Influence starts where authority ends: What ‘a bigger idea of success’ means for leadership 

In flat or horizontal organisations and systems, like Nous, leadership can’t depend on formal authority alone. People have more autonomy, more agency, and more choice about where they direct their energy. That makes influence more difficult and influencing skills more important. Rather than directing effort, leaders must earn their colleagues’ attention, build their commitment, and create momentum around issues and ideas that matter. 

This changes the task of leadership and creates more leadership opportunity. The most influential people are not always those with the strongest formal mandate or the loudest voice. They are often those who can help others see why the status quo is no longer enough and organise the collective effort required to make change real, and lasting. 

‘A bigger idea of success’ is Nous’ brand statement, our value proposition to our clients, and an expression of what we stand for. As managements consultants our work serves leaders who are, typically, responsible for large and complex systems. Our brand statement, by extension, contains and reflects ideas about leadership.  

The first of these ideas is the willingness to give to something larger than yourself. It is a shift from “me” to “we”: from personal recognition to shared progress, from narrow targets to broader impact, and from professional performance to the contribution work makes to clients, communities, and society. 

That sense of service matters in complex systems because the issues themselves are larger than any individual or organisation. Improving access to housing, strengthening student wellbeing and employability, lifting health system performance, or advancing sustainable development goals requires people to dedicate their expertise to problems that are inherently shared. Success is bigger when it is measured by the value created with and for others. 

Realising ‘A bigger idea of success’ also means giving permission to challenge existing definitions of success. Substantial improvement usually means interrogating and questioning fundamentals: the assumptions, systems, practices, and models that have shaped the current state of affairs. That requires courage and humility, particularly when the leaders involved have invested care and effort in building what already exists. But the possibility of better outcomes often begins with the flexibility to hold current arrangements lightly and the tough mindedness to be challenged on aspects of the current state that once represented proud achievements.

Another useful way to consider influence in this context is through the three-part movement from agitation to innovation to orchestration proposed by Harvard Professor Julie Battilana.

First, influential leaders create constructive dissatisfaction with the status quo. They help others recognise current ways of working are no longer sufficient and build energy around the need for change.

Second, they move beyond critique to creation. They define, design or imagine something better: a new strategy or policy, service model, funding approach, operating rhythm, or way of working. Agitation without innovation risks becoming mere noise. Innovation turns noise into vision and direction.

Once you have a vision or innovation people support, you can begin to orchestrate. Leaders who orchestrate bring together the people, investments, and plans required to turn an idea into action and change. Momentum is not created by insight alone. It is created when people can see a path forward and understand their part in making it happen. 

Examples of this three-part movement are everywhere: in your organisation, as strategic agendas form and play out to deliver better performance, and at a national level, as major government reform programs take shape and move to implementation.

Influence is not only about the ability to advance a persuasive point of view. It’s also about the capacity to help a group do better thinking together. Relational leadership doesn’t ask how an argument can be won so much as it asks how the people involved can be moved towards something better than any of them could reach on their own.

That requires curiosity, careful listening, and the discipline to hold an opinion back long enough to understand what matters to others. Good questions do more than extract information. They reveal the paradigm a person is bringing to an issue: what they value, what they fear, what they are trying to protect, and what they hope can be achieved. They also help you engage more deeply with their insights and ideas.

The highest-value work often occurs when different perspectives meet and something new emerges between them. This is the “magic in the middle”: the moment when expertise and generosity combine to produce an answer or solution that none of the participants could have come up with on their own. It’s also where work becomes energising, exciting. Complex problems are rarely solved by brilliant minds in isolation. They are solved by people who bring many forms of intelligence together and turn those differences into progress.

Relational leadership creates the conditions for this, and it is a practical leadership capability. It can be developed in everyday conversations, local team discussions, and contested strategic forums. The skill is to listen not for the next opportunity to speak, but for the deeper logic of what is being said. From there, leaders can build coherence across difference and help people experience progress as something achieved together.

Leaders who want to create meaningful change need to stay connected to what gives their work purpose. As professional and personal responsibilities grow, the demands on time and energy increase. Without a clear sense of what gives work meaning, it becomes easier to be pulled into ad hoc activity without direction.

This brings us full circle and back to ‘A bigger idea of success’; the issue or agenda that is bigger than you, that you give yourself to, and which gives back in the form of meaning and fulfillment. Purpose is a source of drive, creativity, and resilience. It helps people absorb setbacks, tolerate frustrating moments, and remain committed to the path they are on. It also shapes where they are willing to agitate, what they’re willing to challenge, and the kinds of better futures they are prepared to help build. It’s the start and the end of a virtuous circle – that is available to everyone – and can fuel your influence whether you have formal authority or not. 

Make success bigger than yourself. The most compelling leaders connect their work to outcomes that matter beyond individual achievement. They frame ambition as a contribution to clients, communities, organisations, and society.

Earn influence rather than assume it. In flat, horizontal organisations, people need a reason to commit their attention and energy to a cause. Leaders build momentum by working to make change meaningful, credible, and actionable.

Lead the room, not just the argument. Relational leadership turns diverse perspectives into a common cause. This depends on listening deeply, asking better questions, putting your ego on the backburner, and creating coherence across the organisation.

Get in touch to discuss how relational leadership can help your organisation build influence, create momentum for change, and turn diverse perspectives into collective progress.

Connect with Lauren Douge on LinkedIn.

Listen to Lauren Douge discuss these ideas on the A Little Bit of Nous podcast.