows how a series of questions allows you to dictate less, and empowers your team to do more by allowing them to take on more leadership and responsibility.
• This also works well as you can go up or down the ladder based on the person and the situation.

5. The 3 Ways Leaders Can Influence Company Culture by Claire Lew

• What specifically contributes to culture, not at the surface level, but truly the core elements of shared basic underlying assumptions? Claire notes those underlying assumptions are, “…the things we actually believe — but might not always say or outwardly show ”
• She encourages leaders to, “…focus on creating an environment where employees can choose to shift their basic underlying assumptions in line with what feels right to them…. you should be the living embodiment of the basic underlying assumptions you want your culture to have. You should be consciously and intentionally speaking and acting in a way that shows people, “This is important to me.” For instance, a manager often doesn’t admit her own weaknesses, but expects employees to be upfront and forthcoming about mistakes that happen in the company. See the disconnect?”
• Her constructs for taking full ownership as a leader by leading by example, being consistent and offering many opportunities for your employees to access time with you provides awesome guidelines for how to get to the heart of cultural shifts.

Have you read any of the above? Do you have any recommendations for what I should check out next? Tweet me @bexcitement.