Your core job is to influence your people to support organizational goals. Many managers struggle to influence effectively because they choose problematic approaches: They base their influence either on formal authority — "Do it because I'm the boss!" — or on personal ties — "Do it for me because we're friends."
A manager's job is all about influencing others' behaviors, attitudes, and values. The best way to influence others, however, is not by depending on your formal authority or appealing to friendship. It's by gaining their trust.
No matter what type or level of manager you are, the core of your job is not what you produce but what your team produces to support organizational goals.
To get things done, you have to work through — and depend on — others, including:
In other words, your real job as a manager isn't doing — influencing.
Example: Roger is a manager in Customer Service. To develop and implement a better process for handling customer complaints, Roger needs help from Thea, who heads the company's IT group.
What can Roger do to gain her support?
Since you're responsible for maximizing your team's performance, it's critical that you take an effective approach to influencing not only your direct reports, but also your boss and peers. You can draw on several mechanisms for exerting influence:
Of these three mechanisms for exerting influence, others' trust in you is the most effective. Formal authority and close personal ties — friendships — both have significant limitations as sources of influence. By understanding the drawbacks of each, you'll more clearly see the advantages of using trust to exert influence.
Overreliance on formal authority as your primary means of influence can alienate others. But using formal authority to influence others can be effective in certain situations—; for example, when you need employees to respond quickly to a crisis.
INTERVIEWER 1: Gives you the signal.
SUBJECT: Well necessity is the mother of invention, and my philosophy of just do it was certainly born of necessity. As I progressed through the managerial ranks, I found my calendar became fuller and fuller, more into evening with meetings, from teammates as my team grew, from folks I was surveying, from outside constituents. And I had a choice of spending my whole day in meetings, and then my evening preparing for the next day's meetings, and executing on that current day's meetings, or to come up with a different approach. And so I decided to try turning meetings themselves into the workspace.
And I would just look at who I was going to meet with the next day, and when they came in, we'd talk about what they want to accomplish. And if it was needing more information to make a decision, we would Google it up in real time. If we needed to confirm something so that we could go on to the next step, we would make that phone call, and confirm with the outside party what we needed to do in order for us to do. If there was a presentation made, I wouldn't just provide feedback, we'd actually edit it in real time, and same for manuscripts. If we had a document we needed to edit, I'd pull it up, and we'd just do it in real time. And we'd both walk away with something actually accomplished, which had three benefits.
One, I had a better work life balance. Two, actually, the person I met with had a better work life balance, because they didn't take homework back to their desk. And three, it was an excellent way, and continues to be an excellent way, to role model problem solving. If you talk to someone about how to solve a problem and then send them off to do it, sometimes things can get lost in translation, and there's puzzlement, and things take longer.
If you actually solve the problem in real time with somebody, the next time that problem comes up, chances are they won't need the meeting. They'll actually know how to solve the problem. And of course, working with someone in partnership, you always learn, so I was learning a lot too. And we had better solutions to problems by treating meetings, in fact, as workspace, not as planning space for the work that would take place after the meeting.
Well necessity is the mother of invention, and my just do it philosophy was absolutely born of necessity. I found as I progressed through the manager ranks, and had more people on my team, more constituents who relied on me and or whom I served, that my calendar was just getting fuller and fuller of meeting after meeting, without even a pause for a breath. And I had a choice of either having a lifestyle whereby I spent my evenings preparing for the next day's meetings, and executing on things that had come out of the current day's meetings, or I could turn the meetings themselves into workspace. And so I tried that, and it worked pretty well.
What I would do is simply have looked at who is coming to meet with me, and what problem they wanted to solve, and then we'd use that time to in fact think through the decision, or make the phone call to confirm something, or edit an article together. We just used that as problem solving time.
