Leading Without Authority — How to Move Projects Forward When Nobody Reports to You

You need stakeholders to buy in, but they don't work for you. Most leaders try to create systems and policies to force compliance. Here's why that backfires and what actually works when you need influence without authority.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new Lead with Confidence podcast with me, your host, JP Warren. And what we're gonna do today in five to 10 minutes, I'm gonna give you some real-world frameworks and skills and tools that you can use to better lead with confidence. That's fighting your imposter syndrome, that's influencing and that's communicating and connecting with those around you. However, if you have 15 seconds, I would love for you to take a minute and just like, comment, share, give me a comment on what soft skills you want to cover, share this, all that stuff. When I see this, it just keeps me motivated. So for example, we just kind of started, like revamped this Lee with confidence, and I go over the statistics, I see where it's downloaded. It's so cool to see that we're getting people everywhere from, you know, just you know, the United States of America, but also we're getting people from Tokyo, we're getting people from Columbia, we're getting people from globally diving in, listening to this. And I just, that just motivates me as this uh as as I sit behind this computer screen and created, and I think it goes off to the void, but it doesn't. It hits. Today we're gonna talk about. Now the title is a little bit, yeah, the title is is relevant, but I think uh this I'm I'm gonna be talking kind of something that I've noticed. Uh this is kind of this very specific thing that popped up and why we're having this conversation. Um, and I'm gonna dive into that a little bit, a little story. This is leading uh without authority. Pretty much how do you influence people without having that authority over uh over them, without creating unnecessary policies and procedures that affect the whole team. And this is just something that I'm this is kind of like I'm gonna start off somewhere, I'm gonna go somewhere, and we're gonna come back to giving you some real world frameworks. All right. Pretty much what I this is this this stems from this. You know, when when you're in class, right? Or if you're at work or if you're part of a company class or something like that, and somebody does something wrong, right? And the next thing you know, rather than the teacher addressing that one student or the boss addressing that one person, they next thing the next thing they do, they just do a blanket policy and it affects everyone across the organization or everyone in your group, and you have no idea why. And next thing you know, that affects the culture, it affects the dynamics, and it affects the motivation of the team. But because a leader did not want to address the problem head on and they wanted to manage by comfort, it kind of affects the whole team by doing this blanket process or this blanket procedure that affects the entire team. And the story I have about this is let's take, for example, there is a sales team, right? And there's that one salesperson that's blowing cash, right? They're staying in at $600 hotels, they're buying this amount, this amount of uh meals and and tickets and all this stuff, and they're blowing their uh their sales expense out of the water. Everyone else is doing great. Everyone else is kind of staying uh under budget, you know, on their monthly expenses and operating as they should, but that one person is overspending, right? And so what happens? I and I just saw this. What happens? Rather than address that one person, they instead roll out this blanket, um, random, it seems, random, um, email policy, call it what you want, to the entire team. Now, think about that. So, what that does, that puts everyone on the same kind of scrutiny, and you're really trying to address it with that one person, okay? So, one bad performer triggers a blanket policy, it punishes everyone, including the best people. The best people, right? So those top performers out there, they're getting held to the same lines as that one per per person that is actually kind of uh taking advantage of this, of the expense account, right? So rather than lead by comfort and kind of do that blanket policy that just kind of like shoots a hole in the in the in your team culture's boat, how do we actually kind of uh go about this and manage this more effectively so your team is benefiting and that one person that might be kind of like pushing the boundaries, they understand the expectation and and they can actually adapt so they can start performing a lot better, right? And if you're doing this as a leader, if you're doing this whole blanket policy, you punish the whole classroom uh when that one student acts up, you punish the whole team when that one person acts up, you're damaging the culture, you're hurting your culture. Not only that, you might get people saying, you know what, this is this is baloney, this is crap. I'm gonna go elsewhere, I'm gonna find somewhere else that actually treats me like an adult. Okay. So let's talk about some frameworks on how to actually get buy-in. Uh not only that, but how to actually correct that behavior from the person that is taking advantage of the uh expense report. Mind you, we're just taking this as an example. Take this with anything, whether it's