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Opinion
Responsibility Is Authority
Johanna Rothman
(October 16, 2007)
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As a project manager, you have the responsibility to take authority, rather than wait for someone to give you the authority.
No manager ever has enough real authority to do what he or she wants to do. There's always someone with a bigger title. Even if you're a CEO, you report to a board. Even though titular authority is useful, it's not enough.
If the project is strategically important to the organization, act first (doing whatever the project needs) and ask forgiveness later. You'll know whether the project is strategically important by how many people ask about the status and what levels of people ask. The more people ask at the higher levels, the more strategic the project is.
If the project is not strategically important, don't waste your time trying to accomplish it. In reality, if the project is important enough to the organization, you have the authority to do just about anything you need to do. (You need the self-esteem to do what you need to do.) But if the project is not important enough to the organization, you can never get enough authority to do what you need to do.
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