How do I build a powerful internal network?

Ask any senior leader in a matrix organisation what slows them down and the answer is rarely strategy. It is people they cannot reach, information that arrives too late, and decisions that require the cooperation of colleagues who have no particular reason to prioritise their agenda. The formal structure promised integration. The lived experience is something considerably more fragmented.

What separates the leaders who create momentum from those who spend their time managing friction is rarely authority or technical expertise. It is network. Not the size of it. The quality, the positioning, and the deliberate investment that went into building it before it was needed.

This article explores what that infrastructure actually is, what the research says about how it works, and what matrix leaders can do to build and maintain a network that is genuinely fit for the environments they lead in. This is article three in the series on matrix leadership. Article one explored what a matrix organisation is and why companies are adopting one. Article two examined how to build influence without authority.

The gap between the org chart and how work actually moves

Understanding why network matters requires understanding how organisations actually function beneath their formal structures. Research using organisational network analysis, a methodology that maps the informal relationships through which information and collaboration actually flow, has produced findings that consistently surprise the leaders who encounter them for the first time.

Studies by Rob Cross and colleagues at the Connected Commons, drawing on network data from hundreds of organisations across multiple sectors, found that between 20 and 35 percent of value-added collaborations came from only 3 to 5 percent of employees. A small number of highly connected individuals carry a disproportionate share of the organisation’s collaborative load. Deloitte’s research into organisational network analysis found informal networks to be significantly more predictive of organisational agility and innovation than formal structural design, and found that only 9 percent of business leaders felt they genuinely understood how their internal networks actually operated.

What this means in practice is that two leaders with identical roles, identical mandates, and identical formal authority will consistently produce different outcomes if one has invested in their network and the other has not. The difference is not visible on the org chart. It is visible in who returns their calls, who shares information with them early, who advocates for their initiatives when they are not in the room, and who commits their team’s effort when they did not have to.

For matrix leaders specifically, this is not a peripheral concern. In a structure where formal authority is deliberately limited and distributed, the informal network is not a supplement to leadership. It is the primary vehicle through which leadership operates.

Practical actions:

• Draw your current network on paper. List the ten people outside your immediate team with whom you have the strongest working relationships, then ask: which functions are absent? Which geographies? Which levels of seniority? The gaps in that map are a direct indicator of where your leadership reach is limited.
• Pick one gap and name a specific person in that part of the organisation you have been meaning to connect with but have not. Send the message this week. A brief note saying you would value fifteen minutes to understand their work better is enough to start.
• Look at your calendar for the last three months and count how many meetings involved people from outside your immediate function. If the number is low, your network is probably more insular than your role requires. Use that data to set a concrete target for the next quarter.

“People whose networks bridge the structural holes between groups have earlier access to a broader diversity of information and have experience in translating information across groups.” Ronald Burt

Why more connections is not the answer

The instinctive response to a weak network is to build a bigger one. More contacts, more coffees, more introductions. The research suggests this instinct is wrong, and in some cases actively counterproductive.

Cross’s work on collaborative overload, published in the Harvard Business Review, identified a phenomenon that will be recognisable to most senior leaders. The most connected people in organisations frequently become bottlenecks. They are consulted on everything, copied on everything, and expected to contribute to everything. The result is that they are stretched thin, their responsiveness declines, and the quality of their contributions suffers. Cross found that in many organisations, 20 to 35 percent of employees were already over-collaborated, carrying more network load than they could sustain effectively.

The implication is important. The goal is not a large network. It is a well-positioned, well-maintained, and appropriately diverse one.

Research by Ronald Burt at the University of Chicago, developed across several decades and synthesised in his work on brokerage and closure, provides the most important insight here. The leaders who consistently outperformed their peers were not those with the most connections but those who occupied particular positions in the network, specifically, positions that bridged otherwise disconnected groups.

Burt called the gaps between these groups structural holes. Leaders who span structural holes gain access to information and perspectives that never flow within tightly connected groups. They see problems from multiple angles. They are the first to spot emerging patterns. And because they connect worlds that do not normally communicate, they are disproportionately valuable to both sides of the bridge. Burt’s longitudinal research found that leaders who occupied these bridging positions were consistently rated as higher performers, generated better ideas, and were promoted faster than those embedded in dense, internally connected clusters.

In practical terms, this means that the most valuable network investment a matrix leader can make is often not deepening the relationships they already have but building bridges to the parts of the organisation with which they currently have few or no connections.

