Who's the go to person in your team?
The last few weeks I have been talking about these concepts of Subtle Leadership and Referent Power. Today I want to expand on the latter.
If we think about leadership as the process of influencing others to achieve an organisational outcome; one can achieve that goal of influencing others through formal or informal power sources. There are three types of formal power sources: Coercive, Reward and Legitimate.
I imagine if you are reading my articles you aren't using the first one (coercive) which is about the use of threats or force; Reward is a more common one; and it is about using bonuses and incentives for things to improve; and legitimate is the type of power from a hierarchical position of authority.
On the other hand, you have two informal power sources: Expert and Referent. Expert is the one from one’s knowledge or expertise. We may see this a lot in projects when we “call on” the “subject matter expert” for advice. And finally; as we have been discussing over the last few weeks, Referent Power is the one derived through identification, admiration and respect.
So how do people gain referent power?
In my opinion, through their values, personal traits and ways of showing up.
We did an exercise at Neu21 a few months ago to try to measure a few aspects of our culture. One of the questions we asked everyone is “who is your go to person” for different things. The results showed there was one person overwhelmingly mentioned. That person is my colleague, Martine Sholl. The results did not surprise me. Martine was at the time a pivotal person for our organisation; and I say at the time because others become the “go to person” at different times.
So why were people choosing Martine? Well, in my mind, the survey was done during high market uncertainty and people may have felt anxious about the business in general. Martine’s personality can be described as being calm and grounded; and she is also empathetic and a good listener. She also understood what the market and business were going through and without asking permission or being asked by anyone, she stepped up and started having conversations with everyone about everything. She was available and proactive.
People identified with her because of her values, personal traits and the way she showed up. She saw what the organisation needed at the time and claimed that space. As I have mentioned before, we don’t have titles at Neu21; and although Martine is considered a leader in the organisation, her influence is not based on a position of authority or even expertise.
By now, it should be clear that anyone in any team or organisation can claim that role of influencing others in a subtle way at any time through referent power. So, the question is, can you be a “formal” leader with a title and still embody subtle leadership? Yes. 100%. I would say it is harder though; because you need to be mindful of not using the “formal” power that comes with authority and hierarchy. But it is possible.
My advice to you is to set up a system and environment that allows anyone in your team to claim that role using referent power at different times. And celebrating and acknowledging when that happens. What often prevents leaders from doing this is the need to be in that space all the time – sometimes for a sense of duty and responsibility and sometimes because of ego.
Who is that go to person in your team or organisation at the moment? Is it because of their referent power? If you are a leader, are you allowing people to emerge and claim that influencing space? If you are a team member; are you claiming it?