This article guides new managers on how to influence without authority as an early-career manager. It covers practical strategies like tuning into WIIFM, building relationships before needing them, and asking questions instead of making demands. The text emphasizes moving beyond formal titles to achieve organizational impact through psychological insight.
You need Marketing to prioritize your feature. You need your team member to actually follow through on that task. You need Engineering to fix that bug.
Having a title doesn’t mean people automatically do what you ask. Not even your own team.
Your team can ignore your advice. Other departments definitely will. When you ask for help, you get “we’ll see what we can do” which means “probably not.”
This is one of the hardest parts of being a new manager: getting things done through influence, not authority. It is often the first hurdle we tackle in leadership coaching.
Why Authority Doesn’t Work
Sure, your team technically reports to you. But if you lead by just pulling rank, you lose.
People do the minimum when you force them. They get creative when you inspire them.
And for everyone outside your team? You have zero authority. They have their own priorities, managers, and deadlines.
Most starting managers try what worked before: being helpful, working hard, hoping people notice. That’s not enough anymore. Standard management training often skips this political reality, but you must learn to navigate it.+1
1. Tune Into Radio WIIFM
Everyone is listening to the same station: WIIFM. What’s In It For Me.
When you ask for help, they’re thinking: “How does this help me? What do I lose if I say yes?”
Most new managers pitch what they need. “I need you to review this by Friday.” “Can you prioritize our request?” “Can you take this on?”
That’s all about you. Not them.
Figure out what they care about and frame your request around that.
- To your team member: “This project will give you exposure to leadership.” (Not “I need you to do this”).
- To Marketing: “This feature will give you a customer story for the Q2 campaign.”
- To Engineering: “Fixing this bug will cut support tickets by 30%. That means fewer interruptions for your team.”
People don’t care about your problems. Show them how helping you solves theirs.
2. Build Relationships Before You Need Them
What doesn’t work: ignoring someone for three months, then showing up when you need something.
This applies to your own team too. If you only talk to people in one-on-ones or when you need something, you’re transactional. They feel it.
Invest in relationships when you don’t need anything. Coffee chats. Quick check-ins. Asking about their projects or what they’re learning.
This feels inefficient when you’re already overwhelmed. But when you actually need something, you’re not a stranger making a demand. You’re someone they know and want to help.
3. Make Other People Look Good
Want people to help you? Help them first.
Make them look good to the people who matter to them.
- Give your team member credit publicly when they nail something.
- Loop in their boss on wins from other departments.
- Make their life easier (“I’ll write the first draft, you just review”).
When you make someone else successful, they remember.
Starting managers often feel like they need to prove themselves, so they grab credit. That’s short-term thinking. Your currency is relationships. Spend it making others look good.
4. Ask Questions Instead of Making Requests
You don’t have real authority. Even with your team. So stop trying to use authority you don’t have.
To your team: Instead of: “You need to do X.” Try: “What would it take to get X done this week?”
To other departments: Instead of: “Can you prioritize this?” Try: “What would it take to move this up?”
Instead of: “We need this by Friday.” Try: “Friday is our ideal timeline. What’s realistic on your end?”
Questions get you information. You learn about constraints you didn’t know about. And they create buy-in. When someone helps solve the problem, they own the solution.
Even with your own team, questions work better than orders. “How do you think we should approach this?” gets more commitment than “Here’s what we’re doing.”
5. Connect Everything to the Bigger Mission
People tune out when you talk about your project’s timeline. They pay attention when you talk about what actually matters.
Connect what you need to what the company cares about.
To your team: Instead of: “We need to hit this deadline.” Try: “Leadership is watching this project. Delivering on time shows we can execute.”
To other departments: Instead of: “We need to launch this feature next quarter.” Try: “Leadership wants to break into enterprise. This feature is what enterprise customers keep asking for.”
People want to work on things that matter. Show them why your thing matters. This works on your team and outside of it.
Start Here
Pick one person you need something from this month (could be on your team or outside it). Before you ask:
- Figure out what they care about.
- Frame your request in terms of what helps them.
- Connect it to a bigger company goal.
- Ask questions to understand their constraints.
Learning how to influence without authority as an early-career manager takes practice. But the managers who figure this out get things done with their team and across the company, even when nobody has to listen to them.
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