Leading Without Authority summary

What do you do when you’re keen to take on a leadership position, but your bosses don’t think you’re ready yet? He might say that you haven't been with the organization long enough, or that you don’t yet have the skills to be a manager. In this case, there’s only one thing you can do – start leading anyway, even without authority. 

That’s exactly what Zina, a talented young doctor, decided to do. Zina wanted to step into a leadership role so that she could transform her hospital’s approach to patient care. Frustratingly, she was told that she hadn’t worked at the hospital long enough to become a manager. 

Can you provide leadership to someone you don’t care about? The author believes that you can’t. To be a great leader, either with or without authority, you need to care about those on your team. 

If the people you’re seeking to lead think you don’t care about their feelings, their careers, or their interests, then they won’t trust you. This lack of trust is a major stumbling block, because trust is the bedrock of meaningful relationships. 

How can you make change happen fast? Well, let’s respond to that with the following example. In 2016, Target, an American retail corporation, was failing. Foot traffic in their stores was decreasing rapidly, and experts were predicting that it wouldn’t be long before they would have to close their doors for good. 

But just three years later, Target had turned their ship around. In fact, 2019 was their most profitable year on record. What was their secret? Simple. They empowered their people to lead without authority. 

Whose job is it to coach employees and give them feedback? You might assume it’s a manager’s job, not yours. For instance, when you notice that your coworker could improve her performance, you might shrug, and think it’s not your place to tell her where she’s going wrong. Well, think again – because a fundamental tenet of leading without authority is coaching your colleagues and offering them feedback. 

Although it might seem unusual to give your coworkers coaching and performance feedback, in some environments, it's the norm. For example, on a visit to a military academy, the author was struck by how the cadets in training urged each other on through every military exercise, and routinely gave each other advice on what they could do better next time.

One of the author’s friends is a CEO who always seems to be chatting on the phone. When the author jokingly asked him how he got anything done, the CEO replied that it was usually an employee on the other end of the line. But, interestingly, he didn’t phone his employees to give out instructions or tell them what they’d got wrong. Instead, he called to tell them what a great job they were doing. 

This leader was well aware of the power of positivity, and saw it as his job to encourage the people who worked for him, by constantly praising their achievements, no matter how small. 

You can’t always go it alone. The author was once asked to coach a high-profile actor who had her own TV show. The show’s ratings were good, but there was a problem. The actor’s bad attitude toward the rest of the cast and crew was creating a toxic environment on set. As a result, the network was threatening to cancel the show. 

To save her show, she would need to change herself, and change the environment in which she worked.