Practical actions:

• Identify two parts of the organisation that rarely interact with your function and that your current work depends on in some way. Name one person in each. Introduce yourself and ask for a conversation focused entirely on understanding their priorities and pressures, not on anything you currently need from them.
• Review your existing network for relationships that consume significant time but generate limited value. Not every connection requires the same level of investment. Being deliberate about where you reduce frequency creates space to invest where it matters more.
• The next time you are surprised by resistance, late information, or a decision that was shaped before you were involved, treat it as a network diagnostic. Ask yourself which relationship, had it existed, would have prevented that situation. Then go and build it.

The power of weak ties

Within any network, not all relationships carry equal strategic value. Research by Mark Granovetter, whose work on the strength of weak ties remains one of the most cited studies in social science, demonstrated a finding that runs counter to most leaders’ instincts.

Strong ties, the relationships with trusted colleagues and close collaborators, provide depth, support, and reliability. They are essential. But they also tend to be redundant. The people you trust most usually know the same things you know, move in the same circles, and have access to the same information. Strong ties provide emotional and operational resources. Weak ties, the more distant acquaintances, occasional collaborators, and cross-functional contacts you interact with infrequently, provide something different: access to non-redundant information, diverse perspectives, and opportunities that your strong-tie network has not yet encountered.

In a matrix organisation, this distinction has direct strategic significance. The intelligence you need to navigate a complex multi-stakeholder environment rarely comes from your immediate team. It comes from the edges of your network: the colleague in a different region who spotted a pattern you have not yet seen, the specialist in another function who knows the answer to a problem you have been working on for weeks, the operational leader whose ground-level experience would transform your understanding of a situation you have only seen from the centre.

A study of more than 61,000 Microsoft employees, published in Nature Human Behaviour, found that firm-wide remote work caused collaboration networks to become more static and siloed, with employees spending significantly less of their collaboration time with weak ties. The research identified measurable downstream effects on innovation and knowledge transfer, precisely the capabilities that depend most on connections beyond the immediate team. The finding has direct implications for matrix leaders managing distributed or hybrid teams, where weak ties do not maintain themselves and require deliberate investment to sustain.

Practical actions:

• Make a list of five people you have not spoken to in six months but whose work intersects with yours in some way. These are weak ties at risk of disappearing entirely. Reach out to two of them this week with something specific and relevant, a question, an insight, or a piece of information that would genuinely be useful to them.
• When you are stuck on a problem, resist the instinct to go to the same trusted colleagues. Ask yourself instead: who, outside my usual circle, has probably seen a version of this before? Then go and find them.
• If you manage a hybrid or distributed team, look at whether your cross-functional connections have quietly contracted to the people you see in person most often. If they have, build at least one standing check-in per month with someone in a different location or function whose perspective you rarely access.

Understanding the people who make the network work

Not everyone in a network plays the same role. Within every organisation, certain individuals exercise a disproportionate influence on how information moves, how ideas spread, and how initiatives gain traction. Effective matrix leaders learn to identify these individuals and engage them with intention.

Research by Rob Cross and Andrew Parker, drawing on organisational network analysis across hundreds of organisations, identifies four distinct roles that shape how networks actually function in practice. These are not personality types or job titles. They are positional roles that emerge from the pattern of relationships around a person, and they are often invisible to anyone relying solely on the org chart to understand how the organisation works.

Central connectors are the people through whom a disproportionate volume of information and collaboration flows. They are highly connected across functions and levels, and colleagues instinctively route requests, questions, and introductions through them. Central connectors are often the people without whom things slow down when they are absent, which is also why Cross and Parker’s research identifies them as one of the most significant bottleneck risks in any organisation. If you want to understand how information is actually moving, or not moving, across your organisation, start by identifying who the central connectors are and what load they are currently carrying.

Boundary spanners operate at the edges of groups rather than at their centres. They maintain relationships across functions, geographies, and communities that would otherwise have no connection to each other, and they are disproportionately important in matrix organisations where cross-functional integration is not optional. Cross and Parker’s research consistently found that boundary spanners were among the highest-value individuals in any network, not because of their formal authority but because of their positional access to non-redundant information and diverse perspectives. They are often the first to see a problem coming and the first to spot an opportunity that others, embedded more deeply in a single function, cannot yet see.

