Managing Up and Sideways: How Program Managers Can Lead Without Authority

Yaniv Corem
Jan 17, 2025
9 min read

I got a call from a program manager who was about to resign.

Not because the job was too hard. Not because she didn't believe in the mission.

Because she felt invisible.

"I have all the responsibility," she told me. "But none of the authority. I need budget approval for a $500 tool—that takes three weeks. I need a board member to connect us with investors—they don't reply to my emails. I need the curriculum to change based on what I'm hearing from founders—my director thinks it's fine."

She'd been running the program for two years. She knew the founders better than anyone. She knew what was working and what wasn't. And she felt like she was shouting into a void.

Here's the thing: this is nearly universal in program management.

You're not a founder. You're not an executive. You're the person in the middle—responsible for outcomes you don't fully control, dependent on relationships you don't formally manage, accountable to stakeholders you didn't choose.

That's the job. And it requires a completely different kind of leadership than most people are trained for.

The Authority Paradox

Program managers face a specific challenge that most leadership frameworks don't address.

You have formal authority over almost nothing. You can't make the board move faster. You can't force a mentor to show up. You can't compel a funder to accept your impact reporting format. You can't make a senior director approve your curriculum changes.

But you're responsible for outcomes that depend on all of these people doing the right thing at the right time.

This is what organizational theorists call "managing without authority"—and it's actually a specific skill set. One that doesn't come naturally, especially to people who've been trained in environments where hierarchy and formal power determined outcomes.

The good news: it's learnable. And program managers who get good at it become genuinely irreplaceable.

How Most Program Managers Get This Wrong

Before I tell you what works, let me show you what doesn't.

Mistake 1: Framing everything in terms of founder needs

You go to your director and say: "The founders need a better CRM." Or: "The curriculum isn't meeting founders where they are."

These are legitimate concerns. But they're framed from inside the program. A board member or institutional funder doesn't live inside your program. They live inside their own priorities—their funders, their board, their reputation, their strategic goals.

When you speak founder language to stakeholders who speak funder or executive language, you get polite nods and no action.

Mistake 2: Asking for opinions instead of decisions

"What do you think about changing the mentor matching process?" is a question that invites endless discussion.

"I'd like to change our mentor matching process to include a founder-skill-fit assessment. Can I move forward with piloting this in the next cohort?" is a request for a decision.

Busy stakeholders above you will almost always say yes to a specific, bounded request faster than they'll engage with an open-ended question. Most program managers ask for opinions when they need decisions. Don't do that.

Mistake 3: Engaging sideways stakeholders only when you need something

You need the marketing team to promote your cohort applications. The legal team to review your agreements. The finance team to process payments faster.

None of these people report to you. And if you only show up when you need something, you're not a collaborator—you're a requester. That's a much weaker position.

Mistake 4: Trying to escalate your way to outcomes

When collaboration fails, some program managers go over heads. They CC the director. They bring it up in an all-hands.

Escalation is expensive. It creates conflict. It damages the relationships you'll need next month. Use it rarely, and only with data behind it—not frustration.

Managing Up:

Getting What You Need From People Above You

Managing up isn't about being political. It's not about telling your boss what they want to hear.

It's about understanding what your stakeholders above you actually care about—and speaking to that.

Here's how.

Translate founder needs into stakeholder outcomes.

"The founders need a better CRM" becomes: "We're losing 40% of our time to manual data entry, which means we're spending less time on direct founder support. A $3,000 CRM investment would save us ~15 hours per week—equivalent to a half-time operations coordinator."

"We need more budget for mentorship events" becomes: "Three of our cohort's top funding prospects came directly from mentor introductions last year. Events that deepen those relationships have a clear ROI on our investment pipeline."

Same underlying request. But now you're speaking your stakeholder's language.

Create visibility into your work without being annoying.

Senior stakeholders often don't know what you're doing on a daily basis. That's not their failure—it's a communication gap you can close.

