Field Notes

Throughout the course of a day, leaders make numerous requests, assign tasks, and direct team members to engage on critical issues.  

The source of power and influence behind these requests and assignments is reflected in the appeal they make when explaining what they want done. 

Leaders typically invoke either organizational authority or their own relationship with the team member to justify their request. 

Organizational requests sound like this: “I need you to stay late because the company has a hard deadline.” “This is important for the team to make its quarterly goals.” 

In contrast, relationship requests make a personal plea: “I really need your help on this.” “I trust you to get this done.” “You are the best person for this assignment.” 

Most leaders don’t think consciously about how they justify their requests. This is a misstep. People hear the difference. 

The implications of this choice are more meaningful than most leaders realize. 

The difference between “We need to get this done” versus “I need you to do this for me” influences how team members respond and resist. 

An institutional plea draws its power and weight from the organization. 

By using this source of power, leaders position themselves as merely the messenger for assigning the task or making the request, thereby avoiding their full accountability over compliance.  

If the team member pushes back to an organizational request, they are resisting the institution, not the leader. 

This makes organizational requests easier to dismiss or reject and lets leaders off the hook. The organization is faceless and can’t be insulted or offended by any resistance. 

As a result, team members often deprioritize organizational requests, complain loudly about them, or wait them out, hoping they will disappear. 

A personal leadership plea draws its power and weight from the relationship between the leader and the team member, and it carries an entirely different meaning. 

When leaders make the request directly from them, they are saying, in essence, that the task matters to them personally and they are asking the team member to comply because of their relationship and leadership credibility. 

The leader is taking full ownership for compliance and calling in the goodwill they have earned. 

Rejecting or resisting a personal request is tantamount to rejecting the leader. This makes personal requests much more influential and likely to gain acceptance without complaint. 

If people do resist, it is often because they don’t respect the leader or hold them as credible, which is why weak leaders often couch their requests as coming from the organization. 

For leaders who want team members to go above and beyond, institutional requests fall flat. If the request can be viewed as discretionary in any way, then an organizational plea is more likely to be deflected.  

To avoid this, good leaders start with the organizational “Why?” but always pivot to position their requests and assignments as coming directly from them. 

They add context and explain the benefits for the organization or the institutional reasons for compliance, if that makes sense, but they make it clear that the request or assignment is about what they want or need. 

They not only do this to increase compliance, but also because good leadership requires them to work through any resistance or complaint directly, without passing it off on an abstract third party. 

Listen to yourself when asking others to do things. 

How do you frame or couch the request? Do your best not to lean too heavily on the organization to carry the influence. 

Consider becoming highly intentional about why people should follow your instructions. If they don’t do it for you as a leader, it probably means you aren’t as credible as you need to be.