Information brokers perform a specific and often underappreciated function. They sit between clusters of people who share information intensively within their own group but rarely share it across groups. The information broker moves knowledge between these clusters, often acting as a translator between professional communities with different languages, priorities, and framings of the same organisational reality. In a matrix organisation, where functions frequently develop their own vocabularies and mental models, information brokers are essential to the kind of shared understanding that genuine collaboration requires.

Peripheral specialists sit at the edges of networks rather than at their centres, and are consequently easy to overlook. Cross and Parker’s research found that peripheral specialists are frequently underutilised, not because their expertise is limited but because their positional distance from the centre of the network means they are rarely consulted. In matrix organisations, where the most critical knowledge is often distributed across functions and geographies, this is a significant and avoidable loss. Some of the most valuable input into a complex initiative will come from people who are not in the room by default and will not push themselves forward to be included.

Cross’s subsequent research introduced a fifth dimension that cuts across all four roles: the distinction between energisers and de-energisers. Energisers are individuals who leave others feeling more motivated, engaged, and capable after an interaction. People seek them out because they generate momentum rather than drain it, and their presence in a network has measurable effects on the engagement and performance of those around them. De-energisers produce the opposite effect. Their interactions consistently leave others feeling less confident, less committed, or less willing to contribute. Cross’s research found that de-energisers impose a disproportionate cost on network health, often without being aware of it themselves, and that leaders who manage their exposure to de-energising relationships protect not just their own energy but the productive capacity of the wider network.

For matrix leaders, this framework has immediate practical value. The org chart tells you who has formal responsibility. The network role map tells you who is actually shaping how information moves, where collaboration stalls, and whose energy is driving or draining the system.

Practical actions:

• Before launching an important initiative, ask yourself: who in this organisation is the boundary spanner who can connect the functions this work depends on, and who is the information broker who can translate between them? Write down names rather than role types. Involve them before the formal launch, not as a communication activity but as genuine contributors to the design.
• Pay attention over the next two weeks to who colleagues spontaneously mention when they are looking for advice, a connection, or a way through a problem. These are your central connectors. If you do not have a direct relationship with them, build one.
• Make a deliberate effort to reach the peripheral specialists relevant to your current priorities. Ask your team and your network specifically: who knows this territory that we are not currently talking to? The answer will almost always surface someone whose input would be valuable and who would not have appeared on the standard stakeholder list.

Network diversity as a performance variable

Beyond position and role, the composition of a network matters significantly. Research in organisational behaviour draws an important distinction between two network types that produce consistently different outcomes.

Dense, homogeneous networks, where members share similar functions, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, provide strong social support and efficient communication within the group. But they also create echo chambers. Information circulates quickly but it is largely the same information. Ideas are tested but only against similar frameworks. Decisions are made efficiently but within a narrow range of considered options. For matrix leaders who need to integrate across functions, geographies, and professional cultures, a homogeneous network is a strategic liability dressed up as a comfort.

Sparse, diverse networks, characterised by connections across different functions, geographies, seniority levels, and professional backgrounds, provide something qualitatively different: access to varied perspectives, non-redundant information, and the cognitive diversity that research consistently links to better decision-making and higher rates of innovation. Research by Reagans and Zuckerman, examining network composition and team performance across corporate research and development teams, found that network diversity was a significant and independent predictor of productivity, over and above individual ability or team size. The mechanism was not that diverse people are smarter. It was that diverse networks provide access to a wider range of knowledge and perspectives that homogeneous ones systematically exclude.

For matrix leaders, this has a pointed implication. The default tendency is to invest most heavily in the relationships that feel most comfortable: people at a similar level, in adjacent functions, with similar professional backgrounds. These relationships are valuable. But a network composed primarily of comfortable connections will consistently underperform a more deliberately diverse one, particularly in environments that require integration across organisational boundaries.

Practical actions:

• Look at your network across four dimensions: function, geography, seniority level, and professional background. If most of your strongest relationships cluster in one or two of these dimensions, your network is more homogeneous than your role requires. Pick the dimension with the biggest gap and name one specific person to connect with in the next month.
• The next time you form a project team, a working group, or an advisory conversation, actively resist defaulting to familiar colleagues. Ask yourself who would bring a perspective genuinely different from the ones already in the room, and invite them in, even if it adds some initial friction to the conversation.
• After a significant decision or a piece of work you are proud of, ask yourself honestly: whose perspective was absent from that process? That answer often reveals the network gap most worth addressing next.

Building relationships before you need them

One of the most consistent findings in network research is also one of the most consistently ignored in practice. The relationships that matter most during a transformation, a crisis, or a complex cross-functional initiative are almost never built during that transformation, crisis, or initiative. They are built long before.

