Informal leaders: high-impact human resources in organizations

Informal leadership has played a fundamental role in the operability, innovation, and implementation of organizational strategies, contributing directly to the success of organizations, however, it has emerged supplying in many cases an inefficient formal leadership within the work team, which has not been able to meet the expectations of the assigned position.

These informal leaders are the people who, not having a formal power position within the organization, influence, and guide others, supported by their credibility, trust, respect, knowledge, and experience. People who are recognized by their peers and superiors within the organizational structure, stand out from the rest, either because of their physical features, characteristics, and/or behaviours or because of the type of influence they exert, being this Social, Technical, or Opinion.

Importance of identifying these informal leaders within organizations lies not only in knowing who they are, but also in knowing what to do with them, or how to make the most of their ability to influence and generate circles of power with which they control others, such as work teams or their most fervent followers. Bearing in mind this influence is not always positive, thus the impact of their actions on the organization can have serious consequences, for example, the start of a labour strike in favour of an individual benefit, or a group of power that wants to subject the organization to its free will.

Emergence of the informal leader

Despite the number of resources that organizations allocate year after year to the development skills and/or competencies of their people, the result is not always the desired one, since this training does not always equip the formal leader to carry out effectively their work. This training regularly fails to develop sufficient resources for the collaborator himself to realize that he or she is not generating the levels of influence expected from the role that is playing inside the organization. For example, a project leader or an area supervisor must depend on the resource of autocracy to ensure that things get completed, instead of encouraging and guiding their collaborators so that the tasks are carried out timely.

Then and consequently, the informal leader emerges, who, depicting his charisma or personality, can influence and convince the team that he must do the work in the agreed time, or guide the group from his perspective, experience, and knowledge, being an example to follow for others and generating ties of influence that, on occasion, go beyond the workplace. Which eventually will be an important part of the organizational culture, contributing to having a good level of satisfaction and engagement to the organization.

In this sense, the identification of informal leaders and the generation of an effective formation strategy can be key in their growth, with the aim of turning them into the next formal leaders, or who, due to their skills and abilities may become to take on coaching or mentoring roles within the organization. Similarly, this also helps to identify gaps or lags in skills required by formal leaders must be addressed.

Socio-cultural and organizational context

Informal leaders operate in particular contexts or situations, a review of their circumstances is necessary to understand their influence and the relevance that these leaders have in particular socio-cultural contexts in order to understand local uses and customs. Do not be aware of this understanding can wreak havoc on the implementation of global strategies in terms of organizational culture. For example, in a work environment where the collaborator never goes home before his immediate boss or where the collaborator must be available at all times for his supervisor is something well seen by most employees. It describes the type of organizational culture. However, an informal leader who does not follow these behaviours could cause some annoyance by the rest of the team towards the supervisor due to the influence he has, and affect the performance as a group.

Likewise, local companies that are deeply rooted in their cultural traditions tend to have complications when they want to be part of the globalized world, for example, doubts are raised if remote working generates the same levels of productivity as work carried out at the company's facilities. Consequently, it is important to note how organizations are currently organizing themselves regarding these new work practices, let's say that we have had to adapt to the current circumstances of the pandemic (COVID-19). Migrating from a face-to-face work to a remote work environment when the type of industry or job allows it us, therefore, the informal leader can be an excellent integrator of these work teams, whether face-to-face or remote, due to the levels of influence they can have.

On the other hand, the tendency to have increasingly horizontal organizations has been growing over time; this does not mean that the hierarchical structure no longer continues to play an important role in the governance of the company. In the past leaders were expected to have many followers and keep tight control over them, where they were expected to do anything required by their leaders, this arrangement is no longer ideal or acceptable in today's context. In this sense, the informal leader plays an important role when it comes to influencing the rest of the team to achieve some organizational strategy, from lowering communication at all levels of the company or using the informal leader as an agent of change.

The nature of their influence

Because leadership is a continuous process of influence, it is essential the leader master this skill in order to lead the team in a certain direction to achieve the objectives set. To understand how influence works on informal leaders, it is important to understand its nature and the different types of leadership exerted such as Social, Technical and Opinion.

Social-type informal leaders are usually recognized in organizations for their empathy, excellent communication, and collaboration skills. Commonly, their levels of influence based on their empathy, which is why they are described as cheerful, positive people who integrate well with others. They may also have a charisma that helps them establish personal or moral credibility, using persuasive and reasoned language to convince others, although they may lack the knowledge to solve technical or complex problems, they can influence others to solve them in their place.

