I have seen many engineers in charge of leading projects who miserably failed because they weren’t able to “influence” other teams on which their project depended (“who are you again and why do I have to do this for you?”) while their manager still held them fully accountable without offering any help to step in and exercise power against the other team.
The solution that always saved my ass was: build a network inside your organization, help the tech leads of other teams whenever you can even if it causes you some short term pain, and one day you’ll be able to successfully claim favors from them and influence a team towards your goal even if you have no formal authority over it.
The amount of power managers have over engineers in certain organizations is truly horrific. They will always take all the credit and none of the blames, throwing engineers under the bus in front of their directors. It should be the other way around, most of the times.
Great comment.