The Back Seat Drivers Guide to Leadership – How to Lead When No One’s In Charge

How do you back-seat drive in a self-driving car?

I recently had an epic fail of an automated customer service experience with the UberEats app that had me so frustrated I dialed in my “Karen, I need to talk with a manager” persona, and took it up with another automated customer service process through Paypal who had processed the transaction.  Paypal’s AI over rode Uber’s AI and issued me a refund. I thought maybe the UberEats driver who failed to deliver my order (but charged me for it) was real, but all we did was text,  was this an automated self-driving car as well?

A leader’s nature is to lead – but how do you lead when the odds are stacked against you? Those of us not members of the club in the privileged class are used to this situation. We have had to learn how to create opportunities that put us on the side of success we would prefer while staying away from those situations where the deck was stacked against us. It’s why I started my own company over 35 years ago. It’s also why women and minorities start up new businesses in such large numbers. Why play in a game that is rigged and not in your favor?

One of the realities of the proliferation of automated interaction (the real “AI”) and flat organizational hierarchies, is anymore, the deck can seem stacked against everyone – even privileged class club members. For Cheetah’s Exam Prep program with the PMP®, we spend much time with students helping them sort out how to influence various project stakeholders, as the Project Management Institute has updated the PMP exam to reflect our current day reality. Many people can influence project outcomes, but it’s the rare project where there is one consistent person “in charge.”

Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Two of my favorite sayings are “Proceed until apprehended” and “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, just do it.” I mostly love environments where no one is clearly in charge. It gives me carte blanche to do what I think is best. It does require a different playbook though to be a leader in this scenario.

In my last employment situation at the Research Center (almost 25 years ago now), after they terminated my “boss,” I reported to the head of the company. For a whole year, he never once inquired about how (or what) I was doing. Meanwhile, I was busy launching an accelerated learning one-day approach to teaching project management and teaching it to various divisions all over the country. I did this for a whole year before it was even questioned, by ANYONE. As my kids would say, I was hiding in plain sight (people tend to ignore those being loud and proud). The divisions loved my course – I was very busy. It was great fun.

What brought this whole awesome situation crumbling down was when the General Manager of one of the divisions called my boss (Head of the Research Center) thanking him for letting me teach there. My boss called me into his office, the first visit in over a year. He wasn’t too happy about this. He said we were a research center and not a teaching center and he had found a new home for me – in this Mechanical Engineering research office. He said, “You really can’t be teaching this class at divisions all over the corporation.” (I didn’t think to remind him I was initially hired because of my entrepreneurial nature). He didn’t care these divisions loved the course. I don’t think the divisions were as happy with the projects coming out of the Research center. What led me to create this course in the first place was doing Project Disaster Recovery for the research projects supporting the divisions. I agreed, having an effective course our customers loved was way off-brand for this operation.

The problem – I still had one more group to train at that division. So I called my General Manager friend with a plan. I would take time off from work and come down and teach the last group at his company. They were already used to covering my travel expenses. Well, you know the rest of the story – when I got back from “vacation,” teaching my last course at that division, I was invited to take my course and leave. It was a fantastic outcome to a lousy situation.  One where I turned a situation where the deck was stacked against me into an opportunity for me.

We need a new playbook for leadership and a better way to teach leadership as rarely is anyone in charge, anywhere (it’s often not even a thing – to be in charge that is – except maybe for a military-like chain of command or an AI Bot). Even for those situations requiring approval, it’s likely coming from an AI App. (Ask a doctor pal about this). This is why I created Cheetah’s Certified Virtual Leader program. We don’t need titles, positions, seniority, or even permission to be an effective leader. We don’t need anyone “in charge” telling us the right things we need to do to get promoted or how to advance in our careers. We don’t even need to be the right gender or race to be an effective leader.

What we do need is to be able to read the situation, get the lay of the land on who is influencing who, and just do it. It doesn’t matter if anyone approves of what we’re doing or not – as anymore, there is no one to “approve it” anyhow. Certified Virtual Leaders learn how to assess the situation, take the initiative, and make things happen, with and for a virtual workforce. They learn how to create opportunities that help them succeed and to stay away from situations where the deck is stacked against them.

Learn how to get ahead in today’s world – Become a Certified Virtual Leader.

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, CCL, CAC, PMI-ACP, RYT

Chief Cheetah – www.cheetahlearning.com

Find out More about Becoming a Certified Virtual Leader