Authority vs. Influence: Why Most Managers Get It Backwards

I used to think authority was the key to getting things done — that if people just listened, things would move faster.

I was wrong.

Authority gets compliance.
Influence gets change.

The Day Billy Asked If He Could "Just Tell Her What To Do"

💡 Real leadership doesn't come from a title. It comes from the ability to understand, influence, and align without taking control.

A middle manager — we'll call him Billy — walked into my office one afternoon. He'd recently been reassigned to another project. He used to oversee our content, but that responsibility now belonged to Beth, our SEO manager.

Beth wanted to stop manually curating which articles appeared first on a page. Her plan was simple: order them automatically by publication date. Logical, clean, and scalable.

Billy didn't like it.

"You can't do that," he said. "They need to be ordered by what's most relevant to the user."

Then he asked me a question I didn't expect.

"Can I just tell Beth what to do?"

The Misunderstanding at the Heart of Most Teams

I asked Billy a question back:

"Did you ask Beth why she wanted to change it?"

He said no.

That's when I realized the problem wasn't about article order — it was about how people think authority works.

Billy believed authority means you can override someone else's judgment. But real leadership doesn't come from a title. It comes from the ability to understand, influence, and align without taking control.

Authority Controls. Influence Creates.

"You can't change someone's mind until you first see the world through their eyes."

So I asked him,

"How do I manage people, Billy? Do I just tell them what to do?"

He said,

"No, but you're the CEO — people listen because you're the boss."

I smiled.

"Then how do you think I manage the owner? Do I just follow orders, or do I improve his ideas?"

He thought for a second.

"You improve them."

Exactly.

I don't have authority over him — I have influence. And influence starts with understanding.

You can't change someone's mind until you first see the world through their eyes. Once you understand what they're trying to accomplish and why, you can improve the idea together. That's how real collaboration happens.

The Accountability Trap of "Just Telling People What To Do"

Authority:

Takes ownership away
Creates blame cycles
Removes accountability
Ends conversations

Influence:

Preserves ownership
Builds understanding
Strengthens accountability
Starts better conversations

There's another reason authority fails. When you tell someone exactly what to do, you take their accountability with it.

If Beth is responsible for SEO rankings, she owns the result. But if Billy tells her what to do, who's responsible when it doesn't work?

Three months from now, when rankings haven't improved, Beth will say,

"Well, we would've done better if you hadn't made us do it your way."

And she'd be right. The moment Billy gives an order, he inherits her accountability.

🎯 Influence avoids that. If you reason with someone, debate ideas, and they choose to adopt your approach — accountability stays where it belongs.

The Lesson I Wanted Billy to Learn

I told him,

"No, you can't tell Beth what to do. But you can influence her. Go understand why she wants to change it. Ask questions. See her reasoning. If you still think you're right, try to change her mind — not with authority, but with logic."

Influence doesn't require permission. It requires perspective.

What Real Leadership Looks Like

Authority enforces compliance.
Influence earns trust.

Authority removes accountability.
Influence strengthens it.

Authority stops learning.
Influence multiplies understanding.

Authority ends conversations.
Influence starts better ones.

In the end, leadership isn't about telling people what to do — it's about making people want to do it for the right reasons.

The best leaders I know rarely use their authority. They save it for emergencies and crisis moments. The rest of the time, they rely on something more powerful: the ability to see problems through other people's eyes and help them find better solutions.

That's influence. And it works even when you have no authority at all.