Just a minute. Alright. I see a lot of people have joined. A very good morning, good afternoon, good evening from wherever you're joining.I would love to hear you and your video from in the chat. So feel free to add your location and get introduced. So having said that, I'm actually dialing in from Dallas, Texas, and I'm a senior customer solutions manager working at Amazon Web Services. And, here I am today to talk about the topic of influence without authority and how to lead when it's not in your job description. So raise a hand or just drop in chat if you have had ever led something important without anyone officially reporting to you. Like, you don't have an org structure, but you have led something very, very important.

And keep your hand up if that experience has taught you more than anything about leadership and a title ever could have given to you. So that is what we are going to be talking about today. So let me start off by telling you a story. A little over a year ago, I saw an opportunity that no one had formally assigned to anyone in my organization. The world of agent ecommerce was shifting and just getting started, and AI agents needed some form of payment method to transact autonomously, and I believed my company needed to explore solutions to enable the future of agentic economy. So this wasn't in my job description, and there was no project charter. No one asked me to do this, but I knew that it mattered and it was relevant to the industry.

So I wrote a strategic position paper, and then came the hard part. I needed to align with over 40 stakeholders across my organization from public policy to legal to treasury to finance, corporate business development, and multiple product teams. 40 people, believe me, none of whom reported to me and many of whom I had never worked with or they haven't worked together before. So some of whom had fundamentally a different view on the risk factor the solution held. So fast forward, the position paper was presented presented to my most senior executive leadership, and it shaped the company's strategy on an entirely new payment solution. And it happened because I chose to lead before anyone gave me the permission to.

And that is when something crystallized for me that the most impactful leaders I have ever worked with are not always the ones with a manager or a director or a vice president in their title. They are the ones who'd figured out how to influence. And leadership is about influence and not authority. And here is the good news. This is a skill. It can be learned, and it can be practiced. And by the end of this twenty minutes, you will have a framework to do exactly what that is. So but first, let me tell you why this matters so much right now. There are six reasons why influential leadership is critical for your career, and I bet at least three of these will hit home for you. Leading project teams that don't report to you. You have been placed on, a cross functional initiator where nobody reports to you. Does that sound familiar?

And in my role as a customer solutions manager, this is literally what I do every single day, lead engagements across different product engineering, sales, and partner teams. And not one of them is on my art chart. And for that matter, I'm an individual contributor. And aspiring the second being the aspiring to your first leadership role. Let's say you want your first leadership role, and guess what? They ask in interviews. Give me an example of when you led without authority. If you don't have that story, start building it now. And third may be leading a large scale project. You already led something, but you want to lead at an larger impactful initiative. So influence is how you get there, and it's how you go from leading a team of maybe five people to orchestrating, like, 40 different stakeholders across your organization and becoming a better version of yourself.

Right? I mean, you want to be better version, full stop. There is no more explanation to that. And also getting better results from underperforming teams. Let's say your cross functional initiative is stalled and you want better results even though it's not your job to fix it. And finally, building a team cohesion or a trust, and you want to build that kind of team cohesion where people have each other's back. And especially in this age of AI where distributed leadership and diverse voices and decision making are what are driving durable outcomes. So let's let's think through this. I'm sure you have one of these experiences or one of these essential needs in your career. So let's talk about how to actually do this. Right? And I before I give you the nine strategies, you need to understand the three traits that make all of this possible. First is confidence. I mean, it's not arrogance.

It's not bravado. It's calm confidence. When your project when you project confidence, your team gains that confidence in you. If you are jittery, panicky, indecisive, people will not follow you. I mean, even if you have a title or no title. And as a personal example, when I walked into a room with all those senior leaders from policy, legal, and treasury to present my case for enabling that payment solution for agents, a topic that made some people deeply uncomfortable. And I had to project calm confidence not because I had all the answers, but because I had done my homework. And that confidence is that practice that I have been able to develop over time. And it starts with preparation. And when you know your material code, confidence will automatically follow. And second is expertise. People listen to those they respect intellectually.

So building a reputation as a thoughtful, nuanced, critical thinker, when you propose an idea, people hear you out. And because you have earned that right through consistent expertise. And in that example I gave you in my story, I invested months of understanding the agentic landscape, the economies, the technical architecture, and the customer demand signals. When I spoke to people, they listen not because of my title, but because I had become the person in the room who understood that full picture. And the third being emotional intelligence. And this is a secret weapon. When I listen first, I understand what motivates people. What is their fear? What is their goal? Their constraints? And that particular understanding is my leverage. And in my story, our legal team was very concerned about the regulatory risk, and treasury cared about settlement speed and cash flow and whatnot.

