Stop managing by title and start leading by earned influence

Leah was promoted to manage a service team after the previous lead burned out. Her badge changed overnight, but the hallway temperature didn’t. Deadlines slipped, emails piled up, and people skimmed her Slack posts. One morning, her coffee went cold while she re‑read a thread where two analysts ignored a clear request. She felt that familiar sting, the one that says, “They don’t respect me.”

Instead of firing off a sharper message, Leah made a list of everyone she needed to influence: her team, her peers in product, and the client success reps. She pinged three people and asked a simple question: “What’s one thing I could do that would make working with me easier?” The answers were blunt but useful. “Decide faster.” “Loop me in earlier.” “Tell us what ‘good’ looks like.” She didn’t argue. She circled two doable changes and did them that week. She cut a vague weekly sync in half and ended each meeting with three names, three dates, and a photo of the whiteboard.

By Friday, small signals shifted. A peer forwarded a customer note with, “This is clearer than before.” A rep stopped by Leah’s desk with a quick thanks. It wasn’t dramatic, but it felt different. Leah started a 15‑minute “walk‑around” each Tuesday. She asked techs what slowed them down and removed two silly approvals. She also began sharing a tiny scoreboard: tickets resolved within 48 hours. It climbed from 61% to 74% in two weeks.

I might be wrong, but it wasn’t the title that moved the needle, it was the cadence of promises kept. Social scientists call this credibility loop a trust spiral: small reliable signals lead to more information sharing, which enables better decisions, which increases reliability again. The stronger the loop, the less you need formal authority. Influence compounds when you reduce friction, define “done,” and show up where work happens. That’s leadership people feel, not just see on an org chart.

Start by drawing your circles of impact and writing names, then message one person from each circle asking for a single candid improvement you can make. Pick two quick, visible promises you can keep this week, deliver them, and close the loop publicly so others see the follow‑through. Block fifteen minutes for a weekly walk‑around; ask what’s slowing people down, capture it in your notes, and remove one friction point. Keep a tiny scoreboard on a metric that matters, and update it at the same time each week. You’ll notice the tone of replies soften and cooperation tick up. Give it a try tonight.