Trying to manage projects is sometimes rather like balancing on a tightrope – striving to fulfill competing demands and objectives with a minimum of control. For many project managers, this precarious balancing act is made fractionally more complex by the lack of direct command of those they lead and depend on. Increasingly, then, this balance has to be between influence and command, and that’s what a good deal of contemporary project management is about. Getting that balance right involves a subtle mix of skills, strategies and steps, and requires patience.
A key challenge here is the problem of delivery: making sure deliverables get produced on time and of the right standard. Since project managers cannot give orders, they have to collectively motivate the team. This often requires marshalling superior organizational skills and communication rather than just telling people to do things. Maybe a project manager needs to make sure a critical component is delivered by a deadline, but this request is competing with a range of other priorities that team members’ own managers are expecting them to meet. Perhaps there are communication strategies that can reinforce a sense of ownership and stake in the project. Maybe the problem of ensuring a certain level of quality is not solved by inspection, and management cannot directly oversee work; it’s solved because everyone in the team cares about producing the best possible product and takes pride in what they do. This is born out of culture, often by leading by example, and through regular constructive feedback.
In this article we will look at the unique issues that project managers deal with when they operate without direct authority. We will outline essential competencies such as delivering, maintaining quality and managing processes, and we will show how to overcome the relevant difficulties step by step. Finally, we will summarize our analysis with evidence-based strategies and examples in order to give project managers the answers they need to be successful in creating the right conditions for a project to flourish. This article will show how building close relationships, communicating well and delegating will help you master your challenges.
Defining Project Management
Project managers often face a complex array of responsibilities that range from delivery, quality and processes to being responsible for their group members. However, lacking authority over the latter group makes this particularly tricky. This role is often seen as abhorrent due to this blend of responsibilities, so here’s a breakdown.
Key Responsibilities: Delivery
At the core of the project manager’s role is delivery: the output of a project, what’s being delivered on time and within budget. With no line authority, it calls for strong organizational skills and explicit communication. For example, enabling the avoidance of ‘bikeshedding’ (a process whereby people latch onto particular parts of a project, exerting power over them even if they are ancillary), by demonstrating the alignment of their work process to the project outcome. This alignment keeps the team focused and keeps the process moving.
For example, research has clearly shown that project management techniques such as clear communication and assigning definite responsibilities to each worker dramatically improve project delivery (Dao, 2020). Ascertaining roles and responsibilities make clear what is meant by those roles (explicit expectations), what responsibilities are attached to those roles (explicit roles), and what consequences ensue for failure to fulfil responsibilities and expectations (explicit consequences) – all of which go a long way towards reducing the potential for confusion present in any complex project involving many players.
Key Responsibilities: Quality
Quality management ensures that the project delivers what it promises to deliver to stakeholders. Keeping quality high means paying very close attention to all aspects of tracking, using formal systems to identify potential issues early on and communicating openly whenever there is a surprise. When you have less control over the team, however, embedding a quality mentality is even more important: this means creating a culture where team members are proud of their work and committed to doing whatever it takes to make it better.
Practices such as leading by example – ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ – can have an important escalatory effect: ‘See how committed I am to quality. See how seriously I take care and my attention to detail. Furthermore, providing constructive feedback through regular check-ins can help keep everyone aligned with the quality objectives.
Key Responsibilities: Processes
Process management takes this further by being responsible for designing, implementing and controlling the workflows that help a project run smoothly. This is less about just imposing procedures on work-teams, and more about the never-ending task of improving the processes to adjust to the changing needs of the project. Without formal authority, project managers are reliant on their influence and ability to ‘sell’ those processes.
This can be aided by a project manager’s organizational skills: having clear, standardized ways of doing things, and encouraging the team to follow these processes, can enable more repeatable and predictable project outcomes (University, 2024). The acts of standardization and delegation are made more effective through openness to feedback from the team about how the processes might be improved in practice.
Navigating Challenges Without Direct Authority
Making people follow you when you have no standing orders over them is one of the classic problems for project managers. They do not have access to formal power. Their ability to motivate people is based on pure social skills and their speaking ability.
For example, delegation becomes a more nuanced practice. Good delegation involves not just divesting ourselves of work but doing so in a way that gives and values employees. Here’s some practical advice for delegating well:
Identify tasks suitable for delegation: Assess which tasks align with team members’ strengths and career goals (Business Insights Blog, 2020).
