Welcome to THE CAREER ACCELERATOR, the podcast where corporate managers will find tips and tools to deliver results through others.
Today, I will provide five tips that you can adopt to become a better leader and influencer.
I’m your host, Percy Cannon.
In our last episode I shared three responsibilities that a leader should master:
1. Giving business direction by reframing your market and competition,
2. Excel in resource allocation, and
3. Establish a culture in which your organization or your team is aligned behind the one thing that will generate the greatest impact.
Today, I will provide tips that can help you become a better leader by influencing others. This time I will build on the content from The Go-Giver Influencer book, written by my friend Bob Burg and John David Mann, as well as my nearly four decades of international corporate experience.
If you want to attract people to you and your ideas, there are two broad ways to accomplish this:
1. Use positional leadership, which may drive compliance but is not very effective, or
2. By influence, which drives commitment by focusing on “what’s in it for the other person.”
Which one do you choose? More and more of the executives I coach are selecting the second one, as they want to learn how to influence their co-workers as a way to lead them.
A client once shared with me a story about how, based on feedback she had received, she adjusted and improved her influencing style.
Being an executive within a multinational corporation, she frequently led meetings with people from her teams and other groups. She was informed that she usually opened the meetings stating the decision that needed to be made and volunteered an approach.
This usually led into uneven levels of participation and discussion. Not everybody felt comfortable suggesting an approach different from what the senior person in the room had volunteered.
This resulted in potentially sub-optimal decisions and unclear commitment.
Based on the feedback received, she changed her approach. She still prepared well for the meetings but refrained from volunteering a potential solution at the beginning of her meetings.
Instead, she focused on framing the issue, ensuring full participation, and listening to the different points of view.
The resulting decisions became much better and the level of commitment substantially higher.
This example addresses three of the five principles of leading by influence in Burg’s book:
1. Kick off meetings by “framing” the issue or topic to be covered and by clarifying the goals. Then, step back to let the discussion flow.
2. Step into the other person’s shoes. Listen to the interests of the meeting participants to understand what’s in it for them.
3. Let go of having to be right. Allow team members to share their suggestions without being concerned about contradicting the leader.
The other two principles are:
4. Master your emotions: BREATHE, set your feelings aside.
Don't let your feelings drive the car. Put them in the passenger seat, and let reasoned judgment drive the car.
Make calm your default setting. Above all, think before you speak.
5. Communicate with tact and empathy: BE GRACIOUS. Let yourself feel what the other person is feeling, and speak to that truthfully and compassionately. Use lead-in phrases that can pave the way, such as: I might be wrong about this, Just a thought, I’m wondering, This is my opinion only, it seems to me, and I could be very wrong…
Summarizing, you can become a better leader by influencing others. Choose one or more of the five principles shared today:
1. Improve how you FRAME, and potentially REFRAME, your discussions,
2. STEP into the other person’s shoes. Focus on “What’s in it for them,”
3. LET GO OF HAVING TO BE RIGHT,
4. MASTER your emotions. Think before you talk, and
5. COMMUNICATE WITH TACT AND EMPATHY. Above all, be gracious.
Let me know which of these five principles you commit to start practicing today.
In our next episode I will continue to share tips that will make you a better leader in 2023 and beyond.
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This is Percy Cannon, working to help you make the rest of your life…the best of your life®.