Technical-type informal leaders are typically recognized as experts, guides, or trainers, even though they do not have a formal role within the organization, be it, Coach or Mentor. Although some companies often give these technical experts formal positions, it is not always the best decision, since their soft skills, such as communication, collaboration, and integration of teams, are not always their strengths. When a company has a technical problem, these informal leaders can solve the problem, often silently and without claims for the credit.

Opinion-type informal leaders influence the beliefs, motivations, construction of ideas, visions and behaviours of others, so they generally have a greater influence on a certain group when they share a collective ideal. When a colleague has an ethical or ideological question or problem, they will turn to this type of informal leader. Likewise, they emerge when a product or service is in the adoption stage, these leaders can persuade others to use the product or service. As well as they are great contributors to organizations as agents of change, if you must spread an idea or convert words into actions. It is likely that doing it through them is the best way to reach the largest possible number of ears, with the certainty that it will be a communication listened to, however, this type of informal leaders usually camouflages themselves and do not attract attention, since they have a moral purpose based on the common good rather than individual benefit.

Characteristics and behaviours

In his first meta-ethnographic studies of leadership, Pielstick, a pioneer in the idea of informal or authentic leadership, listed some initial characteristics and behaviours that have been present until today, based on six main themes: shared vision, communication, interpersonal relationships, community development, guidance, and character. The latter is directly associated with the charisma that the informal leader presents, and for which we have surely all been able to identify with some level of certainty the informal leaders that surround us or recognize ourselves as one of them.

Some of the characteristics that we can observe in informal leaders are commitment, trust, cooperation, credibility, experience, extroversion, integrity, humility, sense of humour, persistence, principle-centred, promoter of gender equality, responsibility, reliability, and honesty, among others.

We can also observe some of their behaviours such as sharing knowledge, educating, or training others, adopting and promoting diversity, generating social identity, motivating others, generating interpersonal relationships, showing respect towards others, intellectual stimulation, among others.

Benefits of identifying Informal Leaders

The organizations that have adopted the strategy in the identification of informal leaders as part of their common practice have developed substantial improvements in various areas such as the identification of key personnel within the organization, training and development of formal leaders, improvements in the organizational climate, decision-making regarding the mobility of personnel within the company, career plans and succession.

In the field of identification of key personnel, the identification of informal leaders is helping companies to have a more effective tool in the identification of employees who meet a specific profile or required by the organization. Either to fill positions individuals or expert techniques, or as agents of change in a Change Management strategy, as well as the identification of personnel that can go from an Outsourcing process to direct hire, or to the profiling of union leaders.

Regarding the training and development of formal leaders has been observed that a formal leader who is supported by an informal leader does not act to the detriment of his leadership. On the contrary, he can be a great ally to reach the rest of the team with whom he works, as long as effective integration and teamwork strategies are generated. Likewise, from the gaps identified in the competencies of formal leaders, effective training strategies can be generated based on their position and strategic objectives pursued by the company.

The improvement in the work environment depends largely on the interpersonal relationships at all levels of the organization. Occasionally when organizational changes cause a lack of direction or vision on the part of management, informal leaders intervene to provide order and direction. Their identification also helps us to obtain information related to the existing culture and subcultures from the point of view of the type of leadership existing in the company (Social, Technical and Opinion) and the levels of influence exerted by these informal leaders.

Current studies explain that modern employees are increasingly highly trained and educated people, so they expect to see a clear career path with opportunities for promotion and receive formal recognition from the organization, not only from their leaders but also from their peers. The timely identification of informal leaders who could potentially be formal leaders will help us to generate more effective career, and succession plans. Their identification provides us relevant information related to their levels of influence based on their skills, abilities, behaviours, and their expectations from the organization, then we can have assertive decisions regarding the mobility of personnel within the company.

Conclusions

We can conclude that the informal leader plays a fundamental role in the success of organizations due to the impact that their characteristics and behaviours have on work teams.  Being this a resource of high value within the organization, if we can identify and manage it can be an effective point of communication between the top management and the operative levels. 

Identifying and understanding the nature and scope of its influence can be useful if there is a defined organizational objective, used to identify a personal key within the organization, implement a Change Management strategy, improve the organizational climate within the company, develop plans career, among many other organizational goals.

Its management is not limited to one type of industry or organization, whether public or private since its characteristics and behaviours are inherent to the individual and not to the organization. Hence, companies that adopt identification and management strategies for informal leaders will have a valuable tool for making strategic decisions at all levels.

At DSer Organizational, being a consulting and research company, we have designed for more than 15 years methodologies and technological tools for the identification and management of informal leaders, participating with local and global companies in different fields, segments and industries, generating high-quality information for our clients, always with the vision of contributing to the achievement of their strategic objectives.

Autor: Edgar Hernandez Rojas.

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