And what I found was that there was actually three benefits. One is it made for a much better work life balance for me, and allowed me to be more expansive as a manager. Secondly, it helped the work life balance of the folks meeting with me, because we got things done in real time, and they didn't take homework back to their desk either. And then thirdly, it turned out to be an excellent way to role model problem solving, because if we had just discussed what was going to be done, and off I had gone, and off the person I had met with went to their desks, they might have puzzled over the how. And in fact by doing it together, and actually making the how happen if you will, in that time, we both came away with a sense of how you do it. And it actually in many cases meant we didn't even need the next meeting, because when that problem came up, everyone knew how to solve it.
So necessity is the mother of invention, and my just do it philosophy was definitely born of necessity. As I progressed along the manager ranks, I found my calendar getting fuller and fuller of meetings, back to back, such that my options for work life balance were to spend my evenings preparing for meetings, attend meetings, make decisions in meetings, have to do's that came out of meetings, then spend my evening getting those to do's done, and then preparing for the next day's meetings. And it was just a relentless treadmill.
And I just hit the stop button and said, I'm going to use the meetings themselves to get the work done. And I'm going to be as productive as I can within those meetings, and let's see how it goes. And so what I found was that as folks would come in to meet with me be it subordinates, or customers, internal, external, when we could look at those meetings and say, what do we want to accomplish, and then literally just do it in the meeting.
So if we needed to make a decision, but we needed some information, we would Google the information. If we had a document we needed to edit, we would edit it there in real time. If we needed to call somebody, or confirm something, we'd just make the call. We'd look through that person's to do list, or the problem they were trying to solve, and literally just do it in real time to the best of our ability.
Some things spilled over a bit, but by and large, it served two purposes. It certainly made my life more manageable, it frankly made folks who are meeting with me, their lives more manageable, because things got done in that period of time. They didn't take homework back to their desk. And then thirdly, it was a great way to mentor, and actually to role model, because some things that may have headed back to somebody's desk as a to do without them being quite sure how they might approach it, and spending a lot of time thinking it through, they had just seen me do it, or I had just coached them on how to do in real time. And so those questions went away, and the next time it was, perhaps, that we didn't need a meeting. That they actually just knew how to do it. So that's how I came to my just do it philosophy.
INTERVIEWER 2: You good?
INTERVIEWER 3: I am good, my friend. Let me just--
SUBJECT: So my just do it philosophy came as I progressed along the manager track. And my calendar was getting fuller and fuller with meetings from folks I was managing, from folks I was surveying, various constituents. And I would prepare for meetings, live my day in meetings, and then have to go home and prepare for the next set of meetings, and or execute on things that had come out of meetings. And time was at a premium, and I realized I was never going to be caught up. I was going to always be on this treadmill if I didn't adjust the way I approached meetings.
So one idea was to just cancel all of them, but that wasn't acceptable. And the other idea was to turn the meeting into the workspace. And so that's what I started to do. I would look at my calendar and see what was coming up the next day, and then just think about what I wanted to accomplish with that person during the meeting. And as opposed to preparing for it, I would, in the meeting, say, these are the things we want to do, how are we going to do them?
And we would literally execute during that time. Make the phone call, send the e-mail, review the manuscript, just make a decision about a higher-- scope out the next Google up, the next thing we were trying to scope out. And ultimately it made it easier for me to be more present and more productive, but it also ended up being a great mentoring approach.
So my just do it attitude was then emulated by other folks who would start just doing it, and it created a better work life balance for all of us. And people who might have struggled going back to their desk and think, OK, we decided I was going to do this, how am I going to do that, had just watched me do it. And so the next time we didn't have to have the meeting, because they could just go and do it.
Many managers assume that when you're the boss, you should use your formal authority as much as possible to get people to perform. Such managers have misguided beliefs about their managerial role:
Managers with flawed beliefs about what it means to be a manager are more likely to misuse their formal authority. Signs that a manager is overrelying on this form of influence include:
How often do managers at your workplace tend to rely on formal authority to influence their people?
