How to Use Your Power as a Leader

As a leader, you have advantages that your team doesn't have. These advantages let you move much faster than they can. It's not fair to say, "My team isn't getting things done as quickly as I am," because you have these built-in advantages.

One of those advantages is the ability to say yes quickly. You don't need to check with a hundred committees or wait for budget approvals. You can give out resources much faster. That's one of your key strengths as a leader.

Another advantage is seeing all parts of the business or project. This means you can make better decisions. You can see things from high up instead of just looking at one small part. You can step in and make big decisions that others simply can't make.

What other forms of power do you have as a leader?

• You can get resources like time, money, and people to keep things moving.

• You can change direction when needed.

• You can use your influence to make things happen. This could be talking to stakeholders or working through company challenges.

Because of your position, you also have the ability to protect your team. You don't always deal with difficult people or outside pressure the same way your team does. You can step in and protect them from unnecessary problems, difficult talks, or outside conflicts. When you push back on a difficult contractor or say no to a supplier, your team benefits from that protection.

How to Shield Your Team From Problems

One of your biggest powers as a leader is shielding your team. You can protect them from distractions, politics, and pressure that would slow them down or stress them out.

This shielding power needs a deeper look because it's both important and easily misused. Good shielding isn't about hiding information or creating walls. It's about filtering what reaches your team and when.

Think about these situations where shielding your team makes the difference:

Shield them from rumors and noise: When upper management is talking about a reorganization that may or may not happen, sharing every rumor creates worry for no reason. Shield your team from guessing while keeping them informed of real decisions.

Shield them from unreasonable pressure: When a client demands an impossible timeline, don't immediately pass that pressure down. Use your position to negotiate, push back, or find other options before involving your team. If the pressure is real, you can then present it with context and solutions rather than raw demands.

Shield them during crunch time: During a product launch or major deadline, shield your team from non-essential meetings, new project requests, or company politics that would mess up their focus.

Shield them from workplace drama: When tensions happen between departments or with outside partners, step in as the diplomatic buffer. Your team can focus on their work while you manage the relationship problems.

The key is knowing when not to shield. Don't shield your team from feedback they need to grow, challenges that will develop their skills, or information that affects their work directly. The goal is removing roadblocks, not creating dependence.

Using Your Advantages the Right Way

Knowing your power is only the first step. Using it the right way is what separates good leaders from those who burn out their teams or companies.

Be clear about your advantages: When your team is struggling with something you could solve quickly, don't let them suffer in silence. Ask yourself: "Is this something my position could solve faster?" If yes, step in. If no, coach them through it.

Use your speed smartly: Your ability to make quick decisions is powerful, but it can also skip necessary input and buy-in. Fast decisions work for urgent situations and giving out resources. Slower, team decisions work better for strategy and team development. Know when to use which approach.

Use your big picture view: Your broad perspective lets you connect dots that others can't see. Share these connections. When you spot opportunities for teams to work together, coming risks, or strategy changes, communicate these insights rather than making moves alone.

Spend your influence wisely: Your influence and relationships are limited resources. Don't spend them on small issues. Save your influence for the battles that truly matter to your team's success and well-being.

Create systems, not dependencies: Use your power to build processes and systems that work even when you're not there. Instead of being the permanent problem-solver, create pathways for your team to solve problems on their own.

Leadership Power Check: Where Are You Missing Opportunities?

Before you can use your power well, you need to see where you're currently not using it enough. Take a moment and think about last week. How many times did your team struggle with something while you had the power to fix it in minutes?

Maybe your team waited three days for a software approval that you could have signed off on immediately. Maybe they stressed about an angry client while you could have made one phone call to smooth things over. Maybe they got pulled into five unnecessary meetings while you could have said "my team isn't available for that."

These missed opportunities happen because we don't always see our own power clearly. We get used to watching our teams work through problems instead of stepping in to solve them.

Here's what to watch for: When you see your team spinning their wheels, ask yourself these four questions. Can I approve this faster than they can get approval? Can I see connections they're missing because of my bigger view? Can I shield them from this distraction? Can I use my relationships to make this easier?

If the answer to any of these is yes, you have unused power sitting right in front of you.

Your Action Plan: Three Changes This Week

The difference between knowing about leadership power and using it comes down to changing what you do every day. Here's how to start this week.

Change your morning routine. Instead of diving straight into your own tasks, spend five minutes asking: "What's slowing my team down today that I could fix?" Maybe it's a budget approval sitting in your email. Maybe it's a difficult conversation with another department that you could have instead of them. Handle these first, before your own work.

Change how you handle pressure. When someone brings you an urgent request or complaint, pause before passing it to your team. Ask yourself: "Can I resolve this myself in less time than it would take to explain it to my team?" Often, a quick call from you carries more weight than hours of work from them.

Change your information sharing. Start treating your big picture view as a tool for your team, not private information. When you see a potential problem coming or spot an opportunity, share it immediately. Don't wait for the perfect moment or formal meeting. Send a quick message: "Heads up, I'm seeing X which might affect your Y project."

These aren't huge changes, but they transform how you lead. Instead of managing your team's work, you start removing the things that make their work harder.

The Right Tools Amplify Your Leadership Power

As you start removing more roadblocks and using your leadership advantages, you'll need a system to track what's working. Many leaders struggle because they don't have visibility into where their team actually gets stuck.

I learned this the hard way. I was great at seeing problems and jumping in to help, but I kept missing patterns. I'd solve the same types of roadblocks over and over without realizing it. My team would get stuck in similar ways, and I wouldn't catch it until too late.

That's when I created a Project Task Tracker for myself. I needed something that would show me the whole picture quickly so I could spot bottlenecks before they became emergencies. I wanted to see which team members were overloaded before they burned out. I needed to track whether my "roadblock removal" efforts were actually speeding things up.

The tracker I built shows me at a glance which deadlines are at risk, which tasks are stalled, and where priorities are unclear. This lets me use my leadership power much more strategically. Instead of reacting to problems, I can see them coming and step in early.

Here's what I discovered: when you have the right visibility, you can use your leadership advantages so much better. You know exactly where to say that quick "yes," where to shield your team from distractions, and where to step in with your influence. The tool became essential for implementing everything I've written about in this article.

I've been using this project management task tracker for months now, and it's transformed how I lead. My team moves faster because I can remove their roadblocks before they even become roadblocks. I made this because I needed it, and now I can't imagine leading without it.

[Get the Project Task Tracker here - the same tool I use to implement these leadership strategies]

The Cost of Unused Leadership Power

Every day you don't fully use these advantages costs your team hours of frustration and your company momentum. The price of unused leadership power shows up in missed deadlines, burned-out employees, and lost opportunities.

You control the resource tap. Turn it on. You're the firewall between chaos and your team's focus. Activate it. You have the influence to change the game. Use it.

The Responsibility That Comes With Power

With these advantages comes a duty to use them in service of your team's success, not just your own. Every quick "yes" you can give, every roadblock you can remove, every big picture insight you can share. These are opportunities to multiply your team's effectiveness.

The question isn't whether you have more power than your team members. You do. The question is whether you're using that power to make them more successful, more capable, and more empowered to do their best work.

So, what advantages do you have as a leader? You know what they are. The real question is: What are you going to do with them this week? Because understanding and using your leadership power effectively and immediately can make all the difference.