How to Build Influence Without Authority
Moving work forward when you're not in charge
Most people think influence comes from a title. From being the person who approves budgets, signs off on decisions, or sits at the top of an org chart.
But that’s not how it actually works.
The person who influences outcomes isn’t always the VP. It’s the engineer everyone trusts to make the right call. The product manager whose opinion quietly shapes roadmaps. The designer who somehow gets stakeholders to see things differently.
These people have something more durable than authority: they have influence that doesn’t require permission.
And the best part? It’s entirely buildable.
Here’s how.
Part 1: Build Trust (Because Without It, You Have Nothing)
Trust is the only real leverage you have when you don’t have authority. You can’t compel people to listen to you. You can’t force them to care about your opinion. All you can do is become someone they want to listen to.
Trust is built through small, repeated behaviors that accumulate over time.
Dependability
This one sounds obvious, but most people get it wrong.
Being dependable doesn’t mean never making commitments because you’re afraid you won’t follow through. It means making thoughtful commitments and then actually delivering on them. Again and again and again.
Every time you say you’ll do something and then do it, you’re making a deposit into your credibility account. Every time you don’t, you’re making a withdrawal.
Do this enough times and people start to assume you’ll come through. That assumption is gold. It means they’ll include you in conversations earlier. They’ll ask for your help on harder problems. They’ll trust you with things that matter.
Consistency
People need to know what version of you they’re going to get.
If you’re encouraging one day and dismissive the next, supportive in meetings but critical in Slack, people won’t know how to work with you. They’ll start managing you instead of collaborating with you.
Being consistent doesn’t mean being boring or never changing your mind. It means your values, your communication style, and your way of showing up are recognizable. Predictable in the best sense.
When people don’t have to wonder which version of you will show up, they can relax. And when they can relax, they can actually hear what you’re saying.
Transparency
Say the same thing behind someone’s back as you would say to their face.
This is harder than it sounds because it requires you to be kind in all scenarios, not just when someone’s in the room.
When people know you operate this way.. when they know your thoughts aren’t a mystery, when they never have to wonder what you really think.. they start treating you like a reliable narrator. Your words carry weight because people know they can trust them.
Transparency isn’t about oversharing or being brutally honest. It’s about integrity. It’s about being the same person in every room.
(how to build influence without authority: https://youtube.com/shorts/l6E4JyqGZIw?feature=share)
Comments are open. If you’ve got something to say or want to share what stood out to you, I’d love to hear it.
Part 2: Establish Expertise (Without Trying to Prove You’re Smart)
Influence doesn’t come from being the smartest person in the room. It comes from being the person who helps others think.
Share Your Thinking
Don’t just share your conclusions. Share how you got there.
Walk people through your reasoning. Show them the tradeoffs you considered, the assumptions you tested, the questions you asked yourself. When you do this generously, without making it about you, something interesting happens.
People start using your frameworks. They start solving problems the way you would solve them. They start implementing the solutions you suggested, sometimes without even realizing it.
That’s influence. Not “do what I say,” but “I think the way you think.”
Build Real Connections
People only value the opinions of people they respect. And they only respect people who understand them.
This is where empathy becomes strategic. When you take the time to understand what someone else is dealing with, for example: the pressures they’re under, the constraints they’re navigating, the outcomes they’re measured on, you stop talking past each other.
You start speaking their language. You start framing your ideas in ways that land. You become someone whose perspective they actively seek out.
Influence is relational. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Communicate Simply
If people can’t understand you, they can’t be influenced by you.
This is where a lot of people trip up, because they think expertise means using jargon, acronyms, and complex frameworks.
Real experts make things simpler, not more complicated. They take messy, tangled ideas and make them clear. They translate complexity into something others can actually use.
The best test: if someone walks away from a conversation with you and can’t explain what you said to someone else, you didn’t communicate simply enough to be influential.
Part 3: Know Where Your Influence Is Likely (and Stop Trying to Boil the Ocean)
Here’s something most people get wrong: they think influence is binary. Either you have it or you don’t.
But influence isn’t evenly distributed. It’s contextual. It’s relational. And it radiates outward in concentric circles.
Circle 1: Your Direct Team
These are the people working on the same project, sitting in the same meetings, solving the same problems. This is where you have the most influence, because they see your work. They know how you operate. They’ve watched you follow through.
If you can’t influence here, you won’t be able to influence anywhere else. This is your foundation.
Circle 2: Cross-Functional Collaborators
These are people you work with, but not every day. They know some of your work. They’ve heard your name come up. They have a partial picture of who you are.
You can build strong influence here, but it takes intentionality. It takes showing up consistently, being helpful without needing something in return, and proving that you understand their world, not just your own.
Circle 3: People in Your Field Who Share Your Values
These are people you’ve never worked with directly, but who care about the same things you do. Maybe they follow your writing, or they saw you speak at a conference, or a mutual connection mentioned your name.
Influence here is possible, but it’s slower. It comes from making your thinking visible. Writing, sharing insights, being generous with what you’ve learned. It comes from becoming a known quantity in your field.
Circle 4: People Who Don’t Know You and Don’t Share Your Values
This is where people most commonly waste their energy.
They try to influence someone who’s never heard of them, who doesn’t care about the same outcomes, who operates from a completely different set of assumptions. And then they wonder why it’s so hard.
It’s hard because you’re starting from zero. No trust, no credibility, no shared context.
Influence here only grows after you’ve expanded the earlier circles. After you have a reputation. After people who do know you can vouch for you.
Don’t start here. Build outward.
Want to share your thoughts? I’d genuinely love to hear them. This space is a conversation, not just a monologue. Hit ‘reply’ or send me a message below.
The Long Game
Influence without authority is not a trick you can learn in a weekend workshop.
It’s a long game, built on trust, clarity, and generosity. It’s about becoming the kind of person whose presence makes conversations better, whose ideas help teams think more clearly, whose integrity makes others feel safe.
It’s about showing up the same way, day after day, until people stop wondering if they can count on you and start assuming they can.
When you build influence this way you don’t need authority. Because the people around you already want to follow your lead.
FYI: I’ve been putting together a weekly newsletter called For People and Planet. It’s where I share stories about climate solutions and the people working on them. If you’d like to read along, you can find it here: forpeopleandpla.net
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With love, Bri Chapman