This blog continues on from part one which explains a concrete method to increasing your leadership influence. Part one covered genuine interest and building relationships. Part two will continue to explain how you can build better relationships.
Part One, Two and Three are all available to read!
We can decide how we approach our conversations and whether we want to build on a relationship or not. We can take either an open or closed format approach. A closed approach is when we ask leading questions to which people can only respond with:
- A yes or a no
- A one-word answer
- A directed answer
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Females tend to use more of an open format approach whereas males tend to use more of a closed format approach. This is because of how we have been taught to socialise and our upbringing. Females were encouraged to have open conversations with each other, discuss their issues and work out solutions. This is why females are often great at socialising and building lasting relationships. Males, on the other hand, have been taught to conceal their issues and bottle up their emotions. We have developed this way of conversing due to how society taught our parents to behave and how they taught us to be. This is not to say that all woman talk, and men do not. We all have diverse upbringings and backgrounds. The point here is that as a society we are told not to connect. We are told to keep ourselves to ourselves in order to protect ourselves. In reality this creates more personal, and sometimes more severe issues which can be avoided through open format conversations.
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Taking an open approach towards conversations can go a long way towards allowing people to open up and build relationships. These are asking questions which begin with:
- Why
- How
- When
- Where
- Describe
- Tell me
- Explain
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As children we are fantastic at this. We are all accustomed with the five year old asking why to everything. This may seem annoying but if you look at this from the point of view of a child, they are trying to make sense of everything in their minds. They are trying to understand all the information and absorb it. Somewhere along the line of growing up we lose this. We make this assumption that we know it all. As I mentioned earlier, the right behaviour of listening, explains that we do not know it all. We naturally make assumptions and judgements within seconds which is not our fault, it is how we are programmed. Now assume Kennedy, when making his vital decision during the Cuban missile crisis thought to himself, “I know what they are thinking. I know they will do this, so I am going to bomb them!” Imagine the different story in history that would have been written.
We should not try to control our subconscious but instead be self-aware of these judgements and make a conscious effort to push beyond our preconceptions. We should break the invisible boundaries created by society and ask the questions. We should push past our fears to dig a little deeper. Fundamentally leadership is about being able to connect with yourself and others. Our behaviours dictate whether we connect with others or not. The power is ours. Open format conversations give us the opportunity to connect with others.
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How to reference this page
- Toor, J. (2019). How to increase leadership influence, part two? Available at: https://pmgrowth.co/how-to-increase-leadership-influence,-part-two?/
Inspirations
- John F Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America