How Do I Lead When I’m Not the Boss?

Leading from the middle: How to drive impact when you aren’t the boss

Executive Summary: Leadership is no longer tied to authority. This article explores how to lead through Influence (earned credibility), Networks (centrality and bridges), Convening (the power to gather), and Stewardship (taking ownership of the whole).

You are expected to lead. Not because of your title, but because something important depends on your presence, your initiative, or your ability to bring others with you.

You may not control budgets or teams. You might be early in your leadership journey or working laterally across functions. Still, others look to you to shape progress, solve problems, and navigate uncertainty.

This experience is increasingly common. Organisations are more connected, more fluid, and more reliant on collaboration than ever before. The result is clear: leadership is no longer tied to authority.

The question is not how much power you have. The question is how you choose to use the influence that is already available to you.

What follows are four lenses for leading when authority is limited, but responsibility is real. Each offers a way to move forward with clarity, intention, and shared ownership.

The Influence Lens: Leverage credibility, not hierarchy

It happens in almost every workplace: you’re responsible for results, but the levers of authority aren’t in your hands. You don’t manage the teams whose cooperation you need. Your role isn’t high up the food chain. Yet people expect you to “lead” all the same.

This is the paradox of influence without authority. It’s become the norm in hybrid, networked, matrixed organisations. And while it might feel like a modern managerial headache, behavioural science offers a different take: influence is not the consolation prize for lacking authority. It’s a distinct and often more powerful form of leadership.

At its core, influence rests on credibility, an earned perception that you’re worth listening to. But credibility isn’t a credential. It’s a story others tell themselves about you. And that story is shaped not by title or technical brilliance, but by consistency, contribution, and the way you show up in conversations that matter.

Why credibility matters more than authority

Studies in social psychology show that people consistently defer to those they see as credible, even in the absence of formal power. In negotiation settings, teams with high “subjective status” (a measure of perceived expertise and trustworthiness) win more deals, even if their positional authority is lower.

This is good news. Because while you can’t always change your role, you can shape how others experience your presence. One way to think about credibility is as a three-part composite:

• Competence (Do you deliver?)
• Character (Do you keep your word?)
• Care (Do you act in our interest—not just yours?)

Credibility grows when all three align. And it gets punctured when one lags behind. A talented but unpredictable contributor. A principled but aloof colleague. A warm presence who overpromises. In each case, the influence is partial, and the followership uncertain.

The invisible advantage of reliability

There’s a quiet power in being predictable, in the best sense. Colleagues who know they can count on you, who see you as clear, timely, and responsive, begin to rely on your judgment. And reliance is the soil from which influence grows.

That’s why the phrase “track record” carries weight. People don’t follow ideas, they follow people who make ideas feel safe. That doesn’t mean being cautious. It means earning the right to take bold positions, because others trust the groundwork you’ve laid.

This is especially vital when your ideas challenge existing priorities. Influence without trust comes off as critique. Influence with trust sounds like partnership.

Make others look good

It’s tempting to think influence is about visibility, being the loudest voice or most prepared in the room. But often, the fastest way to grow your influence is to help others succeed.

When you position your work in service of others’ goals, you flip the social contract. You’re no longer asking for attention, you’re offering relevance. This doesn’t mean being subservient. It means understanding what matters to the people you work with, and framing your contributions accordingly.

The behavioural principle here is reciprocity. People are wired to return value where they’ve received it. When your effort helps a project land or a leader shine, they remember. They invite you in. They listen more closely next time.

Lead with insight, not just information

Credibility doesn’t come from volume, it comes from resonance. One sharp observation, offered at the right moment, can do more to build your influence than a 30-slide deck.

So don’t try to prove your value through sheer data. Instead, translate your expertise into implications that matter to your audience. If you’re in finance, don’t just cite risk exposure, link it to what it means for customer trust. If you’re in operations, don’t just flag a delay, show how it impacts the broader strategic plan.

What you’re doing here is bridging, connecting your knowledge to their world. The most influential people in any system are those who speak in ways that make others feel smarter, not smaller.

Position yourself as a guide, not a gatekeeper

Influence often falters when it sounds like judgment. That’s especially true when you don’t have the authority to enforce your point of view. Phrases like “That won’t work” or “We’ve tried that before” signal control, not collaboration.

Instead, position yourself as a guide. Share your perspective with an open hand. Offer it as a resource, not a ruling. Ask: “Would it be helpful if I shared what I’ve seen in similar projects?” rather than asserting expertise uninvited.

This approach doesn’t weaken your influence; it strengthens it. People are more likely to absorb advice they weren’t forced to take.