A simple monthly "program update" email—two paragraphs, three bullet points, one key number—keeps stakeholders informed without requiring meetings. It also creates a track record of competence that matters when you need to ask for something big.

Protect your director's time—and their reputation.

This one's often overlooked. Managing up isn't just about getting what you need. It's about making your manager look good.

When you solve problems before they escalate, you're doing your director a favor. When you bring solutions rather than problems, you're managing up. When you communicate bad news early with a plan attached, you're protecting their ability to manage their own stakeholders.

Directors who feel supported by their program managers give those managers more latitude. The relationship is reciprocal.

Default to action, ask for permission to proceed.

Don't ask "Should I do X?" Ask "I'm planning to do X—let me know if you need me to adjust."

This shifts the dynamic. You're a confident professional moving forward, not someone waiting to be told what to do. Most directors will either say "great, proceed" or "actually, let me tweak one thing." Either way, you've moved the ball forward.

Managing Sideways:

Working With Peers Who Owe You Nothing

This is where most program managers struggle more than they admit.

You need things from people who have no obligation to prioritize you. And the standard playbook—hierarchy, deadlines, urgency—doesn't work when you have no authority.

Here's what does.

Build relationships before you need them.

Set up a coffee chat with your finance colleague in Month 1—before you have a budget request. Send a quick note to the marketing lead congratulating them on a campaign that went well—before you need promotion. Ask the legal team how they prefer to receive contract requests—before you have a deadline.

When you've built a genuine relationship, asking for help feels different. You're not a stranger making a demand. You're a colleague asking a favor.

Understand their workload and constraints.

Sideways stakeholders often can't help you as fast as you want because they're genuinely swamped—not because they don't care about your program.

When you understand their constraints, you can often unblock yourself:

"I know you're deep in the budget cycle right now—is there a simpler format I could provide the data in that would make it faster for you?"
"Who on your team might have bandwidth to help with this smaller ask?"
"Can I draft the first version so all you need to do is review?"

Make reciprocal value explicit.

What can you offer in return? What's in it for them?

For the marketing team: "Our founder cohort is a great source of impact stories and case studies. I'm happy to flag the best ones for you in real-time."
For the legal team: "I'll create a standard template so you're not reviewing the same agreement from scratch each cohort—just flag what needs customizing."
For finance: "I'll build a payment calendar three months out so you have visibility into our cash flow needs before they hit."

When you create value for sideways stakeholders—not just extract it—they become genuinely collaborative rather than grudgingly compliant.

Escalate sparingly, but don't be afraid to escalate.

When collaboration consistently fails and founders are being affected, escalation is sometimes necessary.

But do it through your own chain of command, not by going around someone. And bring the data: "I've requested this three times over six weeks, and here's the impact on founders." Facts, not frustration.

Managing External Stakeholders:

Mentors, Investors, and Partners

Program managers often forget that managing without authority extends beyond the org chart.

Your mentors don't report to you. Your investor contacts aren't your colleagues. Your ecosystem partners have their own agendas.

Managing these relationships requires the same core skills—translated for external contexts.

With mentors:

The key is making them feel like their time matters. Not generically ("You're so appreciated!") but specifically ("The intro you made to Sarah led directly to her first customer conversation—she's been talking about it all week.").

Mentors who feel like their expertise is being well-used stay engaged. Mentors who feel like they're being processed through a system drift away.

Practical things that work:

Send a brief impact update after each cohort—specific stories, not aggregate stats
Recognize mentors publicly (in newsletters, demo day shout-outs, on the website)
Match them intentionally, not randomly—so they're set up for success
Make it easy to say no to sessions they're not the right fit for

With investors:

They don't owe you attention. But you can earn it.