Clarify the desired outcome: Ensure every delegated task comes with a clear understanding of what success looks like and the timeline for completion.
Provide necessary resources: Equip your team with the tools, training, and authority required to complete their tasks successfully.
Establish a communication channel: Set up regular check-ins to monitor progress and provide guidance without micromanaging.
Allow for failure: Create a safe environment where making mistakes is seen as a learning opportunity rather than a reprimand.
Building Stronger Relationships
Equally important is cultivating bonds within the team. As project managers lack direct authority, forging relationships can give them great influence. They should conduct a lot of listening, demonstrate empathy and care about what their staff have to say.
Acknowledgments go a long way in creating goodwill. You can easily and inexpensively express your thanks or appreciation to team members for even the smallest things they do. At home, as part of my leaving routine, I would always greet that wonderful person and thank him. Saying ‘thank you’ to staff members recognizes their efforts and builds camaraderie in the team (Dao, 2020).
Balancing Personal and Social Responsibility
Balancing the tightrope of personal responsibility and social responsibility requires a project manager to be mindful of both individual and collective needs. One way to generate more buy-in from your team is through greater autonomy – that is, giving them more individual responsibility, allowing them to take ownership of their work. In addition to these individual responsibilities, another approach is by linking the team’s project to broader organizational or societal goals, which creates a shared sense of purpose and commitment.
By encouraging team members to take personal responsibility for their work and by empowering them to invent or find new ways to achieve those goals, positive feelings are elicited. Accountability, at the same time, allows team members to stay focused on project goals and organizational values.
Leveraging Data and Empirical Evidence
Evidence-based approaches rooted in empirical evidence are the hallmark of feasible and successful project management strategies. First, utilizing sources of data to make decisions for the project aligns those decisions with project goals and stakeholder expectations. For example, conducting regular performance reviews and evaluations (i.e., evidence) of performance can suggest where improvements should be made. Secondly, such an evidence-based approach can enhance the credibility and trust that project managers hold within their teams.
Strategies can also be enhanced by incorporating research findings and best practices from related industries. For example, appreciating that management might entail planning, organizing, leading and controlling can provide a robust scaffolding for engaging with project complexities (University, 2024).
Mastering Indirect Management
When you’re accountable for a project but don’t have direct authority over your team, it can be hard to make sure that the work is delivered, of a good quality, and in accordance with established processes. Your ability to influence people in these situations will be based heavily on your relationship-building skills, your ability to showcase your expertise and knowledge of the organization.
One of the essential things to know in dealing with that kind of context is that being ‘just a functional lead’ – that is, having influence without authority (Influence Without Authority, n.d.) – means you can’t boss people around, but you still need to direct the project and make it happen.
Suppose, for instance, you’re asked to lead a project but don’t have any direct reports. Since the team members don’t work for you, they’re likely to prioritize their actions based on the individual demands of their bosses – rather than according to what’s needed for your project. This kind of situation demands a shift from classic authority-based leadership to more collaborative leadership.
One thing you can do is draw on your mastery. Knowledge is another form of power, and being able to demonstrate your broad knowledge of your area clearly and convincingly is one way to establish authority. If your team can see that you have a depth of experience that can help them do their jobs, they’re more likely to trust your judgments about decision-making, and to work collaboratively with you and your teammates. If people think you ‘know your stuff’, chances are better that they’ll want to ‘follow you’ rather than ‘lead you’.
But why stop at speaking your mind and being right? Building trusting relationships with each other is essential, too. When you invest in knowing your colleagues – their professional and personal reasons for doing their job – it becomes much easier for everyone to work together. And research shows that emotional intelligence can help, as a leader who is able to recognize and manage their own emotions and those of the other team members is likely to get better results from their team. Open, direct conversations with free and active listening, as well as a keen interest in the wellbeing of each of your team members, can transform those who used to be ‘just an employee’ into true allies, ‘insiders’ eager to contribute fully to the project.
Another one is your understanding of how your organization does business – that is the way departments are structured, how processes work, and who the influential players really are internally. Understanding how decisions are made about resource allocation and who approves the budget can help you structure your project in such a way that you can receive the necessary support and resources to succeed.
Reading all the briefing notes you can, attending cross-departmental meetings, and getting to know ‘important’ people are all examples of knowledge work because they expand your own organizational knowledge while spreading information about you as someone capable of moving things along quickly — someone whose agenda others perceive as connected to larger strategic goals.
