Practical business leadership skills are critical for business success and one of the most important 
things that I do when designing an immersive leadership development program is talk with participants about their leadership challenges and the inhibitors to their success. This week, while working with a group of talented mid-level managers, I heard something that I’ve been hearing for many years if not decades; “my biggest challenge is leading without authority.” In years past, and in a more traditional learning environment, I would have gently discussed all the recommended ways of getting around the obstacle of trying to lead without authority. There is a portfolio of tools that are taught in leading business schools and corporate training programs that include topics such as situational leadership, understanding different styles, horizontal leadership, and skills of delegation. These are great skills and tools but aren’t the most important ones to have in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business world.
The reason I believe this is that matrixed organizations have set up systems where negotiating and coming up with collaborative solutions is the only way to optimize resources and move forward. In my opinion, something is missing and that something are the Business Acumen skills needed to understand how to properly collaborate and lead without authority.
It All Starts with Strategy
Influencing with Business Acumen skills instead if influencing without authority all starts with strategy. I feel very strongly that strategy becomes the currency for influence because leaders need strategy as their compass for creating alignment. For example, let’s look at a company that has the strategy of Brand Leadership like Coca-Cola. According to Forbes, Coke is the #6 most valuable brand in the world and maintains their position through innovation, quality, and strong marketing. Managers within this type of organization can use the power of their strategy to create influence and alignment. In Coke’s case, Brand Managers are not going to wake up one day and decide to implement a low-price, low quality strategy and utilize their “influencing skills” to convince anyone in the organization to follow along their insane plan. Instead, the overarching strategy sets the context and leaders must take their understanding the of strategy and out it into the business terms that will create alignment for the common goals everyone is trying to achieve. In other words, strategy is the currency of influence.
What Business Acumen Skills are Needed to Drive Influence?
Ask 100 people to define Business Acumen and you will get 173 answers. I’ve spent years refining and defining a simple answer. Business acumen is understanding;
- How my company makes money
- How my customers make money
- How my competitors make money
Interestingly enough, anyone in any organization can easily develop these business acumen skills by participating in easy to use, simulation-centric learning journeys that enable participants to learn-by-doing. Once these skills are acquired, managers trying to create influence through business acumen can use the strategy as the direction and finances for the measurement. What I mean by that is finance and financial management becomes the scoreboard of the strategy and manager with strong business acumen skills can use those skills to influence others to drive change and create alignment on decisions. Again, influencing other who don’t report to you with business acumen skills.
How do Managers Identify Success and Celebrate their Influence?
Every company has its own set of strategies, goal, and objectives that every manager must understand, embrace, and utilize to achieve success. These goals and objectives typically fall into one of several business acumen buckets:
- Drive the top line revenues
- Drive margin by managing expenses
- Drive profit by increasing revenues and decreasing costs
By having solid business acumen skills, managers can identify the success drivers of the business strategy and the achievement of the goals and objectives of their team. Once they have achieved success and over-delivered on the goals and objectives, the great leaders will celebrate their success by sharing a celebration with everyone involved including and most importantly the people that were influenced by your business acumen skills.