The program managers who build strong investor relationships are the ones who:

Send deal flow that's actually good—pre-screened, not "here's everyone who applied"
Make warm introductions without asking for anything in return
Communicate program outcomes in metrics investors care about (portfolio survival rates, follow-on rounds) rather than program metrics (applications received, sessions delivered)

Build the relationship in the off-season. Show up before demo day. Create value before you ask for it.

With ecosystem partners:

Be explicit about what you're offering and what you need. Partner relationships go sideways when expectations are implicit.

Write it down. What do they get? What do you get? How will you both know if it's working?

A simple one-page partnership brief—shared at the start, reviewed mid-way—does more for relationship health than any amount of goodwill.

Building Your Stakeholder Map

If you're going to manage without authority effectively, you need to know who you're managing.

Here's a simple framework. Map your stakeholders across two dimensions:

Axis 1: Influence on your program outcomes

High influence: Can approve or block decisions that affect your work
Medium influence: Can speed up or slow down key functions
Low influence: Nice to have onside, but not critical

Axis 2: Your current relationship quality

Strong: Regular communication, mutual respect, history of collaboration
Neutral: Transactional, functional but not warm
Weak: Infrequent contact, potential friction

Once you've mapped this, you can be strategic:

High influence + weak relationship = Priority. These people can block you and you don't have capital with them. Invest here first.
High influence + strong relationship = Maintain. These are your allies. Keep them informed, keep them happy.
Low influence + weak relationship = Deprioritize. Don't burn energy here.
Low influence + strong relationship = Leverage. These people can introduce you to higher-influence stakeholders.

Most program managers have this backwards. They spend time with people they like, not people who matter most.

What Good "Managing Without Authority" Actually Looks Like

Let me paint a concrete picture.

A program manager I've worked with—let's call her Priya—runs a mid-sized accelerator inside a university. She has almost no formal authority. Every decision above a certain threshold requires faculty approval. Her budget sits in a department she doesn't control. Her mentors are volunteers.

Here's what she does:

Monthly: Sends a one-page program update to three senior stakeholders—her dean, her department head, and the chair of her external advisory board. Not a request. Just an update. "Here's what's working, here's what we're planning next, here's one number that shows impact." Two minutes to read.
Quarterly: Has a coffee with the university's corporate partnerships director—not to ask for anything, just to share what companies in her cohort are building. That director has started flagging relevant pilot opportunities directly to Priya's founders.
Ongoing: Sends mentor impact notes every six weeks. One paragraph, specific to each mentor, about how their last session landed.
Before big asks: Does the relationship work first. When she needed a $12,000 tech tool approved, she'd spent six months building credibility with the dean through her monthly updates. The conversation took ten minutes.

Priya didn't get any new formal authority. She just got better at using the informal authority she always had.

The Bottom Line

You can't control people. You can only influence them.

And influence is built on trust, relationships, and the reputation you build over time.

The program manager who tries to force outcomes—through hierarchy, urgency, or guilt—gets compliance in the short term and resistance in the long term.

The program manager who invests in relationships, translates their needs into others' language, and builds a track record of making people's lives easier? That person gets outcomes.

Not because they have authority. Because they've made themselves indispensable.

The woman who called me about resigning? She didn't resign.

We worked through her stakeholder map: who needed what, what leverage she had with each person, what she could offer in return. She started sending monthly updates to her board member. She built a relationship with the marketing team before the next application cycle. She brought her director a curriculum change proposal with data, not just a concern.

Six months later, she told me her director had given her a budget she didn't ask for, because "you clearly know what this program needs better than any of us."

That's what managing without authority looks like when it's working.

Want a practical framework for mapping and managing your stakeholder relationships? I've built a Stakeholder Management Toolkit that includes a stakeholder mapping template, communication scripts for common situations, and a relationship-building calendar.

Stakeholder Management Toolkit

Download

You might also find the Managing Up Communication Templates useful—it's a set of email and update templates for monthly stakeholder updates, escalation conversations, and making the case for budget.

Managing Up Communication Templates