Authority you have, influence you earn

A new lead gets formal authority with the title: the right to assign work, approve leave and make certain decisions. It's real, but on its own it mostly buys compliance: people do what's asked and keep their doubts to themselves.

Influence is different: people act because they trust your judgment. It can't be handed over with a job title; it's earned, person by person, and it can be lost.

The gap between the two is easiest to see when a peer becomes a report. At Klasna you can assign Olha work and approve her leave. Yet on calls she goes quiet, and the team still asks her first. You have the authority; she still has much of the influence.

That isn't a problem to crush. A lead who relies on authority alone wins individual meetings and loses the early warnings, ideas and effort that only come from people who believe in where the team is going.

A new lead can draw on five sources of influence: the position itself, expertise the team sees you use, small promises kept, relationships with each person, and access to information.

They don't age the same way. The position is real but fixed: it doesn't grow however well you lead. The earned ones do grow: expertise used for the team's benefit, the reply you said you'd send by Friday arriving by Friday, relationships built one conversation at a time. Every kept promise adds a little; every broken one takes more away.

Information is the trap. Being the only one who knows the refund rules looks like influence, but it disappears the moment the knowledge spreads, and you should spread it. The same goes for making sure the team can't solve hard tickets without you. Making people depend on you isn't a strategy: it leaves the team stuck whenever you're away and teaches them to wait for you.

When the team keeps asking a former peer first, look for the source before you take it personally. Usually it's expertise people rely on every day.

At Klasna the support-load file shows it. In December, before your promotion, Olha closed 4 + 5 + 3 + 2 = 14 of the hardest tickets, the most of any coordinator (Bohdan 10, Taras 6, Maryna 6), and handed up only 6 tickets. In January the hard cases went to you: Olha solved 6 and handed up 15. Her stage went with the tickets, so her guardedness isn't only about the promotion.

One column isn't a ranking: Maryna has the fewest reopened tickets, Taras the fastest first replies. It shows whom the team relies on for messy cases.

What to do with it: lean on her expertise openly, and you gain influence too. Try to outshine it, and you lose some, because the team sees a lead competing with the person they trust.

When someone pushes back on your proposal in front of everyone, the whole team watches your answer. It shows them whether raising a problem here is safe and useful.

A strong reply does three things: it takes the concern seriously, says plainly what is decided and what is open, and asks for the person's expertise where it helps most.

At Klasna's Monday 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 (what the family asked, what's been tried, what's next). Olha objects: the hard ones will land on her again, nobody asked her, and the notes cost time. Her worry has substance: a rotation can quietly become “Olha does it all”.

So: “Fair worry. Hand-ups stop coming to me, that part is decided. How the rotation and the notes work is open. Olha, would you sketch it with me by Thursday?” Pulling rank, dropping the change or hiding behind Iryna each teaches the team something worse.

Compliance and real agreement look identical on day one. Both produce a quiet call and thumbs-up under the summary. The difference shows over the following weeks.

Compliance: the work gets done as asked, but problems surface late or not at all, and people quietly route around the rule when you aren't looking. Agreement: people raise problems early, suggest improvements and defend the rule when you aren't there.

Silence on a call isn't agreement, least of all with cameras off. A thumbs-up says the message arrived. If Olha had been told “it's decided” with no open part, she'd probably comply, and her doubts would go underground, exactly where a lead can't use them.

How to tell which one you have: ask directly, and give people a way to disagree that doesn't need courage in front of everyone. In a remote team, post proposals in writing a day ahead, so quieter people like Maryna can respond in their own time.

Commitment comes from a few plain moves: evidence people can see for themselves, asking for input where it can change the plan, a shared goal, and an honest reason.

At Klasna that sounds like showing the hand-ups (42 in December, 101 in January), asking Olha to design the rotation, tying it to the spring peak everyone is worried about, and saying it straight: “Too many hard tickets stayed with me, and it slowed us all.”

The moves that backfire win the meeting and lose the next six months. Pressure without reasons. Threats. Going over someone's head: asking Iryna to tell Olha to cooperate teaches her that disagreements go above her, so she stops raising them with you. Pulling rank in public: the rotation runs, and the doubts stay unspoken.

The test is simple: after the move, will this person bring you the next problem early, or keep it to themselves?

Some shortcuts look like influence but are manipulation: getting agreement by steering people instead of convincing them. Praising Olha warmly in public right before the decision, so objecting would look ungracious. Telling Taras and Olha different versions so each thinks the other agreed. Hoarding information so people have to come to you.

These work only until people notice, and in a team of four they notice fast. They compare notes in the chat, on calls and over coffee. Once someone realises they were steered, every later conversation with you gets a filter: what is this lead really after?

The cost is out of proportion to the gain. You win one decision and lose the thing a lead needs most, people telling you the truth early.

Honest praise is fine, given for a real piece of work and not timed to silence anyone. Playing people against each other never is.

Leading someone who was your peer, and who wanted your job, has its own rules. Three help most.

Name the change openly. Pretending nothing has changed makes every later decision awkward. Ask what the person needs to do good work now, and listen. Don't over-compensate: no special favors, no dodging hard topics to keep the peace. Both tell the team the relationship is fragile.

Then decide who decides, and write it down so nobody has to guess. At Klasna you've decided that hand-ups stop coming to you; Olha can own how the rotation works. That gives her real ground, not a consolation prize.

When 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”, that's a lot of trust in four sentences. Answer it briefly: acknowledge it, and show the rotation won't turn into her doing it all.

How it fits together: authority opens the door, earned influence moves people, and clear decision rights keep a former peer on board. The next lesson turns January into your 30-60-90 plan for Iryna.