Informal Leaders, The Double-Edged Sword

26 October, 2018 By Maisara Khedr

This week I was reading about “Change Management”, I came a cross the term “Informal Leaders” and how they affect company change either positively or negatively. I always believed that in any organization, there are people who don’t need a formal position to have influence and they can control the organization reaction to any decission, I was extremely happy finding what support my old beliefs. In this article, I copied the main takeaways from many articles to highlight the concept. You can find list of references at the end of the article.

What does it mean to be informal leader?

Informal leaders are those who influence others without relying on their title or formal position in the heirarchy to do so. They are so powerful in spreading behaviors from the bottom up.

In another words, An informal leader is someone within an organization who is perceived by his peers as worthy of paying attention to, or following. Informal leader does NOT hold a position of power or formal authority over those that choose to follow him or her.

Informal leaders have an uncanny ability to influence people and promote change. They are often charismatic, distinctly loyal and influential.

Informal leaders don’t see themselves as special but do tend to see themselves as being more responsible than others. Their coworkers look up to them and they expect them to have answers.

Informal leaders sit in a sort of neutral, middle ground that makes them accessible to anyone, as employees don’t think of them as management. Management, on the other hand, tends to see them as something akin to colleagues.

Types of informal leaders

Pride Builders
- They are motivators of others and catalysts for improvement around them.
- They understand the motivations of those with whom they work and know how to foster a sense of excellence among others.
- They often have powerful insights about the culture and about what behaviors are likely to lead to improvement.
Examplers
- They are role models. They bring vital behaviors or skills to life.
- They are well respected and are effective peer influencers in the middle and senior management.
Networkers
- They are hubs of personal communication within the organization.
- They know many people, and communicate freely and openly with them.
Early Adopters
- They influence behavior by being the first to understand the value of a new trend.

The power of informal leaders

When informal leaders are working towards achieving the same vision and goals as the formal leaders and the organization itself, they can take a tremendous burden from the backs of managers and formal leaders.

they can also be huge impediments if they start pulling in directions that are in opposition to the direction the formal leaders value. So formal leaders may want to take steps to develop their informal leaders, and keep lines of communication open with them.

Attempting to bribe, coerce or otherwise pressure an informal leader may end up backfiring, as they mostly will “stand against” the formal leader, because informal leader’s power and influence often derives from the perception that he or she has integrity, and stands up for what he or she believes.

One of the best examples that show the power of informal leader (early adopters) comes from Derek Sivers’s TED talk, Please watch it it’s 3 minutes talk!

Derek Sivers - How to start a movement

The main takeaway from this talk is

Leadership is over glorified, the leader gets all the credit. but it was the first follower who transformed the lone nut into a leader. There is no movements without the first follower.

Now let’s imagine that the first two followers didn’t like the movement and decided to face the leader with saracasm!, I think you can feel the power of informal leaders now.

Identifying Informal Leaders

There are several ways by which you can identify and recognize which of your employees is a true leader. Observe group dynamics in formal and informal gatherings. Who asserts themselves? To whom do people listen? Look for the ones who usually are active participants in team meetings. Notice who seems to get a lot of attention in both formal and informal get-togethers. They’re the ones who don’t hesitate to share ideas and information in team meetings and on the organization’s intranet. While technically they are not required to do anything outside their job descriptions, these informal leaders will often go far beyond the call of duty.

True informal leaders are keenly tuned in to what’s happening in the organization. And, since they keep people updated about what’s going on in the workplace, their teammates will turn to them for facts and opinions. Commonly, they will be asked to speak for the group when necessary to interact with other departments or with higher-level managers.

Developing and benefiting from Informal Leaders

Firstly, Remember that one of the elements that gives informal leaders the ability to lead (and inspire) is their perceived independence from the formal authority structure. Perception is very important. If you want to develop informal leaders, the process needs to be subtle and gradual and non-intrusive or the risk is that the informal leader will lose his or her informal influence.

Engage their partnership. Involve your informal leaders at the appropriate time – early-on if you have some latitude in how something is conducted, or later in the timeline if the approach is locked-in. This could be the initiation of a project, an organizational change, or a potentially unpopular reallocation of resources, etc. As time and the situation permits, get their inputs, hear their concerns, but also share the factors you are weighing. With them inside the decision loop, they will have a sense of ownership to be your advocate and support your decisions.

Utilise your early adopting informal leaders. By involving your adopters informal leaders in performance pilots or team developments, you are entrusting them to be the first to experience and evaluate changes and provide their insight into them. By doing so, you are fulfilling their desire to be more involved with important decisions and development, while also gaining a support system for the changes you are intending to implement with a sturdy influencer behind it in your informal leader.

Allow room for people to move beyond traditional boundaries. You and your informal leader will succeed if they are encouraged to create value and build their own sense of ownership across the organisation. Work with them to develop new projects and allow room for them to grow and experiment with what is possible

Consider promotion, but not as a given. While it may seem that promoting informal leaders to formal positions of power makes sense, recognize that not all informal leaders want formal power and authority, and that developing leadership skills in a systematic way may actually undermine that person’s ability to lead informally. You have to ensure the informal leader is consulted throughout the process about their genuine career aspirations.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand the issue of loyalty when figuring out how formal and informal leaders can work together. That’s because these two types of people have different loyalties and the group has different levels of loyalty to each of them. The formal leader’s loyalty is to the organization or team whereas the informal leader’s is generally to the group itself. (The informal leader may be self-involved but needs to please the group to become a leader.) As a result of this, the loyalty of the group tends to be with the informal leader rather than with the formal leader even though the formal leader may be able to issue consequences or provide rewards that the informal leader cannot.

Finally, try to find your informal leaders, Develop them, Appreciate them, Benefit from them and Don’t ever think you can compete against them!