How to Lead Without Authority Using the Starfish-Spider Model
Unlock influence, inspire change, and reshape your organization. No title required.
Imagine a workplace where your ideas shape the future—no fancy title needed.
Welcome to the starfish + spider hybrid approach—where decision-making happens at the point of action, not just at the top.
The best part? You don’t need to be an exec to drive this change. Today’s newsletter gives you the tools to influence, adapt, and lead from wherever you sit.
You'll learn how to:
Influence decisions without formal authority
Transform rigid hierarchies into adaptive collaborations
Introduce positive organizational change, even in resistant environments
Are you ready to become the person who inspires without needing a title?
You always have power, no matter what is happening around you. - Mel Robbins, The Let Them Theory.
Direction, Alignment, and Commitment (DAC)
Quick story: I once worked with a CEO who... let’s just say, wasn’t big on taking input. That experience taught me a key lesson about influence: Leadership isn’t a one-person show—it’s a social process.
The Direction, Alignment, and Commitment (DAC) framework from the Center for Creative Leadership is a game-changer for making an impact - no matter your role.
Direction – A shared vision people believe in
Alignment – Coordination so efforts don’t clash
Commitment – Buy-in from the whole team
When clients come to me with a similar scenario to the one I described above, I use the following questions and examples to help apply DAC.
Direction: What if your CEO sets a vision but ignores team input?
Treat them like a customer, seek to understand their motivations
Use data + external insights to introduce small, strategic shifts
Alignment: What if your leader keeps changing their mind?
Start with retrospectives to align thinking without direct confrontation
Apply insights to create collaborative decisions that stick
Commitment: What if your boss plays favorites?
Amplify team wins to reinforce that success is a collective effort
Make product leadership a team sport, not a solo act
Takeaway: You can drive change. Apply DAC to shift your organization from control-based to collaborative leadership, where success is shared not dictated.
Coach Your People, Grow Your Business
Here's something controversial: I don't believe in permanent A-players vs B-players. Everyone has their A-game moments and their... well, other moments. The real question? How do you help people bring out their best?
The secret: The best leaders coach, not command.
Three Quick Coaching Moves
Ask powerful questions. "What options have you considered?"
Listen more than you talk. Let silence do the heavy lifting.
Encourage self-reflection. "What's your biggest takeaway?"
Action Item: Take this quick 5-minute survey to inform a course on using coaching in leadership to unlock your team's potential.
Pro Tip: The best leaders, whether direct or indirect, act more like coaches, helping people discover their own solutions rather than providing all the answers.
How Decentralized Leadership Works
Think of spider organizations as traditional hierarchies - cut off the head, and the body dies. Starfish organizations are decentralized - remove one part, and others step up. The magic happens when you blend both.
Spider Model → Top-down control, predictable but rigid
Starfish Model → Adaptive, leaderless, but can be chaotic
Hybrid Model → Balance of structure & flexibility
At Pearson, we transformed a rigid spider structure by introducing Future Technologies Champions. The result? Innovation + scale = organizational magic!
How can you start? David Drake’s Five Maturities will set you on your way.
1. Personal Maturity – Be self-aware. Ask yourself, how can I lead from my current position?
Revisit the DAC example above. Instead of waiting for structural change, model the desired behaviors such as facilitating collaboration.
Focus on small wins by amplifying wins by your team or colleagues to demonstrate the value of a decentralized, adaptive approach.
2. Connective Maturity – Motivate others through shared purpose. Consider, how do you relate to your company?
Tie initiatives to the company’s mission. If leaders see decentralization as a risk, run a small test aligned with company goals - then share the results
Lead with customer experience. Even Amazon’s “two-pizza teams” often evolved based on customer feedback gathered prior to a launch.
3. Professional Maturity – To shift a system, you must understand its workings and values. How can you better understand your organization?
Identify cross-functional colleagues with similar mindsets and opportunities to introduce change instead of pushing against hierarchy.
Speak your leaders’ language when exploring distributed leadership. Future Tech Champions were around the world, proving scale doesn’t mean a loss of control.
4. Social Maturity – Seek to understand group dynamics. Determine, how can I identify ways to bring others along?
Collaborate with diverse individuals to foster mutual understanding and collective progress rather than advocating for personal or silo’d viewpoints.
Leverage mentorship and peer groups to shift behavior. Create space for peer-led innovation to encourage decentralized thinking, for example through hackathons.
5. Contextual Maturity – Know when to push for change, when to wait, and how to present ideas to fit the culture.
Gauge if the organization is Spider, Starfish, or Hybrid. In hierarchies, gradual shifts like cross-team collaboration ease resistance
Timing matters. At SimplePractice, a hour of learning improved knowledge sharing, accelerated delivery, and broke down silos - appeasing a hesitant CEO.
Key Takeaway: You don’t need formal authority to shift a system. Use small, intentional actions to influence from within. Try this interactive exercise.
Giving Control Instead of Taking It
If you want to increase your influence, consider Intent-Based Leadership. Defined by David Marquet, a former nuclear submarine captain, who shifted control to his team instead of making every decision himself.
Old Model: “Leader-Follower”. The boss gives orders, and the team executes.
New Model: “Leader-Leader”. Everyone takes ownership and acts as a leader.
He coached his team to begin with, “I intend to…” and leave behind “What should I do?”, prompting them to think critically and take responsibility.
Here are simple steps to try Intent-Based Leadership whether you have direct or indirect influence over others.
Stop giving all the answers. Lead others to contribute with “What do you think?”
Empower team members to make decisions within their sphere of responsibility.
Encourage ownership and accountability at all levels.
Key Insight: The more control you give, the more capable your team becomes. Real leadership is about creating other leaders, not more followers.
Your People Are Your Strategy
Here are four steps to put today’s concepts into motion.
Start using DAC to rally your team
Practice those coaching moves
Blend spider structure with starfish flexibility
Use "I intend to..." language
Remember: You've got more influence than you think, regardless of your title. It's about creating ripples of change from wherever you sit in the organization.
And hey, if you're implementing any of these ideas, I'd love to hear how it goes!
Go forth and hybrid-ize! Want help? Schedule a call. You’ve got this.
Thanks for reading.
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P.S. Curious to learn more about me (or Lancaster)? You can interact with me in multiple ways: join my Maven course to learn how to apply coaching as a product manager, explore my philosophy and speaking on my website, or pick up my book.
Lancaster in Google Whisk plushy form.