They don't report to me, but I still need their support.
It is one of the most common things I hear from senior leaders in coaching sessions, and one of the defining moments in executive leadership.
The higher a leader progresses, the less the work runs through formal reporting lines. The most consequential decisions happen across functions, business units, regions, and competing priorities. You may need Finance to back an investment, Technology to accelerate delivery, HR to enable change, Operations to redesign a process, Legal to manage risk. None of these teams’ report to you. Your success still depends on their commitment.
This is where the coaching conversation shifts. Away from authority. Toward influence.
Many leaders assume influence comes from having the strongest argument, or the most senior title. In my experience coaching executives across matrixed organisations, sustainable influence is built long before the meeting begins. It rests on five pillars.
1. Credibility
People trust your judgment because your expertise is respected and your actions are consistent with what you say. Credibility is not claimed. It is observed, over time, by the people whose support you will eventually need.
2. Relationships
Influence travels at the speed of trust. Leaders who invest in relationships before they need them create far greater momentum when priorities compete and decisions have to move quickly.
3. Empathy
The most effective influencers do not start with their own agenda. They start by understanding the pressures, incentives, and constraints the other person is already operating under. This is a diagnostic skill, not a personality trait. It requires actively mapping what another function is measured on before asking anything of them.
4. Alignment
Rather than asking "How do I get people to support my initiative?" the more useful question is "How do we create a shared outcome that benefits us both?" This is the core logic of what Allan Cohen and David Bradford call the Exchange Model in Influence Without Authority: cooperation is built by identifying what the other person values, their "currency," and offering something of genuine worth in return, rather than by leveraging position.
5. Consistency
Influence is not built through one compelling presentation. It is earned through repeated behaviour that demonstrates integrity, reliability, and follow-through, long after anyone is watching.
These pillars are not new theory dressed in coaching language. They sit on decades of research into how power and influence operate inside organisations.
French and Raven's foundational 1959 study identified five bases of power: coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert. Coercive, reward, and legitimate power depend on formal position. Referent and expert power do not. The influence that outlasts a change in reporting structure is built on competence and relationships, not rank.
Robert Cialdini's research adds a complementary angle. People are more readily influenced by those they perceive as credible experts and those they trust, not simply those who hold power over them.
I worked with a leader who needed a peer function's support for a system change that competed directly with that function's own roadmap. His first instinct was to build a stronger business case and present it more persuasively. The case did not move anyone. What moved the peer function was a different question: what would make this change also solve a problem on their side. Once he understood their real constraint, the initiative became a shared outcome rather than a request for a favour. The project got resourced within two weeks.
That is the difference between influence built on argument and influence built on alignment. The first asks someone to say yes to you. The second removes the reason they needed to say no.
A simple reflection:
→ If your job title disappeared tomorrow, who would still choose to follow your lead?
That answer often reveals your greatest source of influence.