And the product team wanted customer experience simplicity. So my understanding of each group's unique motivation and each leader's objective, I could frame the same initiative in base that resonated with each of them individually. So EQ is not soft skill. It is strategic. And with these three traits as your foundation, let me give you the toolkit, the nine strategies, three pillars. Let's go. And here it is. The nine strategies organized into three pillars, like I said, under credibility that leads to connection, which enables the execution. So think of it as like a progression. First, people need to respect you, then they need to trust you, and then they need to follow you. So you can start using any of these strategies tomorrow. And this is what I wish someone had told me early on in my career.

So let's start with pillar one. First, the strategy is to leverage your expertise. You don't want to sound like I know it all, but you also cannot be invisible. So there is a balance, and don't hesitate to mention an accomplishment or a result that you drew or even a skill that you possess. Learning to self promote without coming across as arrogant is one of the most valuable skills that you can develop, especially as women in tech. It's not bragging when it is showcased with proper data. So when I proposed exploring a new payment method for agents to the senior leadership, I didn't just say, oh, trust me. This is a good idea. I wrote a rigorous position paper that quantified the ROI. I mapped the regulatory landscape, assessed the different risk factors and reward factors, and demonstrated the customer demand.

And my expertise spoke through the clarity and the data, and the paper didn't just get red. It shaped it shaped the company's strategy. And the second second thing is simplify things. Busy executives, busy engineers, busy partners, nobody has the time to decode a complex proposal. So your ability to distill the complexity into clarity is the expertise. If you can explain it in simple terms, people will trust and you and that you understand the concept very deeply. So in my example, I was working with these stakeholders from six different functions, each of their own jargons, their own priorities, and their own definition of success work was different. And my job was to create a single narrative that everyone could rally around.

And I distilled the technical complexities into, like, a two page summary that a policy leader, a finance director, or an engineering VP could all understand and support. And that simplification is the work of influence. And one tip if I have to give you before your next big meeting, ask yourself, can I explain this in two sentences? If not, simplify until you can. And the third thing is spreading positivity. This one is underrated in two terms. Regularly, give recognition, maintain a positive outlook, like approach problems with a growth mindset. And here's what happens. People kind automatically gravitate towards you. They want to work with you. And when you need their help on your initiative, they'll say yes. And the second pillar is building relationship is connection and building relationship across the organization.

So don't wait until you need something from someone to build a relationship with them, and don't make it transactional. And we are talking about genuine connections. So practice active listening. Show empathy. Be approachable. And here's a pro tip. Build relationship with other influential leaders. Learn from them and watch them how they operate. And the next is to understanding your audience. So before you walk into any meeting where you need to influence, ask yourself, what do they care about? Get to know your stakeholders' motivation, background, goals, and then frame your interaction accordingly. So in my role, I work with customers and internal team simultaneously. Like, a finance tech stakeholder doesn't care about technical elegance, and they all they care about is cost savings, settlement speed, risk mitigation, and things like that. And as a product one of the product leaders, they care about customer experience and adoption metrics. And similarly, a legal team cares about regulatory and liabilities. Right?

So present the same initiative to each group or each audience, but frame it differently. And recognize the work style. So some people need to brainstorm for, like, thirty minutes before deciding something. Others may want a decision in, like, five. So reading the room is very important. And you're not trying to be someone you're not. Right? You are just showing flexibility and ability to, like, adapt. And adapt adaptability is influence. And having said that, you when you have the credibility, when you have the connection, now let's go talk about how to execute on that. And that's the third pillar. So create, like, an open environment. Transparency breeds trust. So when people feel safe to speak up, disagree, and share ideas, you've created the conditions for a great teamwork. And as an influential leader, your job is to make the invisible visible. So share the context. Like, explain why and invite the send.

When I was coordinating across all these different groups, I created a shared document that made every team's concern visible to each other. Legal could see what treasury was worried about. Product could see what policy it needed, and this transparency eliminated that telephone game that typically kills the cross functional initiatives. And people stopped working in silos because they could see the full picture. So when you, just a quick tip is when you start meetings with what are you not what are we not talking about that we should be talking? Just ask this question and see what happens next. And the next strategy of our practice is be a team player. So here here is a paradox of influential leadership. Sometimes the most powerful thing that you can do is to just step back and deliver on your promises always. Right? And suggest some great ideas generously.

But always know when to let someone else shine. When you lift others, they remember, and they will lift you when you need it. So in my CSM role, I regularly lead engagements where I bring together solution architects, product managers, and partner teams to solve some complex customer problems. And there are moments when the right move is is to let the solution architect take the spotlight in, like, a technical deep dive or to let the product manager own the road map conversation. And my job is to orchestrate and to make sure that the right people are in the right conversations at the right time, and that orchestration is actually leadership. Even when you're not the one presenting, help your colleagues by taking an extra work when they are overwhelmed, like just staying staying late when the team needs you. This small act of kindness compound into enormous trust. And the next strategy is to expect resistance.

