How Do You Lead Without Formal Authority?
Photo Credit Quino Al via Unsplash
Leadership Beyond the Hero
The Power of Collaboration Over Conquest
Leadership among peers grows out of trust, built quietly through moments like listening fully to a colleague or owning a mistake in front of them. Research bears this out: the 2024 Edelman Trust at Work report found employees consistently trust their coworkers more readily than they trust senior leadership. Even a leader with formal authority cannot rely on title alone, a truth Homer understood long before Edelman measured it.
Few stories have captured our cultural imagination around leadership as powerfully as The Odyssey, and Christopher Nolan's new film adaptation has renewed interest in it, reminding us why Homer's epic still resonates nearly three millennia later. Some love this movie. Some hate it. But the conversations it has ignited show that the story still explores timeless questions of courage, loyalty, resilience, overcoming obstacles and what it means to lead through uncertainty when the way forward can feel murky or insurmountable.
Most of us, however, will never lead armies, outwit the giant Cyclopes or navigate roiling mythical seas. Our leadership stories are far less dramatic. They unfold over a sandwich, in conference rooms, on video calls and in conversations with peers over whom we have little or no formal authority. Like Odysseus, authority alone is rarely enough. He was captain of his ship, but again and again he relied on his wits, influence, trust and the willingness of others to follow him. We do the same. Our day-to-day obstacles are rarely epic. More often they are organizational, and the battles are fought across departments rather than across seas.
Derek Olsen argues that this quieter form of leadership may actually be the one organizations need most right now.
Leadership Is More About Collaboration Than Conquest
From a development perspective, the word leadership can be misleading when defined as being the best, on top, winning or being in charge and having control. Inspirational tales of archetypal leadership victory and glory celebrated in popular culture and even business journalism don’t offer much guidance about how to lead in the day-to-day of getting stuff done.
Leadership requires collaborating more than conquering, and development is about learning how to influence without direct authority, specifically, peers who have no incentive to consider your ideas. Efforts to break silos and get leaders working collectively on behalf of the business fail when leaders try to seek agreement without first addressing the level of trust between each other.
The solution is to learn how to link arms with peers and draw closer together. Develop mutual trust and respect by getting behind your peers, instead of getting in front of them. Demonstrate that you’re more committed to partnership than getting what you want. This can be challenging for people who are successful at getting what they want.
When it comes to leading effectively and powerfully, what you do can be less important than how you do it. Every engagement with peers is an opportunity to build trust and respect, and that matters more than having the right answer or best idea. In each meeting and conversation, make increasing trust one of your goals. For increasing trust in your working relationships with peers, try the following practices.
Listen
See how long you can listen without speaking.
Suspend your opinions and judgments.
Pay attention to body language and emotional cues.
Be Open-Minded
See the view from your peers’ perspective before asking them to see things from yours.
Consider that everyone is right, and nobody is wrong.
Be patient. The best solution may be hidden behind a conversation that’s being avoided.
Practice Vulnerability
Share more about your emotional state.
Own up to your mistakes and reactionary behaviors.
Ask for feedback about what you can do to be easier to work with.
Most people know that trust is important at work, but feel uncomfortable talking openly about it, and that makes it hard to measure. To track the effectiveness of your efforts, tell your peers that you’re working to increase trust with them, and ask them how it’s going. Acknowledge that it’s an awkward conversation. Also point to how weird it is that so few people talk about trust given how important it is for productivity.
Self-righteousness, defensiveness and staying within your comfort zone will undermine your efforts. Be the perfectly imperfect person you really are. The greatest gift you bring to your role in the organization is not your big IQ. It’s your unique ability to connect with other people in meaningful ways.
Shift the thinking from “leaders make things happen” to “leaders bring people together.” For the overall health of the business, and your own future there, developing your peer relationships may take priority over developing relationships with your boss and employees.
The Real Leadership Journey
Odysseus led the way a captain does, from the front when the moment called for it. He also led by trusting his shipmates enough to depend on them, sharing the weight of the journey through long stretches of uncertainty at sea.
Derek Olsen points to this same pattern in the leadership we practice today. It shows up in ordinary moments, in the trust built during a hard conversation or the patience it takes to hear out a colleague who sees things differently.
These moments rarely make headlines, though they are what shape a team over time and determine whether people choose to follow us.
Perhaps the greatest leadership journeys are measured not only by the obstacles we overcome, but by the trust we earn, the people we bring with us and the wisdom to know when to lead from the front and when to lead from alongside.
For Your Own Reflection
Think of a time you recently collaborated with a peer. What role did trust play, and what strengthened or weakened your relationship?
Try speaking less and listening longer in your next conversation. Notice what happens.
Think of a time when you found influence more effective than authority.
How do you decide when to take the lead and when to support someone else’s leadership?
Where in your current work might deeper collaboration lead to a better outcome?
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Anyone can lead by building trust, listening carefully and showing that you are committed to partnership rather than simply getting your own way. When peers have no obligation to follow you, your influence depends less on having the best answer and more on how you engage them.
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Trust makes collaboration possible. Without it, efforts to gain agreement or work across departments often fail. When peers feel respected and understood, they are more likely to share ideas openly, consider different perspectives and work with you toward a common goal.
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Influence is especially important when you are working with peers or others over whom you have little or no formal authority. It can also be more effective than authority when long-term cooperation matters, because people are more likely to commit to an idea when they feel heard, respected and included.
Continue Building Your Leadership Practice
No leader sails alone, and the trust that carries a team through uncertain water doesn't build itself either. This week, try one of the simplest practices: in your next conversation with a peer, see how long you can listen before you speak, and notice what shifts. If you're ready to bring this kind of coaching to your own leadership, let’s chat.