Leading Without Authority by Keith Ferrazzi [Book Summary – Review]


Do you reach your aims in work? If you are similar to the majority of the people, you possibly consider that if you could attain more resources or have more power of control, you could reach more of your aims. Maybe you imagine having a leader status in which you could once for all begin transforming how things work.

However, the reality is, it is not necessary to delay your dreams in making a big impact on work till you have a leadership position. You can start leading your team or organization currently, no matter what your position is in the firm food chain. No matter if you would like to advance a specific process or encourage a better working condition, this book review will demonstrate to you that it is not necessary to have a formal power to begin assuming responsibility.

Filled with doable suggestions and tricks, this will be your guide in persuading your peers, enhancing your impact, and prompting your leadership adventure.

In the following, we will talk about

  • who is included in your team;
  • the ways to get your peers’ faith; and
  • the reasons why the top leaders always celebrate.

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Chapter 1 – Using your authority power does not enable you to attain your all aims.


What are your ways to attain your aims at work? You might suppose that the more power you own, the simpler it will become. Imagining you are a director, then you would have a group of people at your use to do specifically what you want them to do. However, when you look, it is not that easy. Nowadays, in the office, you should look further at your formal group if you would like to affect your firm.

Think about a case where a Human Resources Manager is given the task of presenting a new bonus pay process through her organization. The Manager entrusts her HR group to apply the new process, but shortly after, she faces an issue: the Sales Manager does not enjoy the process and has determined to develop his separate bonus pay process for his group. Therefore, although the HR Manager has influential power over her group, she nevertheless can attain her aim of a company-wide distribution.

If you would be in the HR Manager’s challenging state, your inherent answer might be going to your director and gripe that you do not have enough authority over the condition to attain your aim. You had no control over the sales group. You cannot direct the Sales Manager in doing what you would like him to do, and without his collaboration, you cannot implement the new process.



Frequently, people who can take your hand in achieving your aims are not in the direct authority of you. What to do if we face a condition like our besieged HR Manager? Rather than looking for having power over more people or resources, you should concentrate on developing original and symbiotic relationships with the peers whose collaboration is required. In the situation of our HR Manager, she would require to begin acting the Sales Manager as a peer, instead of as an enemy to be defeated. The two Managers should talk with each other and investigate the reasons for their debate to come up, and how the bonus process could be applied in a way that satisfies the wants of both the HR and Sales groups.

In the next lines, you will observe how you can construct these symbiotic relationships so that you can start to initiate transformations, although you do not have a power title.


Chapter 2 – The first move to guiding without power title is specifying a problem.


What would you do if you are eager to have a leadership position, however, your managers do not consider that you can have one? He might tell that you are not experienced for long enough in the firm, or that you are not capable of being a leader. In this situation, you can do only one thing – begin leading even though you do not have the power title. 

That is what specifically Zina, a skilled teenage doctor, is determined to do. Zine would like to have a leadership position and change her hospital’s way to care for patients. Unfortunately, she was said that she did not have the long-enough experience in that hospital to have a leadership position.

Good news, however, Zina did not sit down to expect anyone’s allowance to begin leading her hospital to a favorable transformation.

More exactly, search for an issue in your company that no one is currently challenging, and that is badly influencing people in doing things better. For instance, Zina saw that a continual deficiency of medical tools in her ER group. The issue, it looked that Devon, the nurse who takes care of medical tools, never had the information that the equipment was decreasing.



When you have specified such an issue, you can be the person to move and find a solution.

Certainly, this might look like a frightening prospect. Devon had no power over him and Zina was thinking about was to convince him to be with her on this problem. He had a grumpy prestige in his group and was frequently assertive when people doubted his way of doing things.

However, if you are working to lead with no power, you should not begin by withstanding people about what they do wrong. Rather, start by making acquaintance with them, so that they would begin relying on you. Zina began by having lunch with Devon, asking him about his social life beyond work, and telling tales about what she encounters in medicine. Once they had known each other, Devon quit being assertive, and Zina told him the issues she was encountering with the medical tools. Then he worked with her on this issue.

Although Zina did not hold a leadership position, she had already begun to lead like a manager. Therefore, if you would like to get away from the line when talking about promotions, begin displaying to your managers that you can act proactively, and guide people in the office to favorable transformations.


Chapter 3 – You can demonstrate to your peers by being bountiful that you want their well-being.


Can you lead people you do not care about? The writer of this book thinks that you cannot. Caring about group members is a condition for being a leader, no matter with authority or not.

If the individuals you would like to lead do not feel that you do not care about their opinions,  their business life, or their wants, then they will not rely on you. If their reliance on you is missing, this is an obstacle since reliance is the foundation of significant relationships. 