Issuing orders based on your authority may seem like an effective way to get things done, but it has serious limitations:
Despite its drawbacks, formal authority is an appropriate tool for some situations. But you should use it only to support your team's purpose and goals, not to serve your own needs. You'll want to use your formal authority when you have to:
Example: Eva is a manufacturing manager at a packaged foods company. She has just learned that an ingredient used in a product that her team is producing contains potentially dangerous bacteria.
What should she do?
When situations arise that call for formal authority, how can you use it most effectively? The following guidelines can help:
Example: Ana promotes Malika, an especially effective employee, to reward her and help develop her skills. Benjamin and Oliver, two other direct reports who have also shown promise and were seeking the same promotion, resent the decision.
What should Ana do to deal with their reactions?
Some managers shrink from exercising their formal authority when they should use it, which can hurt their group's productivity and derail their careers.
What causes people to avoid using authority when circumstances require it? Some managers are uncomfortable providing direction, or they have a misguided idea of what it means to be a manager.
Keep in mind that failing to use authority when necessary doesn't just mean doing nothing — it can mean doing only part of the job. The following types of bosses fall into this trap:
You won't be able to do what's best for your organization or your team if you rely on close personal ties — friendships — to influence others. Be caring, but keep your relationships with people focused on your organization, your team, and its work.
Being a boss and being a friend are frequently incompatible. If you try to influence your employees through the personal ties of friendship, a time will come when you'll have to choose between what's best for your friendship and what's best for the work. You can't win in this situation.
| Friend and Boss: Key Differences | |
|---|---|
| When you're a friend ... | When you're a boss ... |
| The relationship between you and your friend exists for itself. | The boss-subordinate relationship exists to accomplish work. |
| You and your friend have equal status, and few friendships last if one of you tries to control the other. | You and your direct reports aren't equals. |
| You accept your friends as they are, and don't make your relationships contingent on their changing. | You actively evaluate and try to change your subordinates. |
| You don't make one-sided, ongoing, demands on your friends. | You press your employees to report on progress, evaluate themselves, and commit to future results. |
Some managers rely on their friendships to try to influence others. Such managers may take this approach because:
These tendencies are understandable, but they're also problematic, especially when dealing with direct reports. When you draw on personal ties to influence your employees, you lose credibility as a manager. Here's why:
How many of your direct reports do you consider friends?
SUBMIT YOUR RESPONSEThe ideal boss-employee relationship contains a tough paradox:
The relationship has to be caring, because you and your team are all working toward a common, worthwhile purpose.
BUT. . .
The relationship exists to accomplish work: It's a means to an end.
Can you care deeply for your employees while also staying focused on the work? Yes — in fact, this balance exists in other relationships. For example, a good doctor will genuinely care about you. But she won't let her regard for you cloud her medical judgment about you.
In managing your employees, you need to strike a similar balance. Several tips can help.
| Tips for Managing the Boss-Employee Paradox |
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Example: Helen was just promoted from team lead to operations manager of a recently formed group. Soon after her first day in her new job, Bart, one of her direct reports, has a birthday. She wants to be friendly, but maintain a professional distance.
What should Helen do?
Managing the paradox of the boss-employee relationship — be close but not too close, friendly, but not friends — becomes even more challenging when have to manage someone with whom you had a preexisting personal relationship. For example:
There's never an easy way to deal with these situations. Transparency is key; being candid about your working relationship will go a long way toward easing the unavoidable tensions. The following practices will also help:
Formal authority and friendship are problematic mechanisms for influencing others. The best way to influence people is to win their trust. To gain others' trust, you must give them reason to believe in your character and your competence.
Trust—others' belief in your character and competence—is the most powerful basis for influencing others. Being trustworthy is especially critical for managers in today's fluid, fast-changing, and global business environments.
How can you best influence your direct reports, peers, supervisors, customers, and suppliers? Win their trust. People who trust you believe in your character as a person and your competence as a manager.
Trust:
The belief that a person intends to do the right thing (character) and knows what to do and how to get it done (competence).
