Making Friends With Authority

Monday 14 May, 2012

by Jennifer Garvey Berger

Some leaders have a kind of love-hate relationship with authority. They are uncomfortable with the traditional versions of authority that can look, well, authoritarian. The problem is, a leader's uncertainty about their own authority is contagious - and uncertain followers aren't usually at their best ...

These leaders are more likely to enter a room of people from their organisations and tell them, "Pretend I'm not here - I just want to take part in the conversation like one of you".  They then participate in the conversation as though they were among peers - a convenient mindset for the leader to have, but often confusing for the others in the conversation.

You can't take off your job title

Leadership is often about exercising some kind of authority. It's about having eyes on you, about having more power to shape a direction, about voicing a question and having others take that as an answer. Leaders - especially those uneasy about authority in the first place - think they can take off their job titles. And no matter how much data they get to the contrary, they keep trying to convince others that their opinions and perspectives are no more relevant than any other person's.
This is a lovely way to think, and it's hard to discourage leaders who approach the world in this way. It's just that the shadow side of this approach is dangerous. Leaders who have C-suite job titles but not C-suite attitudes about authority are often confusing. It's hard for people to understand what these leaders want from a conversation and when other voices really have the chance to influence a decision.

Developing a new relationship to authority: a three step dance

If you're one of these leaders, there are some steps you can take in order to become more thoughtful about your relationship to authority.

• Look at your history
  
  The first thing is to develop some nuance about your own relationship to authority. Where do your stories and assumptions come from in this regard? Do you think of your first boss, the one who micromanaged everyone? Or an experience when you were young and a coach treated you badly?
  
  Generally, we see through the lens of our own experience, and a negative experience with authority can blur our thinking for decades. This blurry thinking means that it's harder to see the gentle and helpful use of authority. Because their eyes are focused on the abuses of power, these leaders don't learn about best ways to use authority.
• Understand your own thinking
  
  With a little nuance, you'll be able to see that there are many different ways to use authority - and that much of this depends on what you want from others. Where are you - really - in relation to the topic at hand? Are you wide open to the ideas and perspectives of others? Are you struggling between a couple of named alternatives? Are you decided and really wanting (in your heart of hearts) for others to be convinced by you? It really matters for you to be clear in your own process so that you can move to the next step ...
• Be clear with others
  
  We talk about how important it is to be transparent as a leader. This is one of those places where transparency is of paramount importance. If you don't tell people where you are in your thinking, they'll make assumptions. Because you're an authority figure, they may well decide that even your wondering out loud is basically a decision in disguise. And, worse, if you tell them you're open when you've actually decided, they'll doubt you every time you slip into a meeting and tell them you're just one of the team.

Look out for your growing, changing self

Finally, greater comfort with your own authority opens up the possibility for your bigger self. Now you can get comfortable looking in the mirror and seeing both the person you know yourself to be, and also the authority figure other people might see when they look at you. Often my clients struggle because they believe they will have to give up who they are in order to wear the cloak others seem to clothe them in. But the most sophisticated and thoughtful leaders can hold both perspectives - the perspective of whoever you might know yourself to be ("Just a girl from a small town") and also the perspective of your people ("The CIO for the firm - she knows everything about the inner workings of this place").
If you hold your own image of yourself like a collage - rather than the more common way of holding it like a single photograph - you can make room for all kinds of ways of thinking about yourself, and you can take on the authority piece along with the others. This means you'll be increasingly likely to be clear with yourself and others about it, and you'll be able to use authority with the right amount of force at the right time.


Source:ceo-online.com