Home topics workplace hr-and-staff Hot Tips Managing Staff Hot Tips Managers, you need to make friends with authority Jennifer Garvey Berger May 10, 2012 The ways we perceive powerful figures in our lives can actually shape our own leadership style . Here are some fresh ways to think about your relationship to authority. Some leaders—maybe you?—have a kind of love-hate relationship with authority. Many people are uncomfortable with the male-dominated versions of authority that can look, well, authoritarian. This can create a kind of allergy to authority that becomes a problem when we step into leadership roles ourselves. These leaders are more likely to enter a room of people from their company and tell them, “Pretend I’m not here—I just want to take part in the conversation like one of you.” They then participate in the conversation as though they were among peers—a lovely mindset for the leader to have, but often confusing for those in the conversation. You can’t take off your job title Leadership, however, is often about exercising some kind of authority. It’s about having eyes on you, about having more power to shape a direction, about wandering off for a coffee and finding the rest of the team has joined you. Leaders—especially those uneasy about authority in the first place—think they can take off their job titles. And no matter how much data they get to the contrary, they keep trying to convince others that their opinions and perspectives are no more relevant than any other