Leadership moves

• Build a track record of usefulness: Focus less on being impressive, more on being reliable. Be the person who consistently makes things clearer, easier, or more thoughtful.
• Tailor your language to their priorities: Speak the language of outcomes, not inputs. Position your expertise in ways that reflect others’ aspirations or anxieties.
• Use data sparingly, lead with relevance: Insight, not volume, builds credibility. What does this mean for them?
• Shift from ‘telling’ to ‘inviting’: Offer your point of view as an opening, not a conclusion. Especially when you lack formal authority, the tone of your contribution matters more than the content.
• Help others succeed in visible ways: When you amplify someone else’s work, or help their proposal land, you earn more space for your own voice in the next conversation.
• Avoid over-functioning: Don’t fill gaps that aren’t yours to fill. Influence is diluted when it becomes indistinguishable from overhelping.
• Show you care about more than your function: Influence is rarely granted to those who stay in their silo. Let people see that you care about the broader mission, not just your part in it.

The Network Lens: Power flows through relationships

Formal hierarchies are easy to map. They sit in org charts, delegation matrices, and dotted lines. But if you want to understand where influence lives, you have to look elsewhere. You have to map the web of relationships that actually moves things forward.

That’s what social network theory has revealed again and again: formal authority is often a poor predictor of actual power. The people who make the most impact in organisations, who shape agendas, unblock bottlenecks, and surface new ideas, tend to be those positioned at the intersections. They’re not necessarily senior. But they’re central.

For leaders with little formal authority, this is not a problem—it’s an opportunity. Because networks are fluid. They can be built. And your influence can grow not by climbing upward, but by reaching outward.

Why networks matter more than hierarchies

In any system, there are two kinds of players: hubs and bridges. Hubs are central, connected to many others. Bridges span across disconnected groups. Both are powerful, but bridges are especially interesting. They broker information, relationships, and insight between people who wouldn’t otherwise talk.

Research by sociologist Ronald Burt found that people who span structural holes, those gaps between teams or functions, consistently generate more creative ideas, move up faster, and have greater visibility. Not because they’re louder. But because they’re better positioned.

This matters enormously if you’re in a role that lacks command authority. Influence lives at the seams, between departments, across locations, or inside projects that don’t yet have a champion.

Influence doesn’t scale through expertise alone

Many people with deep functional knowledge, legal, finance, compliance, technical roles, get stuck because their relationships are too narrow. They become known as “experts” but not collaborators. Their influence plateaus, even as their competence grows.

By contrast, the compliance officer who becomes a trusted advisor across departments, the one who sits in on design sessions, joins product town halls, and offers insight early, is the one who gets listened to when things get serious. Not because they enforced the rules better, but because they embedded themselves in the network.

Visibility is not vanity

Many people recoil from the idea of “managing your visibility.” It can feel performative or self-promoting. But in network terms, visibility isn’t about attention, it’s about access. People need to see you, not just know you exist. They need to encounter your thinking in motion, not just your deliverables.

This doesn’t mean broadcasting. It means being present in rooms where direction is being shaped, not just the ones where tasks are being assigned. It means finding ways to contribute outside your core function. Not for credit, but for context.

When people experience you in a range of settings, formally and informally, they begin to include you earlier, rely on you more, and advocate for you when you’re not in the room.

It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you, and trusts you

In organisations, trust often moves faster through networks than through titles. People talk. They vet each other. They ask quietly: “What’s it like working with them?” before extending a real opportunity.

So relationships built on mutual respect, not just function, are your most strategic assets. They can’t be faked. But they can be nurtured.

Start by getting curious about the people you work with, not just their roles, but what they care about, what frustrates them, what stories they carry. These conversations don’t always happen at a desk. They often happen in corridors, after calls, or over a casual check-in that wasn’t on the calendar.

Influence builds in the spaces between meetings.

Leadership moves

• Map your current network: Ask yourself: Who knows my work? Who trusts me enough to share theirs? Where do I have reach, and where am I absent?
• Build weak ties intentionally: Reach out to colleagues in other departments, functions, or locations, not just when you need something, but when you’re curious. These loose connections often become critical bridges.
• Host, don’t wait to be invited: Start informal forums, learning circles, or interest groups. Bring people together across silos. When you host, you centre yourself as a connector, regardless of your title.
• Be the one who introduces others: When someone shares an idea or a challenge, ask: “Have you talked to…?” Make introductions freely. The more you connect others, the more central you become.
• Show up to learn, not just to contribute: Join cross-functional spaces as a participant, not just an expert. Let people see your openness, not just your skill.
• Signal curiosity and generosity: Follow up after meetings. Thank people for what they shared. Share resources unprompted. These small moves keep the relationship warm.
• Stay connected across wins and silence: Don’t just show up when something’s urgent. Influence grows when you’re present in the mundane as well as the pivotal.