When people trust you, it's not about liking you. Instead, it's about believing that:
Keep in mind that people won't automatically or instantly give you their trust. It's a decision they make, even if it's not conscious, and it takes time. People observe your behavior and listen to you, then form impressions about your character and abilities.
Nothing will be more fundamental to your success ... than your ability to generate trust.
Trust is the foundation of influence. Everything about your job as a manager depends on earning others' trust in you. Simply put, a manager who isn't trusted will fail.
Trust has always been the foundation for exerting influence. But it matters more than ever today. Why? Businesses operate in a fast-changing, global environment, with dispersed teams handling more and more work. And every culture considers trust important.
To succeed in today's environment, people must trust you as a manager. If your people are confident that you'll do the right thing as their boss, they will accept your authority and leadership. When people trust their leaders, they:
Do you think that the majority of your team members trust you?
SUBMIT YOUR RESPONSETo demonstrate good character and earn others' trust, you need to show that you intend to do the right thing—that you will behave in ways that are informed by a set of worthwhile values that others understand and accept.
Character is about your intention to do the right thing. People will trust you if they view you as having good character. People want to know what you will do, and the only way they can predict that is by knowing your values and motives.
People will view your character positively if they believe that you:
Value your group's and organization's work.
To demonstrate that you value your group's work:
Valuing others begins with recognizing that all working relationships have an emotional component. Your direct reports, peers, and your boss all want to feel that you genuinely care about them as individuals, not just as co-workers.
Cultivate your ability to value others by trying to see the world through their eyes. Learn as much as you can about the unique experiences and beliefs that make them who they are. Using this knowledge, try to understand their needs and motivations. Then take action to demonstrate that you care.
| Tips for Demonstrating That You Care About Others |
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When you are emotionally intelligent, you deal effectively with your own and others' feelings at work. Handling emotions is often challenging. Under certain circumstances, all people can be overtaken by their own or others' emotions at work—irritation, anger, fear, and even positive feelings such as excessive gratitude. Any strong emotions can lead you to respond in ways that reduce your effectiveness.
To demonstrate emotional intelligence:
When you're resilient, you keep making progress even when you encounter the inevitable frustrations, setbacks, and failures that arise in any job. You have a healthy sense of self-confidence that helps you avoid discouragement and stay focused on your team's work and its ultimate purpose.
To show that you're resilient:
To demonstrate competence as a manager, you need to understand the work your group does, be able to apply your technical knowledge to solve problems, and know how to get work done in your organization.
In order to trust you, people need to believe not only in your character, but in your competence. Competence means you know what to do and how to get it done. Most managers recognize that competence is important to their effectiveness, but think it refers only to technical knowledge. Managerial competence includes much more than technical expertise.
To view you as a competent manager, people must see you as having three types of competence:
Being technically competent does not mean you must be the expert and ultimate authority on all the work your team does.
Technical competence means you know enough about the work your group does to guide others and make intelligent decisions. Technical competence, as opposed to operational and political competence, can be viewed as "theoretical" knowledge — it's what you learn in a classroom or a textbook. It's how things are supposed to work.
Demonstrating technical competence can present challenges for many managers, especially those working at professional service organizations. For example, if you're a manager in a consulting firm, you must contribute your expertise to projects you lead. But you also need to ensure that members of your team have opportunities to use — and develop — their own technical knowledge.
Operational competence is practical, "how to do it," real-world knowledge. When you have operational competence, you know how the theory behind your group's work actually gets applied. You acquire this kind of competence through on-the-job experience.
Political competence is critical in managerial work. It's knowing how to get something done in your organization. It requires, for example, knowing company practices and processes, who has real influence, and what other units' goals are.
When you have political competence, you know the "rules of engagement" in your organization, who does what, who knows what, and how to influence the various players involved in accomplishing work.
Which area of competence is your greatest strength?
SUBMIT YOUR RESPONSE
