By: Debbie Taylor
Every so often, I speak with a leader who feels stuck—not because they lack skill, vision or work ethic, but because the leadership style that worked early in their career suddenly isn’t producing the same results.
They’re still dictating direction.
They’re still solving problems.
They’re still “leading.”
But something has shifted.
Teams today don’t respond the same way they did 10 or 20 years ago. Organizations are flatter. Work is more interconnected. Talent now expects empowerment, not instruction. And this creates a fundamental leadership question more leaders are confronting than ever before:
Are you leading primarily through authority… or through influence?
The distinction matters. And for many organizations, it’s at the root of why teams either thrive or become dysfunctional and underperform.
Authority Still Matters… Just Less Than You Think
Authority has a very real place in leadership. There are moments when relying on your position to make a decision is both appropriate and necessary. We see two situations come up repeatedly:
1. Emergencies
In sports, authority is essential in high-pressure moments.
Think of a football coach calling a two-minute drill at the end of a close game. There’s no debate in the huddle. The coach dictates the play, the quarterback executes and the team follows immediately.
That’s authority at work and it’s effective because the situation demands speed, clarity, and decisiveness.
2. Turnarounds
Authority also plays a role in corporate turnarounds.
When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft, one of his first moves was to decisively reset priorities shifting focus to cloud computing and redefining how teams collaborated. That initial top-down clarity helped stabilize the organization and signal a new direction.
But the long-term transformation didn’t come from command-and-control. It came from changing the culture to encourage learning, curiosity and collaboration.
The key takeaway:
Authority can stop the bleeding. But it cannot, by itself, create sustained excellence.
And when authority becomes the daily operating system, the side effects show up quickly:
- People stop thinking independently
- Innovation slows
- Engagement drops
- The organization becomes dependent on a single point of control
Authority can solve the urgent. But it rarely builds the future.
Why Influence Has Become the Core Leadership Skill
Influence is different. It’s not about a title. It’s about trust, credibility, clarity and the ability to move people in the right direction without forcing the issue.
And today, influence is the skill that separates leaders who get short-term compliance from those who create long-term performance.
Modern organizations are too interconnected for authority alone.
Consider a product leader in a matrixed company. They don’t “own” engineering, marketing, or sales — yet success depends on all three.
The leaders who thrive aren’t the ones who demand compliance. They’re the ones who:
- Build credibility
- Explain the “why”
- Listen to concerns
- Align competing priorities
Results happen not because they outrank others, but because people want to work with them or they believe it the work or they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. In other words, people working with an influential leader follow because they want to versus they have to!
Today’s workforce responds to empowerment, not control.
A great sports parallel is the role of the team captain.
Captains don’t have formal authority over teammates, yet the best ones elevate performance by setting standards, modeling effort and earning respect. When a respected captain speaks up, teammates listen — not because they have to, but because the influence is real.
That same dynamic plays out every day in modern organizations.
Influence builds capability.
When leaders guide rather than dictate, people learn to think, decide and innovate. It sounds simple, but the impact is profound.
Leaders who influence ask questions like:
- “What do you think?”
- “How would you approach this?”
- “What support do you need to decide?”
Over time, those teams become faster, more resilient and more innovative — because decision-making capability is distributed, not centralized.
You see the same thing on the field. Great coaches don’t just call plays — they develop players who can read the game themselves. Quarterbacks who understand why a play works can adjust when the defense changes. That adaptability doesn’t come from authority.
It comes from influence, trust, and teaching.
Influence develops the organization. Authority maintains it.
A Hiring Mistake We See Far Too Often
Even though modern leadership depends heavily on influence, many organizations still evaluate candidates based almost entirely on formal titles:
- “Have they managed people?”
- “How big was their team?”
- “What level did they report to?”
But titles don’t tell you how someone led. And they definitely don’t tell you whether people followed them.
Title vs. Impact
Some of the strongest leaders we place have never been “the boss.” They led major initiatives, rallied peers, aligned senior stakeholders and delivered results — all without direct authority.
Meanwhile, we meet candidates with impressive titles who struggled because their influence was entirely dependent on hierarchy.
Sports teams offer the same insight:
Every team has players who aren’t stars and don’t wear the captain’s badge but are leaders in the locker room. Others follow their standard, not because of status — but because their influence is earned.
Organizations are no different. Look for candidates who have:
- Driven outcomes in a matrix environment
- Built trusted networks through credibility and communication
- Influenced cross-functional partners to achieve targeted outcomes
- Earned a reputation as a knowledge expert
These individuals often become your strongest leaders—not because they had authority, but because they learned how to lead without it.
The Bottom Line
Authority will always be part of leadership, but it should be the exception, not the default.
Influence, on the other hand, is becoming the leadership currency that determines whether teams learn, grow, adapt, and stay engaged.
If authority gets people to act, influence gets people to commit.
Authority might get a team to hit a deadline. Influence gets them to care about the outcome, improve the process, and raise the standard next time.
That difference is what separates teams that merely function from those that consistently perform at a high level — whether on the field or in the boardroom.
If you’re building a team and want leaders who elevate others — not just direct them — TTSG can help.
We help organizations identify and hire leadership talent who excel in today’s more collaborative, interconnected workplace. If you’re planning a key hire or reevaluating the structure of your team, we’d be glad to have a conversation.
Reach out to TTSG to get started.