Beyond Authority is the title my friend Julia Middleton has given to her book which is just hot off the press. (Julia is Chief Executive of Common Purpose www.commonpurpose.org.uk) Along with some others, Julia invited me to contribute to the book and this is something I was only too happy to do. More importantly, Julia argues that the work of leadership requires that we operate beyond given authority.

When we operate beyond authority, Julia argues, we are able to draw on a wide range of powers:

1. The power of position. This comes with the position you hold, that you were appointed or elected to, or that you have created for yourself.
2. The power of personality . This comes from your strength of character, your “pizzazz”, the energy you generate around you because of who you are as a person.
3. The power of ideas. This is acquired through the quality of your ideas, your creativity.
4. The power of intellect. This is your brainpower, analytical ability, capacity to grasp facts and put them into order.
5. The power to communicate. This is the ability to get across an idea or message in a way which resonates for people, both individually and in groups.
6. The power to connect . This is the power you gain if you are able to see connections and overlaps and use your networks to bring all the pieces together.
7. The power to invest. Money talks. This power comes if you can invest resources or cash.
8. The power to reward. This comes from your ability to reward people financially or through recognition. Part of this power is also the freedom to remove people from situations where they are not succeeding.

Of course there is more, much more, in Middleton’s book that you will find conceptually stimulating and practically useful.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Book reviews, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.