I have observed this with less effective leaders at various levels, who try to hide behind the sometime made-up or deformed instructions of some higher authority in order to get people to fall in line, or to get themselves out of difficult or uncomfortable situations. One of those is to keep reaching for the cover and perceived safety of the chain of command. There are, unfortunately, quite a few ways in which you can undermine your personal legitimacy as a leader. Ideally, formal leaders should operate at the confluence of both. They encapsulate, in my mind, the difference between positional authority and personal legitimacy in leadership roles between being “the boss” because the organization has so decreed, and being the leader because people have willingly chosen to follow you.
#Undermine my authority full#
Those words, spoken by a senior non-commissioned officer to a classroom full of young officer cadets and underscored by examples and observations from a decades-long career, made a strong impression on me at the time and have stuck with me for the past thirty years. Instructor: “Ladies and gentlemen, remember that the Army can put a rank insignia on your shoulders but at the end of the day, the people under your command are the ones who will decide if you’re their leader.” Here’s one of the very first things we were told on the very first day of training (or as close as I can recall after all those years): In order to become truly effective in your new role, even if you operate within an archetypal command-and-control organization, you must find a way of quickly establishing your own, personal legitimacy as a leader.Ī lifetime ago, I underwent training as an infantry officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. The kind of authority that is conferred upon you from above is undoubtedly useful as a starting point. Even in this age of collaboration, cooperation and shared decision-making, there is an element of top-down hierarchy in most organizations which jumps out at you the second you look at any organizational chart.įormal authority flows from above and most people will readily follow your lead, but being anointed as a leader by your superiors will only take you so far. If you’ve been appointed from above, as most of us tend to be, you’re vested with some prima facie legitimacy: There’s an announcement somewhere, an appointment notice or a directive, whether formal or informal, that puts you in charge of that team or endeavor that you must now lead. OK. So you’ve been put in charge of something – a business, a department, a project or a team.
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