Who’s the Real Leader in The Room?

It is not always the most senior ranking person that is the leader in a room.

Was on a tandem with a rep last week. He did a presentation to the staff at aneye care clinic. It was interesting to watch because every time that he asked a question, everyone turned to a specific individual to see her response. Even when the questions were directly specifically at others, people seemed to be watching her to see how she would react.

I asked the rep afterwards who this person was and he told me that she was one of the junior staff members but was well liked and moving up quickly in the clinic hierarchy.

It was clear that her colleagues looked to her, literally and figuratively,not the clinic manager and not the ophthalmologist, when it came to decisions in the clinic despite the fact that she was not the most “senior” person in the room.

In my experience there are positional leaders and there are the real leaders who are the ones to whom everyone looks to for direction on how to react.

For any one of a number of reasons, people respect what this person thinks and does and as such, sees them as the model to follow when issuesor questions arise.

If you are in a meeting and want to know who has the most influence on the others in the room,watch for the person that is watched.