The Leadership Exchange
Discussions on Real-World Leadership for professionals. We explore several topics about leadership and getting the best from your team to deliver amazing results while creating a great environment for them.
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The Leadership Exchange
S4E2: Influence Without Authority Is Built Through Credibility And Care
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Leading without authority is not a soft, vague idea. It’s the reality of modern work, where you’re expected to drive change across teams, influence frontline leaders, and move projects forward without a direct reporting line. We kick off a new three-host format by welcoming Alex Aranda, then get honest about what actually builds influence when you can’t lean on a title.
We start with moments that shape a leader fast: hearing a frontline manager describe how “management shows up, points out what’s wrong, makes promises, then disappears.” From there we define influence as something you earn, not something you’re granted, and we talk about why pulling the “I’m the boss” card is a leadership failure even when you technically can. We also share real work stories, from walking into a new facility as an outsider to earning trust by clearing obstacles for experts who didn’t report to you.
Then we give you a practical framework you can use immediately: relationship, credibility, initiative, and service. We dig into what credibility really means (competence, consistency, and showing up where the work happens), how to lead with questions instead of telling, and why vulnerability can accelerate trust. We also call out a common mistake that kills long-term influence: name dropping senior leaders to force compliance.
If you want stronger cross-functional leadership, better communication, and more trust at work, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a review if it helps. What’s one relationship you’re trying to improve this month?
Follow us on Instagram or on Threads @LEADERSHIPEXCHANGEPODCAST. We'd love to hear from you! What topics you'd like us to explore with you? What questions on our topics do you have? Say hello and start the dialogue!
Welcome And New Co-Host
SPEAKER_00Hello everyone, this is Lupe Munoz. And this is Steve McKeon, and we've got uh some exciting news today on the Leadership Exchange. Lupe, you want to tell our guests uh what they're in for?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're in for a special treat. We uh I we spoke about this uh at the end of season three, that we were going to add team member to this uh podcast discussion. This to me is a very natural evolution for us, having someone that we also would have a lot of discussions with, Steve and Alex often find ourselves on in conversations on the phone, in person. Conversations about leadership usually is where it ends up going. Sometimes, uh, maybe about the Dallas Cowboys, but most of the time about all right, Alex. Okay, I know. I know you're not a big fan. I get it. This is Alex Aronda. She will be joining us at the Leadership Exchange now moving forward. We're super excited. We think she's gonna add another dimension to this discussion and really help us with adding some levity to the discussions, which is something we've been really working on. With that said, Alex, please tell our uh listeners about yourself and some of the cool things you do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, thank you, Steve. Thank you, Lupe. I am excited to be a part of the leadership exchange on a more regular basis. I will share that, like you two, very like-minded in terms of how we think about Teams, how we are focused and dedicated to empowering and uplifting the next generation of leaders. I uh feel really passionate about this work, and I'm really excited just to be a part of this podcast. So excited to be here and thank you very much for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02And you're from Oakland, right?
SPEAKER_03Of course. I'm from Oakland, born and raised. And so when you said your joke there about the Dallas Cowboys, yeah, no, that that doesn't sit very well with me.
SPEAKER_01She's a Denver Bronco fan, and she was like hidden inside that uh Raider nation for years.
SPEAKER_02No, Alex. Uh hey, wait, wait, before I I know this is off topic a little bit, but yeah, okay. So what are you a Niners fan or are you a Raiders fan? The the Las Vegas Raiders, by the way.
SPEAKER_03No, I I feel like that would be just treasonous. Growing up in Oakland, I just everyone that I knew, my family, friends, you had to root for the Oakland Raiders. Let me let me tell you really quick, it's interesting because obviously I don't live in Oakland anymore, but we just you you feel connected, right? And now that the team has moved on to Las Vegas, it still feels like the Oakland Raiders in some way, shape, or form. Although I know it's no longer Oakland Raiders. So needless to say, my son, who is eight, as he starts to get involved in sports, and especially leading up to the Super Bowl, he tells me that he wants to wear a jersey for the LA Rams. And I was like, what?
SPEAKER_01Good for him.
SPEAKER_03Where did that come from? And I and I had to quickly tell him, I said, son, don't say that out, don't say that around your aun and your uncle.