showing up on time, whether it's contributing to a project, whatever. We're just taking this expense report as the example for today's uh podcast. So, number one, you have to address the actual problem with the person that's doing that. And I always think this you always praise in public and you chastise in private. So this is not one of those things you blow them, blow them up on a Teams call or or you call them out in front of the group. This is something you kind of set aside a time, set some time aside and you get that person in the room, and that's when you have that conversation. That's when you have that crucial conversation. But you have to name the issue specifically with that specific person rather than just kind of putting punishing everybody to try to fix that one person's uh behaviors, okay? So address the actual problem with the with the actual person, not the symptom with everyone, okay? So instead of saying changing your travel policy altogether, talk about it with that one person staying in that $600 hotel, right? Talk about that one person that's blowing it, blowing the cash at the dinner or whatever it is, versus addressing the entire team, all right? And the second thing we need to do in alignment with this is communicate the why. Why are you making the decision? Why are you having this conversation about spending sleeping at a $600, $600 hotel? Who cares? It's the company's money. Well, this is why it's so important. This is what it affects. This is how it kind of affects the bonuses or what we could buy or the training we can offer our team or anything like that. So explain the why. Because normally people hate change, right? People don't like change unless they you understand, unless you explain and they understand the why behind the change. Where is it coming from? Now think about this. If you're sitting there as a top performer, you're under you're doing the budget, you're doing the expenses, everything, you're keeping in line with everything. And next thing you know, you get this blanket punishment email out because that one bad apple that everyone knows about, what do you think it's gonna do to your motivation? What do you think it's gonna do for your buy-in for that company? It's gonna definitely hurt it. It's not gonna help it, okay? Another thing that we can do, again, is invite collaboration. So that one person that is maybe, you know, spending a little bit more on the hotel, maybe they don't know. Maybe that's how they were at their previous company, right? You don't know. Uh, maybe there was no eyes at on uh the uh hotels they would sleep at at their previous companies, right? So what can we do? Let's talk to them. Let's find out why do you think this is okay to spend it here? Like what what are the what are the ideas we have where if you do travel, you could stay someplace that you want to stay at, but that might not be breaking the bank or you know, breaking the uh the the budget that we had for travel, right? So invite some collaboration with your team, right? Get some feedback, like what's going on? Why do you why why are you staying there? Do you have points? You're part of the system. Is that just your favorite place to stay? Is that place sentimental? Is it what's going on with you, right? So start kind of getting feedback as to why they're actually doing this, all right? So the next time that you actually want to drive change inside your department, right? Rather than impact the entire team, right? Single out that one person that needs the behavior change in the good or bad. Single out that one person, have that conversation with them in private, okay? Have that one-on-one with them in private, explain the why and try to get their feedback, try to get their collaboration on what's going on behind this. Like, can we do something differently moving forward? Okay. All right. So stop creating policies that affect everyone based. Don't be that teacher that punishes the whole class because that one student uh, you know, because that one student did something that you all know that student, the trouble student in the room. We all know that bad apple. So why punish the whole, why punish the whole class? Okay. All right. And ask yourself this week, what are you trying to systemize that really needs a direct conversation? So what conversations do you really need to have to help that person level up? Closing challenges, your team is watching how you handle the tough conversations. Lead them, don't policy them to death. And again, this is one of those things. I've just seen this for, I've seen this throughout my career. And recently something came up where that one person was guilty as as hell, spending, spending, spending, spending. And rather than address that one individual on that team, a blanket policy was rolled out and it really started affecting the team. Whether they agreed with it or not, it was still a question of like, what the hell is going on? Why am I getting this? I'm pretty good at what I why am I getting this? So don't breed that contempt within your organization. Have those crucial conversations. All right. Thanks for tuning in to Lead with Confidence. And we hope you uh I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you can take something with you. And if you are enjoying this, please again share it. And we'll see you tomorrow on Lead with Confidence with me, your host, JP Warren. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.