The Convening Lens: Gathering people is an act of leadership

What do you do when you can’t give orders, but something important still needs to happen? You gather people. Not as a workaround. As a core leadership act.

The power to convene is easily underestimated in formal settings. We tend to associate leadership with authority, decision rights, budget lines, direct reports. Convening can seem soft by comparison. But in truth, it’s the foundational move in any setting where relationships, not hierarchy, do the heavy lifting.

When you convene, you’re not just running a meeting. You’re crafting a context. One where people show up differently. One where ownership becomes shared, not assigned.

This is what Peter Block and others have long pointed to: leadership is less about providing answers, more about shaping the room in which people wrestle with the right questions.

Authority is optional. Invitation is not.

If you’re waiting to be granted permission to lead, you may be waiting a long time. But the authority to invite, to ask people to come together, reflect, and act—is always available. It doesn’t need approval. It needs intention.

Invitation is not just logistical. It’s emotional. It says: “You matter to this conversation. Your presence would change the outcome.”

Contrast that with most meetings we’re used to. They’re built for efficiency, not engagement. They start with agendas and end with action items. But rarely do they begin by naming what we’re really here to explore, or asking why this gathering matters to the people in the room.

The real work of convening (in community) begins there, with a pause, not a plan.

A room doesn’t change because you scheduled it

Meetings are often filled with content. But content alone doesn’t create change. What shifts a room is the quality of the questions being asked, the depth of listening taking place, and the courage of what gets said aloud.

That’s why a well-convened gathering feels different. Not necessarily smoother or quicker, but more honest, more attentive, more human. It becomes a space where people feel seen and responsible. And that, more than any instruction or tactic, is what produces alignment.

You don’t need a job title to create this. You need to care about the conditions under which people come together.

From transaction to transformation

Most meetings are built to extract: updates, decisions, timelines. But what if a gathering could generate something new instead? Not just movement, but meaning.

That happens when we design with purpose. When we begin not with what needs doing, but with what needs naming. What are we avoiding? What’s been unspoken? What assumptions are driving us? Who’s missing?

Questions like these don’t always yield quick results. But they build the kind of trust and clarity that makes results sustainable.

The role of the convener, then, is not to rush to resolution. It’s to slow things down just enough for people to locate themselves in the work again—to bring not just their function, but their full self into the room.

Leadership moves

• Invite, don’t just inform: When you bring people together, explain why it matters. Name what’s at stake and why their voice is needed, not just their attendance.
• Open with connection, not content: Begin gatherings by helping people arrive as humans, not just roles. Try: “What’s one word that describes how you’re arriving today?” or “What struck you this week?”
• Design for small-group conversation: Use breakout rooms, pairs, or trios, even virtually. Most people find their voice in smaller settings. This makes large groups more alive.
• Ask real questions: Avoid opinion polls or status updates. Ask questions that surface doubt, commitment, or hope. For example: “What’s the story we’re telling ourselves here?” or “What do we want to be responsible for now?”
• Let silence work: Don’t rush to fill gaps. Let people sit with the discomfort of not knowing. Convening is about holding the space, not managing the pace.
• Focus on participation, not performance: You’re not there to impress. You’re there to invite others into the centre. The less airtime you take, the more others step up.
• Close with acknowledgement, not just next steps: Before you end, ask: “What gift did you receive in this conversation?” or “What are you leaving with?” It affirms that being together made a difference.

The Stewardship Lens: Act as if you are responsible for the whole

There’s a kind of leadership that doesn’t rely on control, or authority, or being in charge. It’s quieter than that. Less heroic, more deliberate. It’s called stewardship.

Stewardship begins when we stop waiting for someone else to fix things. When we take responsibility for the experience people are having around us, even if the problems weren’t ours to start with. Not because we’re saviours. But because we’ve decided to care.

This isn’t the same as “going above and beyond.” That phrase still centres productivity, still suggests doing more. Stewardship is different. It’s about shifting from ownership of tasks to ownership of outcomes. From saying, “That’s not my job,” to asking, “What kind of workplace do I want to be part of?”

You don’t need to be a senior leader to act as a steward. You don’t even need permission. You just need to choose responsibility over distance.

Leadership without rescue

In traditional hierarchies, we’re often trained to escalate: when things go wrong, pass the issue upward. And in doing so, we outsource not just the solution, but our sense of agency.

