What is influence in leadership?

Believe it or not, influence plays a bigger role in your life than you may realise. Remember than time you couldn’t get a pay rise in your annual review? Lack of influence. Remember than time you couldn’t bring yourself to make that life changing decision? Lack of influence. Remember that time you couldn’t get a loved one to take a big step with you? Lack of influence. The ability to influence is an essential for making positive progress in life.

I want to share with you how I learnt the important of influence in two parts. When I was younger, I would think to myself, “I want to do this!” But, I would then be distracted by the TV. Later, when I started my career, I would say to people “Do this!” To my surprise, they wouldn’t do it. I spent a while trying to figure two things:

1. Why I struggled to commit to what I wanted to do?
2. Why I couldn’t get other to do what I wanted them to do?

As I spent some time learning I discovered that the main cause was due to a lack of influence. I had zero influence over my own actions and zero influence over other people. As I started to practice methods of increasing influence I turned this around. I was able to influence myself to doing whatever I set my mind too and committing to it 100%. I was also able to influence other to doing what I required of them for a positive impact (not manipulation). As my ability to influence grew, I saw greater success, increased happiness and better results. It was at this point I realised how important influence is in life.

Influence is one of the key behaviours of a leader and by bringing this leadership behaviour into your life you will be able to see the same results. Influence comes in two parts: Internal and External. In leadership, influence is simply the ability to get another person or group, the ones you lead, to operate in a positive way. Without influence, a leader would struggle to make an impact. Influence is built by leaders displaying the three core areas of Adaptability, Right Behaviours and Experience.

Influence is the currency of leadership

JT

Internal influence is the ability to influence your own thoughts. For example, if you are struggling to overcome a blocker in your life, you need to take action. But, the lack of influence over your mind is stopping you from taking action. Building the ability to influence to own thoughts and feelings will lead to insane control over your own life.

External influence is the ability to influence others through your communication. For example, if you are leading a project then you want people to bring their A game. Without proper influence the team won’t be motivated, clear on what to do or deliver results. Building the ability to influence others will allow you to lead with less stress and see greater results.

The definition of influence “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself”. Do you notice know how what I’ve explained so closely links to the dictionary definition of influence?

Bring leadership into your life and see exponential growth and success by developing your ability to influence both internally and externally.

Thank you for reading, JT