#Leadership : Leading Horizontally Could Take You to The Top…To Advance to a More Senior Management Position, the Ability to “Play Well” With your Peers is Vitally Important –Meeting your Targets is Not Enough.

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In this article, we will suggest three keys ways to work more effectively with your colleagues and perhaps, change the types of relationships you are having in the workplace.

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Effectively leading horizontally is likely to increase your sphere of influence within your organization, enhance your productivity, better the organization, and it may just result in you experiencing more job satisfaction.

Over the years, scholars and business journalists have written several articles and books on how to “manage up” in the context of organizations – specifically how to manage relationships with supervisors. For example, see Karl’s recent blog post . Our bosses naturally want to work with us since we help them, solve their problems, and in our more lucid moments, accomplish seemingly unattainable feats.   It goes without saying that our first responsibility as a manager is to the people that work for us. There are also countless books and articles about how leaders within organizations can mobilize employees to fulfill a vision. Each of these situations requires individuals to manage a vertical relationship.

 

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The thing is that you don’t have legitimate power or a superior title over your peers, and they may not even work in your division; nonetheless, you depend on them to successfully complete your job and demonstrate you’re ready for middle and senior management. One could frame the question in the following manner: “How should one lead horizontally?” By leading horizontally, we refer to the ability of individuals to exercise their power of personal influence with people of equal or similar status within their organization.

There are three things to keep in mind when attempting to lead horizontally:

1) Identify precisely what the other person needs from you;

2) Identify ways that the other person can benefit from helping you;

3) Identify ways that you can create a client-server relationship with that person, rather than just a peer, or colleague-relationship of equal status. Underlying these ideas is the notion of trust. To have a healthy and influential working relationship, you will have to cultivate trust by being open and honest with your colleagues.

What does he or she need from you?

Power in any relationship is based on the relative needs interdependent people have for one another. In the workplace, your colleagues need you to fulfill particular tasks at particular times, in particular ways. You probably know the parameters of those tasks, but are you fully aware of how much the other person depends on you? Are you perfectly clear about what it feels like to them when you do your job at the highest level of proficiency rather than the lowest prong of mediocrity? Some people don’t take the time to consider this, but it’s one of the keys to increasing your influence in this relationship.

Generally, people tend to want to return a favor to someone who does something helpful for them. You may not like your colleague, or you may think they are not worthy of your extra effort. Nevertheless, everyone benefits when everyone is working for the betterment of the company. You are also more likely to be viewed as a team player by many of your co-workers, particularly your superiors. This is particularly true if your manager knows that you and the other person don’t necessarily get along very well.

Further to this point, the question you want to answer in relation to your counterpart is the following: “What might I do to make your job easier?” We are suggesting you ask this very question. They will often be surprised, perhaps even pleasantly surprised because they have never heard it before. This approach will provide you a much better understanding (not just base knowledge) of your colleague’s task, and his or her perspective on your role in the larger scheme of the work that needs to be done. In many instances you’ll find that people will reciprocate, the consequence of which is that your job becomes easier by making someone else’s job easier. The concept is basic, but without knowing the strengths, weaknesses, systems, and needs of certain colleagues and your organization, you might as well be playing proverbial “battleship”.

How might he or she benefit from helping you?

It goes without saying that people are motivated mostly by self-interest. The crucial question on this point is: “how might this person benefit from helping me?” Now, this may require some creative thinking on your part, but it could be very much worth the effort. In some ways this is the opposite side of the same coin discussed above. In this instance, it’s not you helping them directly – it’s you convincing that person that cooperating with you will inure to the benefit of their job, or overall responsibility. An example might be as simple as telling your supervisor that an individual was instrumental to your completion of a project and you would like to make sure he or she is commended appropriately. Not only might this help that person receive a better job evaluation, but in taking such steps, you could generate good will between the two of you, your supervisors, and your departments.

 

How can I create a server-client relationship?

Finally, begin to view your colleagues as “internal customers or clients.” This requires a major shift for most people. Have you heard the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt”? The more familiar and comfortable we are with people, the more we tend to take them for granted. This may manifest itself through having a more careless attitude, procrastinating on routine projects, paying less attention to detail, etc. The behaviors one typically exhibits to an authority or “bill payer” in the corporate context is often, and naturally, very different than the behavior exhibited to the person in the office next door. The natural impulse to treat internal people with less care should be resisted, and instead, treat them more like you would a client.

When you actively choose to view your colleagues as clients with their own needs, goals, and idiosyncrasies, you are likely to become more tolerant of their behaviors. This doesn’t mean that you have to simply accept their behaviors, but it is more productive if you accept that you must find a way to work peacefully with this person. It is unproductive to allow communication channels to become blocked and otherwise ineffective. This will do nothing more than increase strife in your organization while simultaneously decreasing collegiality, effectiveness, and work efficiency.

Effectively leading horizontally is likely to increase your sphere of influence within your organization, enhance your productivity, better the organization, and it may just result in you experiencing more job satisfaction.

Karl Moore, Ph.D. is associate professor at Desautels Faculty of Management and associate fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.

 

Forbes.com |  May 10, 2016 |  Karl Moore CONTRIBUTOR