Cooperation with external stakeholders can also be important. Cultivating good relations with other departments or even vendors or customers may allow an internal hedgehog to gain more influence over the group – if team members see that you have allies outside the project team that are important from the perspective of the wider organization, they will be more likely to take your project seriously, and to expend effort in helping you to achieve your goals.
Relational and organizational tactics remain at the center of your tool kit. That said, you might sometimes find that these tactics aren’t enough because some members of the team simply won’t buy in. If that happens, consider getting your boss involved. If your boss can remind team members that you were assigned to lead the project and should be supported, this might reinforce the authority you have informally.
If you’re tasked with informal managerial duties on an ongoing basis, speak to your manager about changing your title. A job title that accurately captures your leadership responsibilities will ensure your agenda carries more weight than it might otherwise and will help project management to flow more smoothly. Such positional authority, a term coined in Harvard Business Review in 2009, will help to close the cooperation gap, showing that performing as directed isn’t optional.
Balancing between these two elements is a matter of nuance, a matter of combining soft skills, such the use of emotional intelligence, with strategies based on strategic maneuvers that are grounded in organizational acumen. When you have direct authority, your path to leadership is clear. But with indirect management, you often need to be more creative, patient and persistent.
Moving past individual projects, honing leadership skills without formal authority increases the prospects of current projects you are entrusted with – but suggests your potential for promotion in the hierarchy. Whatever structure the organization follows, you’ll shine as a versatile and competent leader by showing flexibility in adopting low-power emerge craft.
To sum up, when managing a project without direct authority over your team:
- Leverage your expertise to establish credibility.
- Build strong relationships to foster trust and cooperation.
- Understand organizational processes to navigate complexities effectively.
- Develop a network of external collaborators to enhance your influence.
- Seek supervisory reinforcement or a suitable title adjustment if necessary.
By focusing on these areas, you can ensure your project progresses smoothly, achieving high-quality outcomes even when you’re operating without the conventional trappings of authority.
The Matrix Organization
Matrix organizational structures are set up to leverage the expertise of employees while effectively promoting project team collaboration. Project managers often struggle in matrix organizations, especially when they are responsible for delivery, quality and processes but do not have direct oversight of the team.
An important first step in this regard is to clarify what a matrix organization comprises. In a matrix organization, you typically have dual reporting lines. Employees report both to functional managers and to project managers. The efficacy of the matrix organization lies in the synergistic use of the best of both worlds: expertise in functional domains and a focus on the ‘project at hand’. The objective of this structure is to minimize resource wastage, remain dynamic and facilitative of cross-functional minds.
But this dual-reporting reality brings challenges, particularly with regard to authority. Project managers do not possess – cannot even legitimately claim – the traditional authority ascribed to functional managers because they often hold no formal authority over anyone on their project teams. (Remember, functional managers report up the hierarchy, who in turn report up; project managers don’t officially manage anyone.) This means that some of the regular, permissible activities that come with the specified-outcome, multi-tasking nature of projects, such as team members being late or sloppy, can create problems that the project manager must deal with. And without formal authority, the project manager relies on negotiation, cajoling, persuasion, nuanced influencing, and relationship-building in guiding team efforts.
Besides communication barriers, which can be very high due to the fact than matrix team members often come from various departments, a project manager of a matrix organization will have to act as a mediator in some cases, making sure that there is no misunderstanding between different functional units and that information flows in a proper fashion. Misunderstandings may lead to loss of time, procedural disputes and conflicts. Minimizing risks and having good internal communication will be a key skill that a manager in a matrix organization should possess.
Even more accountability problems arise in more complex matrix environments. An employee who reports to several supervisors may find herself in a situation where those supervisors are not certain who is accountable for what. Moreover, project leaders may face difficulties trying to hold their project team members accountable for project work when team members may have to give highest priority to tasks assigned by their functional managers. Establishing the goals and responsibilities of individual team members at the beginning of a project is therefore an important way of trying to avoid accountability problems.
Sharing resources in a matrix is another challenge for project managers. The typical organization structure is siloed, with resources (people and money) managed by the functional organizations that are responsible for the specialization. The project manager has to negotiate with the functional managers to obtain resources for the project, which is subject to competition. Planning resources has much to do with knowing how to bargain through the organization’s resource constraints.
