Leadership authority comes from person and position at the same time: The position gives you formal power, while your personality, your attitude and the way you handle pressure decide whether others follow you. The video above (in German) goes deeper into the topic.
Leadership authority is recognised influence. Others follow you because they trust your judgement and your reliability. Your character, your self-confidence and your decisions shape it more strongly than the title on your business card.
If you’re moving into a new role right now, you’ll find the preparation in Stepping into a developmental role: 12 ways to prepare. This article focuses on authority.
Ideally, there’s competence behind a position and likeability behind a person. Everyone has both sides, and one is usually more pronounced. Very likeable people often strike us as less competent, very competent people as rather cold.
Research deals with this tension too. In the Harvard Business Review, Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger describe how most leaders put their weight on competence, strength and credentials. Warmth, for its part, builds trust. Influence goes most readily to those who combine both (Connect, Then Lead, HBR 2013).
In everyday terms, the right balance decides. A boss who shines only through expertise gets obedience. Those who are also approachable as people get followers.
In top management, all the threads come together. At the same time, honest feedback becomes rare, because hardly anyone contradicts the boss. The focus is on performance, profitability and the future of the company.
At this level, you need personalities who take a clear stand and make unpopular decisions too. Leadership authority grows there through presence and through collaboration that works: With the wider environment, the stakeholders and your own team.
People at the top are usually measured by potential, ambition and performance. Depending on how an organisation understands leadership, further key skills are added: Self-leadership, building relationships and networks, entrepreneurial thinking and organisational development.
Mutual trust and appreciation develop slowly. Usually they’re lost quickly. So if you’re new at the top, build that trust early and deliberately, in direct conversations with the key people around you.
When you take on new responsibility at the top, check three questions first. How do you deal with power and the pressure of expectations? Do you get honest feedback on your leadership behaviour? And do you know your effect on others?
Clarify your role. Authority needs a clear leadership role and solid executive presence. If you don’t know what you’re responsible for, you won’t be able to explain it to the team either.
Act with composure. Composure shows in small things: A clear no, an openly admitted gap in knowledge, a decision on the promised date.
Point your thinking and actions at goals. A clear focus gives the team direction and makes your priorities predictable.
Keep your word. Every commitment you keep pays into your account, and a broken one costs considerably more. Especially in the first months, the team watches very closely whether announcements have consequences.
Organise feedback. The higher the position, the more deliberately you have to seek honest feedback, for example through a 360-degree feedback.
Your goal in a top role is usually clear: Represent the company competently, with clear standing towards customers, employees and business partners. That makes you a reliable leader people trust.
My position: The org chart gives you formal power, and the people you lead give you authority. It grows with every promise you keep.
If you want to become a top leader, you have to make what already works even more effective: With presence people can feel and greater leadership efficiency. With leadership authority, that shows first in small moments, for example when you still listen under time pressure.
Be careful with the extreme of equating authority with harshness. If all you show is a hard edge, the team grows cautious, and you lose the information you need for good decisions.
With clarity about your role, reliable decisions and genuine interest in the people on your team. In the first months, what counts is whether your words and actions match. Listen more than you announce at the start.
Power comes with the position and allows you to give instructions. Leadership authority rests on recognition: People follow because they trust you. With power you get compliance, with authority usually commitment as well.
Personality plays a part. A large part of authority, though, comes from behaviour you can learn: Presence, clear communication and the way you handle pressure. A 360-degree feedback shows where you stand today.
First get honest feedback so you know the cause. Often warmth is missing, or clarity in the role. A coach helps you see your own effect from the outside and change it deliberately.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: Leadership positioning: How to stand out clearly in a new role · Leadership lives in the minds of those you lead · C-level confidence: Between self-doubt and arrogance
Note: This article was first published on 31.10.2019 and was revised and expanded in October 2026.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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