Do you know that feeling of powerlessness?

‘Mandate is a voluntarily given authority over a specific area of responsibility’

Do you recognize the following situation?

As a team leader, you’re responsible for your team, for the output your team delivers, for communicating with all the other players in the field, and for a clear strategy for your whole team. You feel that responsibility constantly. But you also feel the volatility of the entire system you’re a part of. And on top of those challenges, it’s not clear to you what you actually can and cannot decide. Responsibility on the one hand, unclear authority on the other. In the end, you feel ‘powerless’. And that touches on precisely what is essential for you and me as a midfielder. What is my mandate? What does it look like? Where is my space, and where are my boundaries? According to Dr. Viktor Frankl and Daniel Pink, the conditions for intrinsic and sustainable motivation consist of three elements:

1. Spending at least 25% of your time using your natural talents and continuing to grow in them
2. Being able to autonomously decide what takes priority for at least 25% of your time, making independent choices there
3. Being aware of purpose at least once a week, because you experience that your contribution is needed and contributes to a larger whole that is meaningful in itself.

When we think about my mandate, it is therefore one of the pillars of my intrinsic motivation. When I constantly feel that I’m only reacting and not making my own choices, it costs me a huge amount of energy. And of course, that applies to all players in the field. So how can you tackle this topic yourself?

Here, we use the three circles of influence.

We call the innermost circle the A-circle. This contains all my tasks and assignments where I have maximum space to make my own choices. So, high autonomy and a high mandate. These are assignments and tasks where I can make my own choices 90–100% of the time. As a team leader, that could be, for example:

• Discussing the regularity of the communication structure within my own team
• Deciding which of my team members to deploy for which tasks and how
• My own choice of which competencies I want to develop over the next 2 years.

Surrounding the A-circle is the B-circle. Here, I can decide together with colleagues which direction we’re heading. But that means I need to work on reaching consensus with my colleagues, because we share a mandate here. These are tasks and assignments where I experience 40–50% decision-making freedom. This also gives me a clear voice and a role in shaping things. I can’t decide this alone, but I do have a clear mandate—a voice in the process. And so I am also fully co-responsible for the choices we make together here. Examples of B-tasks:

• Determining the priorities of our shared goals and projects together with my fellow team leaders
• Regularly evaluating and adjusting our own team projects together with my team members
• Giving feedback to my own leaders, combined with innovative solutions for challenges that come our way.

Surrounding the B-circle is the C-circle. Here, I only have influence through what I say, do, pass on, request, brainstorm, constructively criticize, and how I appreciate and encourage the people around me. We’re talking about roughly a 10% mandate here. It’s not 0%, because I can exert influence. It’s just that 90% of the final choices are made by others. The intrinsic motivation generated by C-tasks isn't very high, but it's certainly not to be ignored. Examples here include:

• Giving my well-substantiated opinion in decision-making meetings
• Passing on the organization's vision to my own team members so they understand it and can place it in their daily work
• Keeping an open mind as I look at our system to discover where we can optimize it, and bringing these ideas to the wider team.

These 3 circles of influence/mandate give a great insight into where your mandate currently lies. Take 15 minutes to brainstorm: ‘Which assignments and tasks fall into which circles for me?’

Alongside these 3 circles, create a simple overview where you summarize the most interesting and meaningful tasks and assignments for yourself:

3 Projects at the A-level, 3 projects at the B-level, and 3 at the C-level. Each of these 9 projects gives you the intrinsic motivation you need to play at a top level as a midfielder.

Naturally, more so with the A-projects than with the B- or C-projects. But the overview of all 9 projects together gives a clear picture of the mandate you can take on right now as a midfielder.

The next step is to discuss this with your leader and check to what extent they see it the same way—giving you a clear mandate for these projects.