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Happy New Year!
I hope you had a lovely holiday season. Whatever else is going on in your life or in the world, and whatever your faith background, so much slows down. I know there can be a flurry of activity around the calendar year’s end and that hits some areas more than others, but time still seems to slow down. It is two weeks where it is not business as usual.
I’ve come to appreciate that rather than trying to force a “lovely holiday season” into a specific shape or box based on some foggy nostalgic memories and the pressure of feeling everyone else is enjoying hot cocoa in a harmonious group around a roaring fire for the entire month of December, I’ve accepted and maybe even embraced that the holidays can look and feel different, depending. There are years I put up a tree and there are years when the idea of bringing the ornaments down from the attic feels like a punishment for something when I’d rather be doing something else. There are years I host and there are years I don’t, years I cook and years I eat a lot of cheese and crackers. There are years I’ve gone on vacation and there are years I’ve stayed put. This year involved a lot of convivial celebration as well as a last minute development resulting in a Christmas Day spent in comfy pajamas, enjoying cookies and watching guilty pleasure holiday movies (The Holiday, anyone? The Family Stone??). It was a lovely holiday season.
I’m starting off 2025 with an article all about “the authority effect” and how, in the words of one of my mentors, psychologist Kenneth Sole, “authority is one of the most underutilized avenues to create predictability, trust and stability” in an organization. Talking about the authority effect has become a cornerstone of my workshops on communication, conflict resolution and most recently, governance, and it seemed to be time to write up an article I can link back to.
As I write about below, there are specific phenomena in independent schools - and I suspect non profit organizations in general - where authority is elided in the practice of leadership. However, reconsidering and demystifying positional authority can be one of the simplest and most direct ways to strengthen leadership in increasingly complicated times. It might feel awkward at first, but leaning into your authority is a skill you can build. And as you move your comfort with it forward an inch, you’ll move everyone else’s comfort with it forward as well.
How to Improve Your Leadership Game in 2025 - The Authority Effect
Why can it feel so awkward to talk about positional authority?
The thing is - we can’t avoid it. We’re all hard wired to have some kind of response to authority. We were once tiny babies dependent on caretakers for our very lives. I just listened to a podcast about a kidnapped journalist who still has lingering Stockholm syndrome and discussed how the experience of identifying with your captors is directly related to that universal experience of being dependent as a very young child.
There are different ways people are oriented to authority. When someone with positional authority walks into a room, some people will automatically project more trustworthiness onto the person and others will project the opposite, with most of us somewhere in the middle. But however it manifests, it can’t be denied authority has impact.
The other thing is - most people, even if they had delightful parents, have had some negative experiences with authority figures and the term “authority” can get stuck in a place where authority is associated with fear or raw use of power.
We have created cultures in independent schools where we embrace “independence.” We often have cultures that are congenial but not collegial - people close their classroom doors and then they have freedom to conduct classes how they please. We often celebrate faculty who particularly embody this independence, especially if it comes in a traditional “charismatic,” charming package - someone who is articulate, confident, extraverted and often funny. And many people gravitate towards working in independent schools, particularly in upper schools, because they are seeking that independence and freedom. They maybe aren’t a great fit for a job with a hands-on boss.
We also have emphasized the idea that our adult school communities aren’t workplaces so much as “families” - although if you think for more than a minute, using the “family” metaphor will leave you scratching your head. Families are full of unspoken agendas, unmet longing, irrational biases, complicated relationships and unresolved feelings.
Independent school leaders coming up through this system often go through interview processes where “collaboration” and “buy in” and “process” are emphasized as well as the centrality of community, the importance of longtime community members and how they expect to be heard, and a disapproval of anything “top down” in style. And of course, all of those aspects of leadership are important! Even the most “top down” independent school is not nearly as top down as many (most?) workplaces.
Authority denialism and cognitive dissonance
But problems arise when an administrator or head is constantly downplaying their positional authority and conducting themselves as if they’re part of the gang or just another family member. Because it’s demonstrably false. People have different levels of authority and different roles. All roles are necessary to a thriving school community, but some roles carry more responsibility than others. And if 80% of the time you’re pretending to be just one of the gang but then a difficult decision presents itself when it is your responsibility to act, you create disconnection and confusion. There can even be confusion as to who has responsibility for what, leading to the very unhelpful situation where a person lower down in the org chart feels they have the responsibility to act but not the authority to establish or enforce a decision.