While trying to relate to a possible capitalist for his business, the writer sought ways to be bountiful with him from the very beginning. At the initial gathering, the writer inquired whether he would like to meet with any of the business networks of the writer. When the capitalist rejected his offer, the writer used another way and rather provided the capitalist’s college-age kids with internship opportunities. Eventually, the writer suggested paying the bill of a session with a psychotherapist when he heard that the capitalist had a recent unfortunate divorce! Unbelievably, the capitalist allowed him.



It may seem unconventional to demonstrate this level of bounty to a foreigner, but demonstrating that you care for the other person is very important. If your assistance is candid and you truly wish a long-lasting relationship, it is no harm to be bountiful from the beginning.

Studies have demonstrated that “givers” – people who are bountiful in their time and assets without awaiting any reward in turn – are likely to be the most achieved ones in any specific field.

This is not unexpected. Givers are the people who make others feel valuable. After talking with these people, we feel inspired and affected; their bounty and attention infuse reliability and devotion in everybody they encounter. The writer, for instance, will constantly be grateful to one of his previous managers, who wanted to purchase the flowers for his father’s funeral.

Therefore, before you begin to guide people around you, rather consider how you can fulfill their needs. By demonstrating to your peers, customers, or possible capitalists how much you give importance, you would get their allowance to guide, even though you are not in a powerful position.


Chapter 4 – Three golden principles will transform every worker into a “change leader”.


Is there a way for you to change things rapidly? Let’s answer this question with the subsequent case. The US retail firm Target was floundering in 2016. Customer traffic in their stores was declining fastly, and specialists were forecasting they are about to permanently shut down their doors.

However, only in three years, Target changed this decline. They even made the most profit in their history in the year 2019. What was their hidden strategy? Easy. They allowed their employees to lead even though they are not in authority positions.

The first principle is “radical inclusion”. In other words, letting people from diverse backgrounds speak in the firm to obtain better opinions, inventions, and remedies.

In the endeavor to elevate their bottom line, Target determined to create and release more than a hundred fresh Target brands to be sold in Target stores. This was not only a major venture but it also included almost all departments to the brand-building process, from the sales and marketing groups to the law department. Everybody was included in debates from earlier on to make certain that the eventual brands mirror the opinion of all employees in the retailer.



More to the radical inclusion, Target’s second principle was the “bold input”. In other words, they looked for sincere feedback from many working in the company, even at the early stages of build-up. Therefore, rather than the design team mailing the completed brands for confirmation and workers in other teams giving little responses with some comments, everybody could hop in with opinions at any stage of the design procedure. Like the phrase “bold” tells, this attitude requires being brave. The design group needs to undertake criticism and feedback about their designs and do not let them influence their ingenuity and spirit.

Lastly, Target’s third principle was concentrating on “agility”. They determined that they desired their new brands to be prepared in several months, not years. Attaining this could be enabled by designing weekly, fast-gathering meetings that saw people from all over the firm gather to remove barriers and fix problems in real-time. For example, in these meetings, the law group would control branding databases as new ideas pop up, to make sure for any legal problems that could occur as the process continues further.

If you desire your firm to be agile, it is crucial to gather frequently and to be ready for making rapid, influential decisions in those gatherings.


Chapter 5 – Real leaders are bountiful and brave with their criticisms.


Who owns the job of mentoring and giving feedback to workers? You might suppose it is a director’s business, not yours. For example, when you recognized that your peer could advance her efficiency, you might shrug of the shoulders, and consider that it is not your business to tell her what is not well-functioning in her way. You should think twice because a primary principle of guiding with no power is mentoring your peers and giving them feedback.

Even though it might sound strange to offer your peers mentoring and yield feedback, in some places, it is the standard. For instance, on a trip to a military academy, the writer was surprised to see how students in training encourage each other in each military exercise and regularly advise each other on what to do better next time.

If you feel disturbed giving your coworkers real feedback about their yield and skills, then question yourself about the root of this disturbance. Is it just because of the fear of making other people upset? If yes, then do not allow this fright to prevent you. In your individual life, you possibly experienced providing others with precious feedback in a delicate manner. For instance, giving advice and suggestions is often a huge piece of being a mother or dad or a great friend. Therefore, why would you prevent yourself in the office when you recognize a peer could do better with your feedback?



The reality is that we do not frequently give our peers sincere feedback since we do not desire to endanger being too concerned or bringing stress by making them sad.

Rather, we choose to keep it safe and remain on the individual’s good side, even if we realize that they could take advantage of people who are sincere to them. We would instead be kind. However, this kindness can also be named “manipulative insincerity”, and its root is not good. Manipulative insincerity suggests that you do not think about the individual, or her professional life, to be honest with her. Therefore, you should begin moving with “radical candor”, in other words, undertaking the conclusions and explaining to the individual about your real thoughts.

