Leading Improvement Without Authority

Many improvement roles are expected to influence change without having the authority to enforce it.

No direct reports.
No control over resources.
No final decision-making power.

And yet, these roles are still responsible for helping systems improve.

In this episode of Behind the Measures, Geremy Hurley explores the reality of leading improvement without authority and why improvement work can sometimes feel personal for the people involved.

When processes are examined, it can feel like people are being examined. That dynamic often creates tension, defensiveness, and resistance that has less to do with the data and more to do with how work, ownership, and identity intersect inside organizations.

This episode looks at what actually helps improvement work move forward in those environments, including the role of trust, curiosity, and pacing conversations in a way that creates alignment rather than defensiveness.

Improvement work isn’t just technical. It’s human.

The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not represent the views of my employer or affiliated organizations. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome back to Behind the Measures, a podcast about public sector leadership, quality, and accountability, and the work that doesn't show up in the dashboards or reports. My name's Jeremy Hurley. This isn't about theory, it's about the work. Today I want to talk about what it really feels like to lead improvement without authority. A lot of improvement roles are expected to influence change without having authority to enforce it. When improvement conversations happen, they can feel personal even when they're not. Okay. Before we talk about why improvement work can sometimes feel personal, it's important to understand how many quality and improvement roles are actually structured. Because in a lot of systems, these roles are built as sort of advisory roles. They exist to observe, support, guide, and influence, but not necessarily to control, right? And that creates a very specific dynamic. Improvement roles are often expected to help systems perform better, identify gaps, and drive change. But at the same time, they may not have direct authority over staffing, decision making, or operational processes. So there's an expectation to improve outcomes without fully owning the levers that create those outcomes, right? And that can feel complicated at times. There's a difference between influence and control. Control allows you to make decisions directly. You can change a process, you can set expectations, or you can require action. Influence works differently. Influence requires relationship, it requires trust, it requires patience. And often it means working through conversation instead of command. A lot of quality roles live in that exact space. Responsible for outcomes, but not responsible for enforcement. Expected to improve performance, but without direct authority to require change. And that's not necessarily a flaw in the system. In many ways, it's actually intentional. Because improvement work is supposed to bring perspective, it's supposed to create reflection rather than dictate action. But that structure actually creates a lot of tension. Quality roles are often responsible for outcomes without owning the levers. And when expectations are high, but authority is limited, improvement work becomes less about directing and more about navigating. Navigating relationships, navigating perceptions, navigating how feedback is received. And that's where the human side of improvement work really begins. Once you understand that improvement roles often operate without authority, another layer becomes clear. Improvement work can feel personal, even when it isn't intended to be. Once that internal translation happens, defensive reactions are natural. What I think a lot of them think is why are they pushing back? The data's clear. A systems conversation would start to feel tense. What I believed was neutral observation would land heavier than intended. And early on, I didn't fully understand why. And I think because in my mind I wasn't questioning effort, I wasn't questioning competence, I wasn't questioning commitment, I was examining the process. But what I came to understand over time is that inside systems, process and identity often get intertwined. If someone has been responsible for a workflow or has interpreted expectations a certain way for years, that process isn't abstract. It represents judgment, experience, and ownership. So when you examine it even calmly, even professionally, even with data, it can feel personal. I remember moments where I would present variation, and instead of curiosity, I would get explanation. Instead of reflection, I would get defense. My initial reaction internally was confusion. You know, the data's clear. The expectation is clear. Why is this difficult? But clarity in data doesn't automatically translate to emotional neutrality in conversation. That was something I had to learn. Improvement conversations activate vulnerability, they suggest that something could be stronger, clearer, or more aligned. And even when that suggestion is accurate, it can trigger protection. Protection of reputation, protection of credibility, protection of ownership. One point I had to step back and ask myself a different question. Instead of asking, why are they pushing back? I asked, you know, how I entertaining this conversation. That question changed everything because I realized something uncomfortable but important. Sometimes I was entertaining conversations with conclusions instead of curiosity. You know, not aggressively, not arrogantly, but efficiently. I would walk in knowing what I saw in the data and knowing where variation existed. And really knowing what needed alignment. And while that felt clear to me, it didn't leave much room for shared discovery, right? I had to learn the difference between presenting findings and facilitating understanding. Those are definitely not the same