And one of the most persistent problems authority denialism creates is mushy decision making. There may well be a process where many voices are heard but how the final decision gets made is often left vague, driven by a sense that making it clear that someone with positional authority will have the final say will make people unhappy and create conflict. Or even that a person in authority doesn’t want to be the face of a decision that might be unpopular.
However, if you have a clear process where many voices are heard, be clear about who is making the final decision and then circle back to explain how all the opinions were used in coming to to the final decision, even if some people disagree with the final decision, they aren’t left thinking they had half a process or that their providing feedback and opinions was a waste of time because the the higher ups were going to do what they wanted anyway. There is nothing more demoralizing than leaving the community with a feeling that they participated in a sham process. Don’t let all your careful process go to waste by not stepping up and taking responsibility at the end.
Authority doesn’t have to be “authoritarian”
Just because you are clear about the scope of your authority and are evidently comfortable with the responsibility it carries doesn’t make you a power hungry, “do as I say” type of leader. You can be clear and comfortable about your authority and share it with others. In fact, delegating your authority is one of the most powerful management tools you have - your direct reports leadership capacity is enhanced when they are included in the glow cast by your authority as a head, and so on down the line.
People really appreciate being asked their opinion, even if it does ultimately jibe with the direction you head in! It’s particularly effective to ask people’s opinion as you “manage by walking around” or when you’re getting coffee or sitting at lunch. That new dorm parent might have a really interesting perspective on how to staff evening security. A rank and file teacher may have a very different take on comment writing than the department head. And people will also feel more comfortable sharing their opinions openly when they know that, as the person asking, you will ultimately be taking responsibility for decision-making - no fingers will be pointed at them.
You can be responsible for capital E “Everything” without being actually responsible for everything
One of the biggest pitfalls a new head can run into is thinking that to demonstrate she’s responsible for everything, she needs to make every decision. That is untenable and unwise for a thousand reasons. Yes, at the end of the day, you are responsible for the overall wellbeing of the institution. But contemplating the scope of your authority, being clear what you will make decisions about, how you will make those decisions and what decisions are the responsibility of others, is a way to demonstrate your confidence as a leader. It’s clear you’re in charge; you don’t need to run around proving it in every way shape or form.
Dr. Sole told me a story from one of his corporate clients when he worked with a department where the morale was low and turnover was high yet in the annual workplace feedback forms, the manager consistently received top ratings. When the manager backed off from micromanaging, welcomed feedback about workplace practices and made decisions to implement some of the employees’ ideas, her ratings actually went down - because her direct reports were no longer afraid to be honest.
Everyone can see you wear the crown
Learn to accept it. Once you have authority, it will impact your work relationships and the higher up you go in the org chart, the more you’ll feel this impact. You can still be friendly and you can still be relational and emotionally intelligent. But everyone sees the crown, even if you try to hide it under a hoodie.
It can be very hard to get honest about our own relationship to being an authority figure. To admit you relish it can feel weird, as if you’re saying you love power, and the more you are part of a group that is not typically in authority in your school or organization, the more alien and risky it will likely feel to say you enjoy the challenge and rewards of a high level of responsibility. You might feel that if you seem to be relaxed about it, if you even seem to occasionally be (gasp!) having fun, you will be perceived as being unserious and not worthy of the responsibility.
Then there’s the danger, particular to school and academia, that taking administrative responsibility is to be a filthy pragmatist, someone who has departed from the idealism of the classroom, who has to placate donors and parents, whose stock in trade is the unsatisfactory compromise. If your attitude towards authority is anything other than it being a necessary evil that you will reluctantly shoulder for the good of Truth and Beauty - well, it might feel like the school culture will reject you.
Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben was correct - “With great power, comes great responsibility.” It’s a lot of work. It’s often thankless. It’s also an unprecedented opportunity to influence the experience of the students, to support a humane and enriching workplace and to serve a mission.
And one final thought from Dr. Sole: “The health or pathology of those in authority manifests in those of lesser authority.” Think about that all the way down the chain, from the board to the head to the senior team to the department heads, the faculty, the student leaders. Authority is awesome in its scope and the potential for benefit or damage is immense. It’s worth the effort to be intentional, reflective and thoughtful in how you wield it.
Next Tuesday, January 7th - January Happenings, including some exciting announcements!
The new Top Five Tuesday, for paying subscribers, will debut January 14th, with “Top Five Tips for Better Faculty Hiring Interviews.”
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