How to improve your leadership presence with authority
What's the difference between confidence and authority?
These words tend to hold a lot of weight in our society, and yet can still feel a bit mysterious at the same time.
A lot of people I work with believe that both confidence and authority are all about experience. It's this belief that you can only be confident or have authority if a certain number of years of experience.
I like to think about them differently, in a more empowering way.
Confidence can simply be defined as having trust in someone or something.
In addition to having confidence (trust) in yourself, you can have confidence (trust) in the people you're working with, in the project or goal you're working on, your company, etc. It doesn't matter how long you've been at the company, or worked with the other people, you can have confidence immediately, or build it up more quickly than some arbitrary timeline you made up in your head. The same goes for confidence in yourself.
And when it comes to authority, a lot of people think of it as having power in the room. It's as if we believe, 'once I have enough experience, people will take me more seriously or I will have the upper hand in the situation.' But that's when it feels authoritative in the sense of telling people what to do or having power over them. Then it can feel like only one person can have authority which causes an unhealthy power dynamic for most relationships.
Instead, I like to think of authority as having influence. It can be seen as offering relevant recommendations and being heard, respected, and part of the conversation or decision.
More simply, authority is about having an impact on the people around you or the situations you're in.
Both are about how you show up, but also how you're interacting with other people. It's important to remember that they both confidence and authority are a two-way street with the other person or people involved.
How can you lead without authority?
This is a phrase often used in corporate settings to describe when someone may have to lead a project, meeting, team, or individuals without actually being their direct manager or supervisor.
I find it to be an unhelpful and outdated phrase based on my definitions above about authority - it's not about whether you have 'management' or 'power' over someone else as a manager or supervisor.
You can have authority without managing anyone, just the same as you can be a leader without managing anyone.
In these situations, it's most important to set clear expectations at the beginning of the project or meeting. How will we work together in this situation that may look differently from the past or in other projects? What do you need from them and ask what do they need from you? Who is responsible for what? What are the deadlines, milestones, and next steps?
You need to come prepared to lead the meetings, being organized in advance, keeping everyone on track, and ensuring everyone knows what they're responsible for and by when before the meeting ends. You need to be willing to step in and cut people off or steer the conversation back to the agenda as needed. You may want to read more about having a leadership mindset.
How can you have authority in rooms with executives or higher-ranked professionals?
It can definitely be difficult to have authority in this setting because you may be stretching yourself out of your comfort zone. Additionally, the executives likely have a lot of confidence and authority which may cause you to want to defer to their opinion as the truth and may make you want to be more passive or conform to them without hesitation.
In these situations, it's important to remember the value that you're adding to the room. In most cases, if you're a mid-level manager in a room with executives, they want your perspective of what's happening with the teams or projects you're involved with. They have so much on their own plates that they don't have the capacity to know everything happening at every level in the organization, and they may be looking to you for insights, guidance, or your opinion based on your unique experience in the day-to-day work that they no longer have.
Don't discredit yourself because you have a 'lower' title than them in the organization's hierarchy. Your perspective is valuable.
How can you show up with authority?
A key piece to showing up with authority is thinking about how you're physically showing up. Most of us jump to worrying about saying 'the right thing' but in reality, we need to be even more aware of our body language (posture, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions), and how we're communicating (tone, pace).
I would argue that there are plenty of times your body language and how you're communicating is more important than what you're saying.
For example, let's say you're making a recommendation to your leadership team and you said that "I'm confident that this sales slump is temporary and we'll be back to our usual sales results by next quarter," but you're hardly making eye contact, your posture is slumped, and you're talking really quickly. I would bet that most of the people in the room wouldn't believe what you're saying.
Your posture, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, tone, and pace are all indicators of how people will connect with you and how much they will trust you. This is a key part of having emotional intelligence.
Here are a few ways to show up with confidence and authority within each category:
Posture: shoulders back, head up, open body language (not slumped or closed off)
Gestures: controlled, used to make a point (not erratic or frozen)
Eye contact: steady, used to connect with people (not avoiding)
Facial expressions: positive or neutral (not looking worried or frustrated)
Tone: Confident, professional (not too casual or timid)
Pace: Even, steady (not too fast or too slow)
By the way, this is true for video calls too.
What are some ways to lead a project or meeting with authority?
When it comes to leading a meeting or project with multiple people, it's important that you're the one setting the expectations and moving the group forward. Ways to do that include:
Starting by sharing why we are here and why it's important
What's our objective(s) or, what do we want to walk away with?
Keep the conversation moving forward, minimize or shut down distractions
Finish meetings and emails with clear next steps: "who does what by when"
Following through on next steps and promises to maintain trust
What are some ways to have authority when you're not the one leading the meeting or project?
In these situations, you need to go back to this new definition of authority (above): being seen as offering relevant recommendations and being heard, respected, and part of the conversation or decision. More simply, it's about having an impact on the people around you or the situations you're in.
This comes down to:
Knowing the value you add in the meetings, rooms, and projects you're a part of
Knowing when to add your opinion, perspective, questions, or even pushback in these situations
This does not mean keep sharing your opinion all the time or talking over people or wanting to be involved in every decision (we all know those people).
It's a matter of intentional and confident contribution in order to move the team, project, or meeting forward.
Presence starts with self-awareness. Take the free Leadership Blind Spot Audit to uncover the habits that might be undercutting your authority. Take the audit here.
Brittany Canaski is a highly-rated Leadership Coach, Trainer, and Founder of Hello Velocity where she builds confident leaders and high-performing teams. When she's not building her business, you can find her planning her next travel adventure with her husband, watching Formula 1 racing, or volunteering in her local community of Charlotte, NC.