Cross’s research identifies trust as the primary determinant of whether a network relationship generates genuine value. And trust, as Mayer, Davis and Schoorman’s integrative model established, accumulates through repeated interaction over time. It cannot be manufactured at the moment of need. By the time you require a colleague’s committed support, the conditions that make that support possible must already be in place.

The pattern of violation is familiar. A leader encounters a problem, requires resources, or needs support and suddenly begins contacting colleagues they have rarely engaged with. These conversations are almost always less effective than they would have been had the relationship been developed earlier. The colleague can sense the transactional nature of the contact. The request arrives without a foundation of familiarity or trust, and it is evaluated accordingly.

Adam Grant’s research on giving behaviour in organisations adds a further dimension. Leaders who consistently invest in others’ success, without maintaining a mental ledger of what is owed to them, build a qualitatively different kind of social capital than those who engage with their networks primarily when they need something. The orientation towards generosity, as distinct from strategic exchange, produces stronger and more durable reciprocal relationships over time. And the paradox holds: the leaders who give most consistently tend to be those whose requests, when they do make them, are most readily honoured.

Practical actions:

• Identify the five relationships outside your immediate team that will matter most to your effectiveness over the next twelve months. Then ask honestly: how much have you invested in each of them in the last three months? If the answer is very little, start now, before you need anything from them.
• Build one standing, low-agenda conversation per month with a key stakeholder outside your current projects. Not a catch-up with an agenda item attached. A genuine conversation about their work, their pressures, and what is on their mind. These conversations compound over time in ways that transactional contact never does.
• When you come across something genuinely useful, an article, an insight, a relevant piece of data, send it to the person it would help most without waiting to be asked and without attaching a request to it. This takes two minutes and signals, consistently over time, that you are thinking about others’ work and not just your own.

Wrapping up

Most leaders understand, in principle, that relationships matter. Fewer treat network building as the strategic discipline it actually is, one that requires the same intentionality as any other leadership priority and the same willingness to invest before the return is visible.

In a matrix organisation, where formal authority is deliberately distributed and shared, the quality of your network is not a supplement to your leadership capability. It is one of its most important expressions. The leaders who create the most consistent momentum are those who have invested in relationships across the widest range of organisational boundaries, who understand how information actually moves rather than how it is supposed to move, and who give to their networks without a ledger, because they understand that trust is not built at the moment of need.

The org chart tells you who has authority. The network tells you who has access. In a matrix, access is almost always the more important resource.

“If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed. We can’t pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.” Adam Grant

Three questions for reflection

1. If you drew your current network today, where are the structural holes? Which functions, geographies, or communities are largely absent, and what is the cost of that absence to your current work?
2. Think of the last time you needed support or expertise urgently. Was the relationship already in place, or were you building it at the moment of need? What does that tell you about your current network investment?
3. Which of the four network roles identified by Cross and Parker, central connector, boundary spanner, information broker, or peripheral specialist, do you play most naturally in your organisation? Which role is most underrepresented in your immediate network, and what is the practical cost of that gap?

Sources

Burt, R.S. (1992) Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Burt, R.S. (2004) Structural holes and good ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110(2), pp. 349–399.

Chheng, S., Brown, M. and Geller, J. (2019) Finding the right balance with organisational network analysis. Deloitte Insights. Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/organizational-network-analysis-network-of-teams.html (Accessed: 11 June 2026).

Cross, R. and Parker, A. (2004) The hidden power of social networks: Understanding how work really gets done in organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Cross, R., Rebele, R. and Grant, A. (2016) Collaborative overload. Harvard Business Review, 94(1), pp. 74–79.

Cross, R., Dillon, K. and Greenberg, D. (2021) The secret to building resilience. Harvard Business Review, January–February, pp. 1–8.

Grant, A. (2013) Give and take: A revolutionary approach to success. New York: Viking.

Granovetter, M.S. (1973) The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), pp. 1360–1380.

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), pp. 709–734.

Reagans, R. and Zuckerman, E.W. (2001) Networks, diversity, and productivity: The social capital of corporate R&D teams. Organization Science, 12(4), pp. 502–517.

Yang, L., Holtz, D., Jaffe, S., Suri, S., Sinha, S., Weston, J., Joyce, C., Shah, N.P., Sherman, K., Hecht, B. and Teevan, J. (2021) The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(1), pp. 43–54.