The team may work from home, or may be physically together but without direct oversight, which adds another challenge. Motivation and morale may suffer when the team is spread thin by a large number of projects and must summon enthusiasm and engagement for them. Often, the project manager has to come up with motivational models to maintain the teams to keep motivation strong. Bringing recognition for good work, positive feedback and a sense of team culture could all build momentum to sustain motivation.
In short, though matrix organizational structures can offer a great deal – including more efficient use of resources, flexibility, increased speed and more effective communication – they present a number of unique challenges for project managers. Some of these could be handled better by providing more information and having a more balanced approach to management, focusing on influence rather than authority, ensuring clear communication, establishing shared standards for accountability, better managing resources and being more proactive in engaging with team morale. As these structures continue to evolve and become more informal, it is important to remember that reliance on personal experience rather than solid empirical evidence or research is of little value. If there is to be discussion and reflection on approaches, then the fact base must be there to inform and refine those approaches (Harvard Business Review, 1978).
Summary and Future Directions
In this article we have explored the high wire balancing act faced by delivery, quality and process managers who do not lead staff in orthodox hierarchical fashion.
First, we considered the subject’s primary responsibility of timely and cost-effective delivery. ‘Order and communication’ are the charters of the project manager, who must use ‘exceptional organizational skills and clear communication’ to get team members to work towards project aims – or, as business researchers say, creating ‘commitments in order to leverage team members’ ownership of the project’. Appropriate behavior towards ‘owners … reduces commissioning and delivery times, and boosts clients’ satisfaction’.
Another pillar of the PM role was quality management. That is, encouraging high standards of work, building a culture of continuous improvement without overseeing the day-to-day, and maintaining the focus on the highest level of quality with team members, as leaders and coaches. This kind of environment can nurture strong cohesion among project team members.
We also looked at the role of process management. Here, project managers devise and enforce workflows to ensure smooth operation. They must communicate why their process is valuable and draw on their organizational savviness because they have little or no authority. Additionally, they must continually iterate on their process based on team feedback.
Navigating these responsibilities without having formal power means that influence matters, while interpersonal skills, such as active listening, empathy and clear communication, become vital tools in the tool bag. Robust relationships within the team bring a ‘reservoir’ of rapport that supports a project manager’s deliberate exercise of soft power, as team members are more likely to commit to the success of a project out of trust and a sense of camaraderie, even if depending on the project manager as opposed to managing them.
You might not have formal authority on a project but just a specialization or a mandate. Working without authority can be full of pitfalls; people can misunderstand each other, have conflicting goals, blame or complain about others not acting, and so on. Some of these issues can be anticipated and mitigated by good project management – clear scope with agreed-upon deliverables, routine check-ins, frameworks for role definitions and accountability, and proactively creating a team culture that enables everyone to contribute. Other times, you might need to call in reinforcements, such as going to your supervisor to work out your team’s authority. Or perhaps you need a new title that accurately describes what you do.
More broadly, the ability to be an effective indirect manager is not only a skill for short-term project success but also a longer-term career one, building a chameleonic skill base that enables project managers to straddle traditional hierarchical boundaries as agile and robust leaders in their organizations.
In the context of competing efforts for direct control, how can we apply these lessons to the new professional normal and expand the toolkit of project management influence? How can project managers deepen influence techniques and prepare for increasingly dynamic work worlds by being responsive yet always setting themselves up for the greatest likelihood of success on their assignments?
References
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GeeksforGeeks. (2023). Matrix Organization Meaning, Features, Suitability, Advantages and Disadvantages. GeeksforGeeks. Retrieved from https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/matrix-organisation-meaning-features-suitability-advantages-and-disadvantages/
HBR. (1978). Problems of Matrix Organizations. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1978/05/problems-of-matrix-organizations
Online Business School. (2019). How to Influence Without Authority in the Workplace. Business Insights Blog. Retrieved from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/influence-without-authority
Harvard Business School Online. (2020). How to Delegate Effectively: 9 Tips for Managers. Business Insights Blog. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-delegate-effectively
American InterContinental University. (2024). The Four Functions of Management: What Managers Need to Know. American InterContinental University. Retrieved from https://www.aiuniv.edu/degrees/business/articles/functions-of-management
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THNK School of Leadership. (n.d.). Influence without authority. Retrieved from https://www.thnk.org/blog/influence-without-authority/