A colleague gently confided in me years ago that some people felt I was not easily approachable.  I was devastated! I had always prided myself on being able to talk to anyone, respecting the worth and value of every person I encountered and open to the ideas, opinions, and thoughts of other people. What could he mean by “people were uncomfortable approaching me?”

"You move too fast and give the impression you don't have time for people," my colleague expounded.

I worked tirelessly to improve my approachability and reinforce the impression that I was available for anyone anytime. 

There were still people who seemed threatened by me and nervous in my presence.

Exasperated, I approached my supervisor. "I'm really struggling," I began. "I've worked my tail off to prove I am a likeable, approachable, normal kind of guy. Yet, there are people who seem afraid of me."

My ex-high school principal supervisor replied with this piece of advice: "No matter how outgoing, friendly, and gregarious you are, there will always be people who are afraid of you simply because of your position and/or your title."

Positional Influence Is Real

Could it really be? 

Absolutely! I've come to call it the Mysterious Principle of Positional Influence.

Psychology professor and thinker Leonard Bickman conducted a fascinating experiment testing the relationship of obedience and authority. Bickman established a scenario where he had a person stop pedestrians in the street and say, "Hey, you see that guy over there at the parking meter. He's over parked but doesn't have any change. Give him a dime." Then the planted person would turn and walk away.

Bickman repeated the experience, only this time the person telling people to give the person a dime was dressed in a security guard's uniform.

The results were dramatically different: 42 percent of the people complied with the plain-clothed man, while a whopping 92 percent complied when the request came from the same man dressed in a security guard uniform.

Caution and Influence

Position can produce a personal evasiveness or caution. It also has the capacity to influence people toward action. Authority, position, title, matter. That's a good thing. . . and a bad thing.

A Gallup organization study, based on interviews over 25 years with 12 million workers, found that an employee's relationship with a leader significantly influenced an employee's length of stay with an organization.

A Saratoga Institute study discovered that a leader's behavior was the number one factor determining an employee's happiness at work.

As the old saying goes, "people leave people, not positions." 

The leader who can build trusting relationships and communicate a belief in peoples' abilities can circumvent the adverse side of title or position.

The late political commentator and presidential adviser David Gergen, writing in “Eyewitness to Power,” suggests: “At the heart of leadership is the leader’s relationship with followers. People will entrust their hopes and dreams to another person only if they think the other is a reliable vessel.”

So, there it is. Leaders can achieve a level of compliance and thus produce results just due to their position. Effective leaders capitalize on their position to build relationships that inspire people to unprecedented levels of performance. It's not simple but the ability to combine authority with relational expertise produces wonderful results.

Questions to Ponder:

How have you relied on your position to get things done without thinking about the impact on the relationship?

What actions can you take to bring these forces together?

What are you doing to build trusting, solid relationships with those you supervise?