However, before moving with radical candor, you need to want the individual’s allowance to provide feedback. Your peer might not desire you to tell it, even though it is frequently good to get some feedback about efficiency. This is the reason for asking the individual if they are open to your opinions and provide you with an exact time and space to speak.


Chapter 6 – Lead with no authority by congratulating your peers.


One of the writer’s companions is a CEO who always looks like writing on the phone. When the writer jokingly questioned him about how he got anything finished, the CEO said that it was often a worker on the other end of the line. However, curiously, he did not call his workers to tell them what to do or explain the wrong parts of their work. Rather, he phoned them to tell them how an excellent job they did. 

This leader was conscious about the strength of positivity well and perceived it as his business to stimulate people working for him by continuously complimenting their successes, even though they are little things.

Importantly, when he could not find something commendable for some of his employees, this CEO would rather browse social media and find something that they had recently accomplished in their individual lives and could celebrate them.



Even though this type of attitude might seem very intimate and ambiguous, there is good proof that it can make your bottom line better too.

Studies demonstrated that when individuals feel good about their lives and themselves, they immediately get more efficient and greater at finding solutions. For example, researchers discovered that when doctors were given a small thing like candy as a gift just before consulted by a patient, they came up with more rapid and more correct diagnoses than doctors who were not gifted. This evidenced that even the littlest marks of gratitude can improve job yield.

Praising your peers is a great path to make them feel better and improve their yield. You should only be certain that your way of praising is correct that the receiver will admire. Although lots of people enjoy being congratulated in front of other people more than anything, some of your peers might feel inherently disturbed to be the focus of interest. If the individual you are going to celebrate is an introvert, and you know that, take time to mail him a nice email or a handwritten paper of appreciation.

Eventually, you should not fear being creative when you are celebrating others. The writer of this book is acquainted with a leader who congratulated a worker by calling the worker’s father and putting a voice message on his answering machine, expressing gratitude for raising such an excellent person. The worker’s father was so affected that he retained the message on his device for the remaining of his life.


Chapter 7 – Even though you have authority, you cannot lead transformations solely by yourself.


You cannot always function alone. The writer was once wanted to mentor a top-notch actress who had a TV show. The ratings of the program were great, however, there was an issue. The actress’s poor behavior to the team and crew was causing bad conditions on set. In conclusion, the channel was intimidating to stop the broadcast.

To retain her show, she should have transformed her attitudes, and transformed the conditions in the workplace.

All was her behaviors and continuous attacks on people who could not meet her perfectionist ideals that caused the issues on the set. Therefore, the actress should have a central team of individuals for her to tell if she ever turns back into her old behaviors, and to assist her and everybody else to retain the nice power in the set. That means, not only did the actress should have been a leader, but also needed others to provide her with assistance to influence transformations.



If you are working to lead transformations with no authority, you should authorize others to be leaders as well. Only a sole individual cannot be everywhere to guide every little detail that could finally bring a greater cultural transformation.

To guide this king of transformation, the actress employed two additional individuals on the set, involving another actor she trusted, as well as a manufacturer, to lead advancement.

To make certain that they were at the same point, the three designed a list of leading rules to perform at the time they arrive at work. These involved principles like no gossip after others, being certain that everybody’s opinions are taken, and courteously speaking with others. Shortly afterward, the actor and the manufacturer not only started to inspire their peers to apply these rules but also stimulated those on the set to whom they felt the closest to be change agents too. In conclusion, it was not it did not take long for everybody who worked on the TV show to take on responsibility for creating a more positive environment.


Leading Without Authority: How Every One of Us Can Build Trust, Create Candor, Energize Our Teams, and Make a Difference by Keith Ferrazzi Book Summary – Review


True leadership does not mean giving instructions to people. It means cooperation and reciprocal interests. By keeping this in mind, you do not need to be a director to begin leading transformations. Once you have found the individuals who are pieces of your bigger group, you can start constructing faithful relationships with theö. These relationships can then be benefited to improve your impact on the company and assist you to attain your aims.

Trust your talented colleagues.

Often it is beneficial to direct individuals that are not in your team. Possibly there is somebody in your company with whom you contacted not so much, however, had excellent knowledge and nice opinions whenever you talked. Question yourself whether you can find a chance to get better acquainted with this person, possibly by constructing a task that both of you could finish together. Developing greater relationships with the most vibrant individuals in the office would assist you to enhance your impact and leadership over more parts of the company.


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Savaş Ateş

I'm a software engineer. I like reading books and writing summaries. I like to play soccer too :) Good Reads Profile: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/106467014-sava-ate

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