How can you use radical transparency to manufacture authority?
My on-campus job during college was to build sets for the theater program. I had done this sort of work in high school, and building sets at a local community theater was one of my summer jobs. At the college, the technical director was our ultimate boss, and she rarely left her office, instead delegating direct supervision of the student workers to a full-time assistant. For some reason, though, during my sophomore year there was no permanent assistant, so the technical director turned to me as the most experienced set builder — all of 18 years old — to get things done.
To put this in perspective, I was paid no more money than any other student worker. I also had no new title, and no one was informed about my “special” status. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I was apparently very stupid.
Every day, I would go to the technical director’s office to learn what needed to be done. I was then charged with passing that info onto the other student workers — my peers — organizing their work, and keeping them on task.
If you know anything about systems and adolescents, you know what happened next. Several of the student workers literally laughed in my face. They just refused to do anything but hang out long enough to get a paycheck. I knew enough to realize that tattling to our boss would work only once and would make me look even weaker than I was. Plus, I was too self-conscious to admit my weakness, so I was stuck holding the bag.
It was a miserable year, but I learned an important lesson: having responsibility without authority is entirely untenable. It’s like nailing someone’s shoes to the floor and expecting them to fetch you a coffee. I vowed then and there to never allow myself to be put in that position again. If you have ever had a job, though, you probably already know I was forced to break that vow over and over.
The Power of Radical Transparency
Decades later, when I was a dean at a university, I was put in charge of the study abroad program, which I have written about before. Our study abroad was strictly short-term faculty-led trips rather than individual students being sent abroad for an entire semester. When my boss conferred the role upon me, like my college technical director, he did not bother to announce my new responsibilities to the university, so I did not even have the illusion of his authority behind me. Yes, I was a dean, but my supervision only extended to my own school faculty while the study abroad program was university wide. I needed a strategy.
The similarities to my undergraduate experience were striking. I knew could bluster and threaten all I wanted, but I had a massive responsibility with nearly zero power. Another similarity: although this duty was a significant increase to my workload, I had no additional title and received no additional compensation.
This time, though, I was a bit smarter. The first thing I did was try to nail down all the different manifestations of what could be called “study abroad” at that university. My discoveries were shocking and a little terrifying. For instance, I found that some faculty had taken it upon themselves to arrange summer and spring break student trips through third-party vendors without informing anyone at the university. In other words, we were sending students and faculty abroad with no institutional awareness of doing so. The liability risks alone made my head swim.
To be clear, these faculty were not aiming to be underhanded or insubordinate. As far as they were concerned, they were merely trying to enhance their students’ educational experience. Because my predecessor in heading up study abroad was inept and always led with “no,” these folks just found ways to work around him. Others were more responsible and ran their trips through the business office, but even they did not appear on any comprehensive list of study abroad trips because there was no such list. We had no idea how many students, faculty, or staff went abroad.
My task was to get all these people on the same page or at least in the same book. The obvious way to do that would be to create a new system, complete with forms and processes, that would put controls on our study abroad offerings and protect our students and faculty as well as the university. I could whip all that up in no time and have it in place right away.
I also knew that such a system would fail. Imposing new bureaucratic restraints would simply encourage the faculty to continue to find workarounds.
Instead, I turned to my old friends — transparency and openness. I gathered every faculty and staff member who had shown any interest in study abroad (except my feckless predecessor!) for a big meeting. It took a tremendous effort and all the good will and political capital I could muster to get those people in a room together.
Predictably, they were mostly surly, untrusting, and even hostile. Transparency got them in the room, but only radical transparency could seal the deal. I started the meeting by promising that I had no interest in shutting down any of their trips and programs, which — combined with my reputation for candor and straight talk — immediately relieved much of the tension. Then I leveled with them, describing just how limited my authority over them was and how I knew they could simply evade my efforts and how that could put the students and the institution in danger — radical transparency. They were disarmed by my extreme forthrightness and much of their hostility perished in that room.
We decided to create a committee that would welcome anyone inclined to participate. The goal was to set people up for success by having them collaborate, and it grew organically. In fact, it was the only committee I was ever involved with that people continually asked to join!
We worked on projects, like planning our first ever study abroad fair where all these people could strut their stuff. We also ran through case studies of student trips gone bad and planned how we would handle a crisis, which came in handy when one of our own trips met with disaster.
To make it all hang together, I continued to practice radical transparency, and I left individual autonomy intact. If someone wanted to run a trip their way, I let them so long as they gave me their itineraries and rosters and used the business office to collect and disperse funds. If I thought someone was going about it in the wrong way, I did not chide them or shut them down. Instead, I partnered them with a peer I could trust to teach best practices.
The study abroad program grew even more robust. It was way more than I could handle, but the giant (and ever-growing!) committee kept it in check. Frankly the whole study abroad program was messy, but it worked.
What I Learned
One takeaway from these two tales is that giving someone responsibility without authority generally sets them up for failure. The other is that radical transparency, opening yourself to allowing others to see your vulnerability, is actually a great strength.
By practicing radical transparency, I was able to manufacture enough authority to get everyone on board with study abroad. Otherwise, it would have ended much as my experience in the theater scene shop in college: with me holding the bag and everyone laughing.
Responsibility without authority is a mess. If you are a boss, never ever put anyone in that situation. Never. If you are stuck with a crappy boss who subjects you to such abuse, consider embracing the mess and turning your greatest disadvantage into an advantage by owning it. Radical transparency — openly sharing your vulnerability — can be a powerful tool to win friends and allies and self-generate authority while keeping your integrity intact.
How do you handle situations of great responsibility with no authority? Do you ever put others in that untenable situation?
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