Welcome to Managing Across Without Being the Formal Leader! This course will transform how you collaborate with and influence colleagues who don't report to you—a critical skill in today's matrixed organizations where success depends on your ability to get things done through others without relying on formal authority.

Throughout this journey, you'll master the art of emotional intelligence to navigate complex interpersonal dynamics. You'll learn how to build high-performing teams without being the boss, develop strategies for managing remote relationships, and create powerful networks that amplify your influence across organizational boundaries. Most importantly, you'll discover that true leadership isn't about titles or reporting structures—it's about your ability to connect, inspire, and mobilize others toward shared goals.

Let's begin this transformation by exploring one of the most fundamental capabilities you'll need: emotional intelligence. In the HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across, author Daniel Goleman provides insights into harnessing emotional intelligence at work.

Emotional intelligence includes five components: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills.

Let's learn more about each of these foundational elements.

Self-awareness represents your ability to recognize and understand your own emotions as they occur, and it serves as the cornerstone of working effectively with colleagues you can't simply direct. Self-awareness involves understanding your emotional triggers and maintaining confidence even when you lack formal authority. These elements work together to create a foundation for authentic and effective leadership across organizational boundaries.

Furthermore, self-awareness means honestly assessing your strengths and weaknesses without self-deception. For example, you might excel at strategic thinking but struggle with detail-oriented planning, and acknowledging this reality becomes a strength rather than a liability. When working across teams, this awareness helps you position yourself authentically. This honest self-assessment builds trust and makes colleagues more willing to collaborate because they see you as genuine rather than trying to appear infallible.

The concept of grounded confidence, knowing your capabilities without arrogance, becomes especially crucial when you lack formal authority. The key is to show confidence without overstepping, acknowledging both your competence and your reliance on others' contributions.

Self-regulation and motivation are two core components of emotional intelligence that work hand-in-hand to help you manage yourself effectively—especially when you lack formal authority. Mastering these skills enables you to remain calm, focused, and resilient, even in challenging cross-functional environments.

Self-regulation is your ability to control disruptive impulses, adapt to changing circumstances, and maintain consistency in your actions. This means thinking before acting, staying calm under pressure, and demonstrating trustworthiness and integrity in all your interactions.

Let's see how this might play out in a real conversation between two managers coordinating a cross-functional initiative:

• Jessica: This integration timeline you've proposed is impossible! We can't get the compliance reviews done in two weeks when we don't even have the specifications yet.
• Ryan: I hear your concern, and you're right that two weeks is aggressive. What if we worked backwards from the compliance deadline? How much time would your team realistically need if we got you the specs by end of day tomorrow?
• Jessica: Well... if you could guarantee the specs by tomorrow, we'd need at least three weeks for proper review and documentation.
• Ryan: That's helpful to know. Let me check with the technical team about accelerating the specs. Maybe we can find a middle ground—what if we did a preliminary review in week one while the full documentation is being prepared?
• Jessica: Actually, that could work. We could flag major issues early while doing the detailed review in parallel.

Notice how Ryan doesn't react defensively to Jessica's objection. Instead, he uses self-regulation to acknowledge her concern, ask clarifying questions, and work collaboratively toward a solution. This approach transforms Jessica from an opponent into a problem-solving partner, even though neither has authority over the other.

Motivation is the internal drive that keeps you pursuing goals with energy, persistence, and resilience—even when the going gets tough. Unlike external rewards such as titles or bonuses, true motivation comes from your own standards of excellence and your commitment to making a difference.

When you're managing across teams, motivation helps you maintain a positive outlook, even in the face of setbacks or resistance. For example, if a project hits a major roadblock—like a key stakeholder withdrawing support—you stay focused on the end goal and look for creative solutions rather than giving up. You might say,

Empathy and social skills form the bridge between managing yourself and successfully influencing others, representing the outward expression of your emotional intelligence. These competencies help you build rapport, find common ground, and mobilize others toward shared objectives—all without relying on hierarchical power. The combination of understanding others' perspectives and skillfully managing relationships creates the influence that formal authority alone could never achieve.

Empathy in practice means moving beyond surface reactions to truly understand the underlying concerns and motivations of your colleagues. For example, when the IT department resists your request for expedited support, instead of assuming they're being difficult or uncooperative, you investigate deeper. You might discover they're overwhelmed with a security audit that's consuming all their resources. Your empathetic response could be: "I had no idea you were dealing with an audit on top of everything else. Given that context, would it help if we could handle the initial setup ourselves and just have you review it?" This understanding transforms resistance into collaboration because you've shown that you value their challenges as much as your own needs.

Social skills involve the sophisticated ability to manage relationships and build networks effectively, especially when bringing together diverse groups with different priorities. When you need to unite team members from sales and engineering who historically don't work well together, you don't simply force them into a room and hope for the best. Instead, you carefully identify shared interests and frame the collaboration in terms that resonate with both groups. By using social awareness to identify common ground and articulate shared benefits, you create a foundation for collaboration that transcends departmental boundaries.

Building these emotional intelligence competencies takes practice. Next, you'll work on applying these concepts in interactive role-play sessions. You'll experience firsthand how self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills can transform challenging situations where you lack formal authority into opportunities for collaborative success. These practice scenarios will help you internalize these principles and develop the confidence to apply them in your daily work interactions.