# Authority you have, influence you earn > Sources of influence, compliance vs real agreement, and leading a former peer. - Course: [From Specialist to Manager: Your First Year Leading a Team](https://productovi.com/courses/from-specialist-to-manager.md) - Module: The shift: from doing to leading - Lesson 3/32, ~26 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/from-specialist-to-manager/authority-and-influence ## The title and the trust **Alex Tutor:** Late January, your fourth week leading Klasna's Support team. Olha, the longest-serving coordinator, applied for the same job. Until December you were peers; now she's on your team. **Sofia:** I can assign her work and approve her leave. But on calls she goes quiet, and the team still asks her first. **Alex Tutor:** That's **formal authority**: it came with the title. On its own it mostly gets compliance: people do what's asked and keep their doubts to themselves. **Alex Tutor:** **Influence** means people act because they trust your judgment. A new lead has five sources: the position, expertise, small promises kept, relationships, and access to information. **Alex Tutor:** First, the difference itself. > **Exercise:** You can assign Olha work and approve her leave, yet the team still asks her first. What does that tell you? **Sofia:** Which of them last? **Alex Tutor:** The earned ones: visible expertise, kept promises, relationships. Information stops being an edge once you share it, and you should share it. Making the team depend on you is a trap, not a strategy. > **Exercise:** Which sources of influence keep working, and grow, the longer you lead well? Select all that apply. ## Where Olha's influence comes from **Alex Tutor:** The team asking Olha first isn't a plot against you. Check the hardest-tickets column for December, before your promotion. **Dataset (CSV):** [Klasna Support load by week and person, December 2026 – January 2027](https://productovi.com/datasets/from-specialist-to-manager/authority-and-influence/klasna-support-load-dec-jan.csv) Eight weeks, five people. "You" is the learner: a senior coordinator in December, the lead from January. - `week_start`: Monday the week starts - `person`: Who worked the tickets - `role`: coordinator, senior_coordinator (You in December) or lead (You in January) - `tickets_closed`: Tickets the person closed - `hardest_tickets_closed`: Complex tickets the person resolved (part of tickets_closed) - `handed_up`: Tickets passed up to the senior coordinator or the lead - `first_response_median_min`: The person's median first-reply time that week, minutes - `reopened`: Closed tickets the family reopened - `csat_responses`: Post-ticket survey answers - `csat_positive`: Positive survey answers **Sofia:** I'll add up the four December weeks for each coordinator. **Alex Tutor:** One caution: that column is one lens, not a ranking. Maryna has the fewest reopened tickets, Taras the fastest first replies. **Alex Tutor:** Start with Olha, then compare. > **Exercise:** Use the dataset. How many of the hardest tickets did Olha close in December 2026 (the four weeks from 7 to 28 December)? **Alex Tutor:** Fourteen, the most of any coordinator, with only 6 tickets handed up. That's expertise the team sees every day, and it's good for the team. **Alex Tutor:** In January: 6 hardest tickets, 15 handed up. The hard cases went to you, and her stage went with them. **Sofia:** So her guardedness isn't only about the promotion. **Alex Tutor:** Not only. Lean on her expertise openly and you gain influence; try to outshine it and you lose some. ## The team call **Alex Tutor:** At Monday's team call you announce a change to ticket handover. **Sofia:** From next week, hand-ups don't come to me by default. Hard tickets go to whoever is on the rotation, with a three-line note: what the family asked, what's been tried, what's next. **Olha:** So the hard ones land on me again, and nobody asked me. And a note for every handover? We're already behind on replies. **Alex Tutor:** Her worry has substance: a rotation can quietly become "Olha does it all". And she said it in front of everyone, so the whole team is watching your answer. > **Exercise:** On Monday's team call you announce that hand-ups stop coming to you by default: hard tickets go to whoever is on a rotation, with a three-line note. Olha objects in front of everyone: "So the hard ones land on me again, and nobody asked me. And a note for every handover?" What is the best reply on the call? **Alex Tutor:** If the answer had been "it's decided", she'd probably comply: the work happens, and the doubts go underground. **Alex Tutor:** Real agreement means people raise problems early, improve the plan and defend it when you're not around. Silence on a call isn't agreement, least of all with cameras off. **Sofia:** How do I tell which one I have? **Alex Tutor:** Watch what follows. In a remote team, post proposals in writing a day ahead, so quieter people can respond too. > **Exercise:** After the call nobody objected in the team chat, and everyone reacted to the summary with a thumbs-up. That shows the team agrees with the new handover rule. ## What earns commitment, and what backfires **Alex Tutor:** Commitment comes from evidence (hand-ups rose from 42 in December to 101 in January), asking for input, a shared goal and an honest reason: "Too many hard tickets stayed with me, and it slowed us all." **Alex Tutor:** Pressure without reasons, threats, going over someone's head to Iryna, pulling rank in public: these win the meeting and lose the next six months. **Sofia:** And praising her in public so she can't object? **Alex Tutor:** That's manipulation: it works only until people notice, and in a team of four they will. Playing people against each other is the same. > **Exercise:** Match each move after the call with its most likely result. **Alex Tutor:** And the tempting shortcut you just asked about: > **Exercise:** **True or false:** praising Olha warmly in public right before the decision, so that objecting would look ungracious, is a smart way to earn her commitment. ## Leading a former peer **Alex Tutor:** Next, a video one-to-one with Olha. With a former peer: name the change openly, ask what she needs, and don't over-compensate with favors or by dodging hard topics. **Alex Tutor:** And decide who decides. You've decided hand-ups stop coming to you; Olha could own how the rotation works. Write it down, so nobody has to guess. **Alex Tutor:** Before you answer her: what works with a former peer? > **Exercise:** Which moves help when you lead a former peer who wanted your job? Select all that apply. **Olha:** Honestly? I wanted this job. I'm not going to sabotage you. I just don't want to become the free escalation desk. **Alex Tutor:** That's a lot of trust in four short sentences. Answer it in two of your own. > **Exercise:** In your one-to-one, Olha says: "Honestly? I wanted this job. I'm not going to sabotage you. I just don't want to become the free escalation desk." Write the two sentences you would say to her next. **Alex Tutor:** Your formal authority didn't change this week. Your influence can. Next, January goes into your 30-60-90 plan. - Previous lesson: [The first 30 days: listen, set expectations, agree how we work](https://productovi.com/courses/from-specialist-to-manager/the-first-30-days.md) - Next lesson: [Case: a 30-60-90 plan for the Support team](https://productovi.com/courses/from-specialist-to-manager/30-60-90-plan-case.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.