Stewardship pushes back against this. It says: act as if this is yours. Not to fix everything alone, but to model what ownership looks like when the stakes are real and the titles don’t protect you.

This isn’t easy. It invites risk. You might step into a vacuum and be ignored. You might challenge a norm and be sidelined. But stewardship isn’t about safe contribution. It’s about generative risk—the kind that calls others forward, too.

The invisible cost of disconnection

It’s tempting to stay in our lane. To meet our KPIs, answer our emails, attend our meetings, and nothing more. It’s efficient, and often rewarded. But something gets lost in that equation: care.

Workplaces suffer when care disappears. Not the emotional kind, but the operational kind, the kind of care that notices what isn’t working and decides to respond. The kind that says: “That onboarding process is broken. I’m going to do something about it.” Or: “That team keeps getting left out. I’ll make sure they’re in the room next time.”

These acts rarely come with applause. But they build trust. They make culture visible. And they remind people that leadership is not a job, it’s a posture.

Responsibility without control

This is the hardest part. To be a steward is to act responsibly without the safety net of control. You can’t force outcomes. You can’t compel others to follow. You can only make offers, offers of attention, of initiative, of partnership.

And you do it knowing that your influence might not land. That others might still opt out. That change might not come.

But stewardship isn’t outcome-dependent. It’s integrity-dependent. It’s about aligning your actions with the future you believe is possible, even when no one is watching.

That’s what makes it powerful. Because over time, others do watch. They see who takes responsibility, who shows up with consistency, who makes things better without being asked. And influence accumulates, not from ambition, but from contribution.

Leadership moves

• Name what you’re choosing to take responsibility for: Begin with clarity. What are you willing to own, even if it’s not your formal remit? Say it out loud. Let others see that you’re stepping in, not stepping over.
• Focus on what you can influence, not what you can control: Stewardship lives in the tension between intention and uncertainty. Make your best offer, and let go of guarantees.
• Model the culture you wish existed: Don’t wait for permission to treat others with respect, generosity, and trust. If you want a culture of feedback, give feedback. If you want a culture of openness, start sharing.
• Use language that signals shared responsibility: Say “we” more than “they.” Replace “they should fix this” with “what can we do?” Language reveals commitment, or abdication.
• Act like a co-owner, not a tenant: Tenants wait for the landlord. Co-owners pick up the spade, rearrange the furniture, patch the wall. Not because it’s theirs legally, but because it matters personally.
• Protect energy as well as outcomes: Stewardship includes the emotional landscape. Pay attention to what’s draining people. Ask what would make things feel more doable, more human.
• Make appreciation visible: Stewardship isn’t just about stepping up, it’s about noticing when others do, too. Gratitude is one of the fastest ways to reinforce responsibility across a system.

Conclusion: Leadership without authority is still leadership

Responsibility without authority isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system. Especially in organisations where influence flows across boundaries, where leadership is distributed by necessity, not by title.

We’ve looked at this terrain through four different lenses:

• The Influence Lens asked us to build trust before control. To become known not just for what we know, but for how we help others succeed.
• The Network Lens showed that power follows connection. That visibility isn’t about self-promotion, but about being known, trusted, and in motion across the web of relationships.
• The Convening Lens reframed leadership as the act of gathering people well. Where the courage to ask better questions and create presence is often more valuable than expertise alone.
• The Stewardship Lens invited us to act as if the whole depended on us—not because we must do it all, but because we’ve decided to care more than our job description requires.

Each of these lenses points to a truth: that leadership, in its most generative form, is a choice. A choice to show up as someone who takes responsibility for what matters, even in the absence of authority, endorsement, or applause.

This kind of leadership won’t always be recognised by performance reviews or dashboards. But it’s felt. It changes rooms. It nudges culture. And it reminds people around us that the work is ours, not theirs. That this team, this project, this organisation, is not something happening to us, but something we are shaping, however incrementally, every day.

Reflective questions

• What are you currently waiting for permission to do — and what would it take to act without it?
• Who do you already influence, whether or not you’ve claimed it?
• Where are you acting as a tenant, when you could choose to be a co-owner?
• What’s one gathering you could redesign, not to inform, but to invite?
• What are you willing to take responsibility for, even if you can’t control the outcome?

Further Reading: For a deep dive into the ideas that shaped this article, explore my curated Peter Block: Books, Ideas and Resources page.

If you are struggling with the balance between leading and manipulating, read my guide on How to Influence Others Without Manipulating Them.

Do you have any tips or advice for leading without authority?

What has worked for you?

Do you have any recommended resources to explore?

Thanks for reading!