Influence without Authority: 5 Steps to Lead Through Virtuous Cycles
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The document discusses influence without authority as the key to successful 21st century leadership. It presents a 5 step virtuous cycle for influencing without authority: 1) manage yourself, 2) define shared goals, 3) listen first then speak, 4) invest in relationships, and 5) reflect and refine. Successful leaders mobilize others by bringing people together around a shared vision rather than relying on formal authority.
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Influence without Authority: 5 Steps to Lead Through Virtuous Cycles
- 1. Embrace the ultimate challenge: Influence without Authority Vivek Bharathi Senior Product Marketing Manager, IBM www.linkedin.com/in/vivekbharathim/ vivekbharathim@gmail.com
- 2. 2 “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” - Ken Blanchard, Author & Management Expert 65% Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Survey 2019 What do you believe are the unique requirements for 21st century leaders ? Ability to lead through influence
- 3. Is your authoritative style burning out your team ?
- 4. Think 2020 / DOC ID / Month XX, 2020 / © 2020 IBM Corporation 5 Step Virtuous Cycle to Influence without Authority 1. Manage Yourself 2. Define shared goals 3. Listen first, then speak 4. Invest in Relationships 5. Reflect and Refine
- 5. “The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision.” - Ken Blanchard
Editor's Notes
- I must mention this recent show that I caught on Netflix that left a deep impression on me and was actually one of the motivating factors for this presentation. The name of the series is ’ Halt and Catch Fire’. Taking place over a period of more than ten years, the series depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the growth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. I developed an appreciation for the skill ‘ Influencing without authority’ through the actions of one of the protagonist of the show, Joe Macmillan, a seasoned product guy and technology visionary. Joe through his visionary zeal and charismatic leadership rallies a team of ambitious people around a collective purpose ‘ connecting people with technology ‘. So hell bent on putting a dent on the technology world ,Joe initially exerts hard influence on his team only to get burned and burning his team down. Joe faces his ultimate challenge ‘ Can he Influence his team without Authority ?’. Does he embrace the challenge ? Does he and his team succeed ?
- - Ken is an American author whose extensive writing career includes over 60 published books his most successful one being, The One Minute Manager. I would like to set the tone for this presentation with one of his prominent quotes ‘ The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority’. We naturally tend to associate leadership with authority that comes in the form of titles, positional power etc. But nothing could be further from the truth. According to a recent Deloitte survey report that drew insights from nearly 10,000 global survey respondents, ’ Ability to Influence’ was identified as a key requirement in 21st century leaders. This requirement was second to only “Ability to lead through more complexity and ambiguity (that garnered 81% of votes )” which I believe is also in a way inextricably tied to ‘ Ability to lead through influence ‘ A quintessential leadership skill that product marketing managers should have, ‘ Influence without Authority’ can be defined as the ability to interact and influence the marketing team, sales, business leaders and external audiences . I want to stress that this is a soft form of influence that is exerted in a more thoughtful and constructive way and puts people at the heart of it.
- On the other hand, hard influence that is exerted by wielding authority and through tactics that come from - “legitimating,” “pressure,” “assertiveness,” “upward appeal” etc. - are perceived more forceful and may not always prove effective when it comes to achieving marketing goals and ensuring team success.
- How do we as product marketing managers learn, practice and consciously apply this skill ? Here is a 5-step virtuous cycle that has worked wonders for me and I believe will benefit you too. Manage Yourself The first step in the process ‘ Manage yourself ‘ comes as a no surprise. ‘Understanding your competence’ is crucial to managing yourself < Personal Example > To recap by bio I had built my expertise in digital marketing and campaign management before I moved into product marketing. While my competences in digital marketing and campaign management helped me work with teams on planning and executing marketing campaigns efficiently, since I had lacked competence in business functions such as sales and product, the campaigns that I put in market were not aligned with business objectives rendering them ineffective. It became evident to me that I not only have to have a strong understanding of my areas of competence and new competence that I need to develop but also understand how I can partner with other team members to make up for competencies in the interim Next, I would like to mention two cornerstone qualities that can benefit you immensely: 1.Emotional Intelligence - the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions - and Systems Thinking – maintaining awareness of how changes in individual elements positively and negatively affect other elements of marketing. Emotional Intelligence makes you more self aware and empathetic, while Systems thinking helps you develop fail-proof strategies Finally, it is extremely important to adopt management and leadership styles that work for you and your team and adapt them to situations. Identify whether you have a natural inclination towards coercive, or authoritarian, affiliative, or servant leadership style, and consciously make efforts to change or evolve your styles as you go 2. Define shared goals Spend time surveying organizational goals, business goals and Marketing goals. Especially when it comes to marketing be aware of goals of each team member and the intrinsic/extrinsic factors that motivate the team Be mindful of resource constraints and risks that can prop up hampering your team’s efforts. Build fail-safe switches in your strategy so your team is not constricted with just one path to achieving goals. Finally define shared goals for marketing that will help achieve business objectives while at the same time help achieve the goals of each marketing team member from content, campaign, digital, events, social etc. 3. Listen First, then speak The next step in the process is ‘ Listen First, then speak’ This step becomes vital as business and marketing teams get into the tactical wheels of executing on the marketing strategy I recommend taking a consultative approach to solving problems with stakeholders from sales, product Brainstorm ideas with your marketing teams to troubleshoot business and marketing problems, and stay the course of the plan Getting this step wrong can result in misunderstanding, incoherence and non-fruitful results. I would like quote an experience from my job, a similiar experience I believe most product marketing managers would have met with this year. During the heights of COVID19 pandemic our marketing team was doubling down on digital events to generate high quality leads for sales and build business pipeline. But since our current customers were experiencing a lot of challenges and with current solution implementations taking longer because of pandemic related disruption, the sales team had to prioritize serving these valuable customers before they can focus on attracting new business. Clearly, marketing and sales had a mismatch in strategy that needed to be addressed. Our marketing team took a consultative approach wherein we gathered feedback from sales and strived to solve their problems and those of our customers. After actively listening, the marketing team responded by pivoting from lead generation centric marketing to account based marketing that included virtual roundtables and workshops structured around COVID related challenges that our clients were experiencing and were actively seeking advise on how technology can help. 4. Invest in Relationships Step 4 is a non-brainer. Yet very few of us get it right. Hard experiences have thought me how important it is for product marketing managers to build and nurture relationships. Three key areas to focus here: Firstly, build Trust and Transparency over time by delivering on promised results and making personal contribution to each team member’s success Secondly, build Alliances with other marketing teams and the market ecosystem that you operate in to explore synergies and co-marketing opportunities Finally, appreciate the value of these relationships and reinforce their importance to continue building trust 5. Reflect and Refine The final step in this process is what makes this a truly virtuous one. Your capacity to grow as a leader comes down to how well you self introspect and institute changes in your thought process and take actions that benefit you, your team and the organization. Achieve this in three simple ways First, get feedback from the team on what’s working and what’s not working in marketing Second, assess your management style and seek advice if needed Third, refine your approach to managing yourself and setting shared goals
- As the series progresses Joe learns from his mistakes, adapts his leadership style to the requirements of his team and assumes the role of a torchbearer leading his team through soft, non-authoritative form of influence. Eventually Joe’s team members reach heights that they never dreamt of and changed the world of technology in unimaginable ways. The series culminates in showing the audience how Joe’s purpose of ‘connecting people with technology’ flames up brilliantly in the hands of the next generation. Joe may no longer be the torch bearer, but his spark of influence and inspiration continues to live on for generations to come.