Are you an Influential Leader?
The ability to influence is an essential leadership skill. Your ability to influence will impact on the behaviours, attitudes, opinions and choices of others.
Noticing what motivates employee commitment enables influential leaders to use that knowledge to leverage performance and positive results.
Thinking about YOUR leadership, how relatable are these questions?:
“No one listens to me!”
“I’m basically invisible”
“I feel like I have the job title but NO real influence”
Do you ever feel like this at work? Do you get frustrated that your voice doesn’t seem to be valued and are you questioning WHY?
You are not Alone
Let me firstly put your mind at rest and tell you that you are truly not alone. MANY, MANY leaders feel like this.
When we have the job title but feel like we don’t have the ability to influence to match, it can leave us looking around for someone to blame:
🤔 Is it me?
🤔 Or is it them?
The former leaves us questioning our ability and skill set to lead. Am I cut out to be a leader? Maybe I have nothing of value to say? Sound familiar?
Or perhaps we take the latter approach and decide that everyone is against us, or simply ignorant….
Anyone else admit to playing this blame game in their heads before?
How do we Figure this Out?
It’s got to start with us.
As the great Viktor Frankl said: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Let's Get Honest
Let’s look at what could be going on within us:
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1. Lack of Confidence
If we doubt ourselves and what we have to say, this will most certainly be visible in our communication and ability to influence. It’s hard to be assertive and stand by our convictions if, deep down, we feel like imposters or are scared of saying something wrong.
What would it be like if you could build your confidence up from within, so you could speak boldly and with powerful conviction?
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2. Lack of Curiosity
As leaders, we may believe we should have all the answers. We should be decisive and definitive about our viewpoint. But what if by thinking this way, we close ourselves off to others good ideas? What if people stop listening to us because we don’t listen to them? Did you know that there is 10% of good sense in every idea? If that were to be true, how about you take some genuine curiosity into your next meeting and see if that generates more creativity and an ethos of win:win.
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3. Lack of Clarity
Do we say yes when really we mean no? Do we water down our opinions or even perhaps hold them back all together? Or perhaps we do our best to explain our views, but get too wrapped up in the detail and miss the big picture or explaining the real consequences. In order to lead, we need to communicate! We need to communicate with clarity, with real perspective and with the end in mind. What are we missing in our communication that gives the full picture of the situation?
Finding Solutions
Here’s the good news….
Gaining greater influence in your leadership is ABSOLUTELY something you can learn and develop! The clients we work with do just that and are able to turn their gaps into strengths so they can go on and become the influential leaders they strive to be.
If you are curious to find out what that would look like for you, then do reach out to us today.