thing. When you present findings, you're delivering information. When you facilitate understanding, you're kind of building ownership together. And improvement without authority depends on ownership. So I adjusted. I started asking more open-ended questions. Questions like, can you walk me through how this works in practice? Where does this step tend to get complicated? What do you see when you look at this trend? And what changed wasn't the data, it was the tone, it was the posture. And instead of feeling evaluated, people began to feel included. Instead of defending, they began to explain. And then instead of reacting, they began to reflect. If trust isn't established, even accurate observations feel sharp. If relationship isn't built, even neutral feedback feels like judgment. So improvement became less about timing the the presentation and more about pacing the relationship. None of that lowered the standard, none of it diluted it the expectations, but it changed how alignment was built. And that shift from proving the shift from proving to partnering made improvement sustainable. And started viewing it as information. It became information about trust, information about ownership, and information about how the conversation was being experienced. Improvement without authority isn't about pushing harder. And that was something I had to learn over time. Once you accept that improvement work often happens without authority, the question then becomes: what actually works? Because pushing harder rarely helps. If someone already feels evaluated, more pressure just reinforces that feeling. What I learned over time is that improvement without authority requires a different kind of leadership. It requires relationship before correction. Early in my work, I believed that strong data and clear findings would naturally lead to change. If the evidence was clear enough, the path forward would also be clear. But improvement conversations rarely unfold that way. Because people don't just respond to information, they respond to how that information is introduced to them. Over time, I realized that walking into a room with conclusions often closes the room before the conversation even started. But walking in with curiosity changes the night the dynamic. Instead of saying, here's where this doesn't align, you start with, you know, can you walk me through how this process works from your perspective? Sometimes that one shift changes the posture of the entire conversation. When people feel like they're being evaluated, they protect themselves. When people feel like they're being when they feel like they're being understood, they explain. And that explanation creates a lot of insight that is useful. Interestingly enough, improvement work isn't just about identifying the right answer, it's about creating conditions where people are willing to explore that answer with you. That requires patience. Sometimes it means asking the same question more than once. Sometimes it means revisiting the same process from different angles. And it's not because people are resistant, but because alignment takes time. Trust also plays a much bigger role than I initially realized. If trust isn't there yet, even the most accurate observation can feel like criticism. But if trust exists, the same observation could feel like collaboration. And that's why relationship building isn't separate from improvement work, it's part of the work. When you don't have authority, influence becomes your primary tool. And influence grows through consistency, through curiosity, through showing up with the same intention over and over again. And it's not to prove a point, but to understand the system together. Over time, those small shifts in approach change the tone of improvement conversations. Instead of feeling like evaluation, they start to feel like exploration. And that's when alignment becomes possible. At some point, I had to rethink what leadership actually meant in this kind of work. Because early on, it was easy to think that authority was the missing piece. If I had more authority, I could move faster. If I had more authority, alignment would be easier. But over time I realized something extremely important. Authority changes speed. It doesn't always change understanding. Leadership without authority requires a different kind of skill. It requires patience. It requires emotional awareness. And it requires the ability to hold steady in conversations that may feel uncomfortable at first. Because improvement work exposes systems, and exposure always creates tension before it creates clarity. What changed for me was realizing that influence is still leadership. Helping people see patterns is leadership. Creating space for reflection is leadership. Asking questions that lead to alignment is leadership. Even when you're not the person making the final decision, in fact, some of the most meaningful work happens in those spaces. Not through directive authority, but through. Shared understanding. Because when people reach insight themselves, the change tends to last longer. And that reframing changes how you experience resistance. Instead of seeing it as obstruction, you start to see it as part of the process. A signal that maybe the conversation hasn't reached alignment yet. And honestly, alignment is the real goal. Improvement work isn't just technical, it's relational. And when you approach it that way, the absence of authority becomes less of a barrier and more of a different kind of leadership challenge. Improvement work isn't just technical, it's human. It's about systems, it's about processes and outcomes. But it's also about trust, ownership, and how people experience the work that they do every day. And when you understand that human side of improvement, the conversations start to change. Next time, I want to talk about why systems often resist change and why that resistance usually has less to do with people being difficult and more to do with how work actually happens because the work doesn't end at the measure.