200 Project Management
Understanding Authority and Influence
One of the aspects of project leadership for which many project
managers develop a natural appreciation is their position of
powerrelative to each individual stakeholder. Project managers
get things done and make things happen through others. When
working with someone to produce a particular outcome, you
will find yourself in one of two basic power positions. Let’s
examine these two positions and how they relate to your life as
a project manager.
Position #1: Authority. If you’re in a position of authority, you
have the ability to produce a preferred outcome alone. Very sim-
ply, you can get what you want. This situation is common in the
military, but rare for project leaders. In numerous organizations,
however, project managers are perceived as having a small
amount ofimplied authorityover team members and some sup-
port groups. The amount of perceived authority is often related
to how the organization defines the role of the project manager
and the level of support project managers tend to receive from
organizational management. Even if you sense that you have
this implied authority, it’s ordinarily not wise to use it very often,
as this can often lead to
feelings of resentment.
Some project man-
agers are also “granted”
some implied authority by
team members and others
through a phenomenon
referred to as expert
power.People believe in
them because they have special technical, administrative, or
people skills and knowledge.
Position #2: Influence. Influence means that you work with oth-
ersto produce desired outcomes. Influence is most often used
when dealing with people who do not report to you and is a very
common power, particularly in matrix organizations. In this situa-
Expert powerThe ability
to gain support through
superior knowledge or
capability. In other words, people are
more willing to do what you ask
because they feel you know what
you’re doing.