And no matter how skilled you are at this, someone will resist, and it is not and it is not that it is personal. Never take it personal. And that's very natural. So here's one mantra. Resistance means they care about the topic. They care about the idea, and they have skin in the game. That's actually good news. So when I proposed that about my company exploring this new solution, not everyone was enthusiastic about it. There were 100 different versions of the proposition paper redlined, and some stakeholders had legitimate concern about the regulatory uncertainty, and others were worried about reputational risk. And one senior leader flat out said, I don't think we should be anywhere near this. So here is what I didn't do. I did not become defensive. I did not dismiss their concerns. I did not go around them. And instead, I listened. I asked, so help me understand your concern.

I incorporated their feedback into the next iteration of the proposal, and I brought them data that addressed their worries. So when someone pushes back, do not become defensive. Listen, acknowledge, and ask, and help me just ask them. Help me understand your concern. Nine times out of 10, they just want to be heard. Now let me show you how all these nine strategies come together in real life. So in today's tech organizations, ambiguity is the norm. So no one, person owns the decision, and multiple teams have competing priorities. I'm sure that sounds familiar. And here is what influential's influential leaders do differently. They don't wait for clarity. They create the clarity. So what you do is you map the stakeholder motivations. So before any important meeting, I map out what does each person in that room care about. What are they measured on? What keeps them up at night?

And next is to build that trust that makes people want to collaborate. So trust is not built in the big moments. It is actually built in the small ones, like following through a on a commitment or giving credit publicly or sharing information freely. Right? And every week, what I did was I sent, like, a brief update to all these stakeholders, not because anyone asked me to, but because I wanted to build the transparency and the trust. And I shared what I learned, what changed, what decisions were needed. And when people see you consistently showing up with integrity, they lean in, and they want to collaborate instead of keeping away from it. And thirdly, frame the outcomes as more of a shared win. Never position a project as your own win.

Position, it does our win, team's win, when every stope stakeholder can see themselves in the success story, and the alignment naturally happens. And here is where it gets exciting for your career. So in bottom I mean, here is my bottom line for you. Don't wait until you are in a leadership position to exercise your leadership skills. You may never get that opportunity if you wait. So always keep looking for that strategic opportunity to lead by influence, and then it is critical to document them. So start leading now, not when you get the title, not when you get the promotion. Now and I saw an opportunity lead across one across organizational initiative, and nobody assigned that to me. I raised my hand.

I wrote the first draft, and I scheduled the first meeting. So that is all you need. And keep on documenting everything, the list of moments where you led without authority, and the outcome you drove, the resistance you navigated. Update your resume. Update your LinkedIn, and these are your leadership stories. And ask for recommendations. I mean, when you have had success leading by influence, ask someone who had a front row seat. Let let them write about it. A VP who saw me align 40 different stakeholders, a peer who watched, me navigate all those resistance with grace, or even a third party endorsement is more powerful than you just save yourself. And position these stories and interviews. Like, the framing that always lands, I led across functional initiative across six different teams with 40 stakeholders where nobody reported to me.

And here is how I got alignment, and here is what we delivered, and I learned about it. That is the story that gets you the next leadership role, not what you delivered and how you delivered. So what so what do you do with all of this? So let me make it into a simple narrative. Pick one strategy. This is a call to action. Again, pick one strategy from each pillar, just one from credibility, one from connection, and one from execution. Practice them. And maybe you choose simplify things. So before your next meeting, you can just distill your proposal into two sentences. Or maybe you choose to understand your audience, or you research what your stakeholders care about before you you walk into the next meeting, or maybe you choose to expect some resistance.

So the next time someone pushes back, you respond with curiosity instead of defensiveness. So you can do this by, again, identifying one cross functional opportunity where you can step up and lead. Find one person in your organization who leads beautifully today by influence. Watch them. Ask them for a coffee chat. Learn from them and ask how do you get alignment when you don't have authority. You'll be amazed at what they share. And document your wins, like I said. Every time you lead without authority, write it down, update your resume, update your LinkedIn, build your portfolio of influence. And, again, you don't need the permission to lead. You don't need a title. You just need to start. So like I said, leadership is not about titles. It's about influence.

And that is a skill that anyone in this room can develop. So I just started with a story about writing that position paper no one asked me to write and about navigating all that resistance. Hopefully, that story resonates with you, and I choose to also hear your story, and I want you to start doing it from tomorrow. And love to hear your story. So let's connect on LinkedIn, and I wanna hear what you do big next. So open up for questions if anybody has any questions. Please raise your hand and or please drop your questions in the chat. I don't see any questions specifically in the chat. If not, yeah, let's connect. And I would love to stay in touch with you, hear your story, learn from your experiences on how you're leading your next big initiative. Thank you, everybody.

I'll be hanging around for a few more minutes if you have any questions or you wanna chat.