SPEAKER_01Alex, I'm more than happy to give him a proper jersey from the Denver Broncos that I think. I've got a couple that I can send your way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right, now that we got our uh NFL alliances out of the way there. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Alex, seeing as you're the new host, first of all, start off with a story and then tell us what topic you want to talk about based on that story. And then we can explore that a little bit.
Why Influence Without Authority Matters
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. No, well, thanks for the honor. You know, I've been thinking about this, and one topic that I think would be beneficial for the listeners out there would be this idea of influence without authority. So, how do you build influence in a space where you want people to do what you need them to do? You want them to, you know, behave in a certain way, but there's no direct reporting line. And I feel like this could apply in many functions, not just operations, maybe not just an HR or even from like an environmental health and safety perspective. Influence without authority. What brought me to this was I was reflecting on a meeting that I had, an interaction. It was one of my very first interactions with a frontline leader going back a few years ago. And it stands out with me for till this day. I was there on one of my initial visits, and you know, I can't tell you how it caught me off guard. He says to me in so many words, you know, Alex, I see management show up all the time. And it's often that they'll come in and they'll point things out that are wrong, that need to be fixed. They make these promises about what they want to improve, but then they kind of go away. Why this stuck out to me was clearly the leader had been disappointed from time to time in others. And I didn't want to fall into that same issue, right? I didn't want to have that same uh start with this person. And so still to the day it stands out to me as one of those moments where I was like, nope, I I could see the disappointment. I'm not gonna do that. And it it shaped the way I continue to interact with him and with others. That's something that stands out to me.
SPEAKER_01It's a great story, Alex. When we think about influence without authority, you know, we we looked at some competencies in that space. And so credibility, right? So that is a great example of credibility showing up when you say you're gonna be there and the importance.
SPEAKER_02Before we go down that road, Steve, how would you guys define influence? Just so we can level set before we go into things. How would you define it, Lopez? Oh, dude. Why are you throwing questions back at me? Okay, here's here's a stab. Influence is versus like authority, right? Without authority. With authority, you get by by title, by position. If I'm your boss, for example, I have authority over you, which means I have the ability to coach you, to uh document performance management issues. If I'm not liking something the way you're doing something, that's the type of authority. I have the authority to influence your pay rate, your salary with annual promotion, whatever that cycle is of so that that's what authority is. And I think influence is what you earn. So influence has to be earned, and that's through the relationship you have with someone, the way you interact with them, the way you treat them, the way you follow through. Alex's your your great story about hey, I wanted to be the type of person that delivers on their commitments and not fall into that trap. And by doing that, I'm guessing you you had influence over that in person. And the influence is really around hey, there's something I need done as a leader or as a safety specialist, environment, you name it HR. And people are gonna help me accomplish that because of the person I am and the things I do for them and the relationships we have. So that's how I would define influence.
SPEAKER_01I agree 100%, Lupe. And I I guess the avenue I was gonna go down was kind of get to that same space, starting off with uh a little bit of the caveat of to affect those decisions, those behaviors, those outcomes, as Alex was talking about in that story, really built around your credibility, mutual benefit, the trust, the relationship, the initiative, all different areas that uh frankly a lot of people aren't comfortable in performing or really feeling that they're empowered to participate in in that way. So I think that's a big opportunity for anybody that doesn't have direct reports that needs to influence the behaviors to influence some change in an organization. And this is really something that we've heard recently, some feedback after some training where the audience came forward and just said, wow, this was something that I really wasn't sure what I was gonna learn, but I I've learned so much in this understanding of these kind of key areas that I can think about as I'm trying to influence people in in my sphere, in in my organization per se.
Starting New With Zero Equity
SPEAKER_03And I think tying it back to the story I gave earlier, you know, when I was thinking about a topic for the listeners, influence without authority came up because it felt like we talk about, well, and as as leaders, it's easy to tell up-and-coming leaders, well, you you need to learn how to influence. And so there's a lot of questions about like, okay, that that sounds easy. It sounds good, but what do you have to do? Like, what does that specifically look like? It had got me to thinking about what are some of those tactics that new leaders can leverage in their careers as they start a new role, as they're working with a new team. And I'll tell you that it brought me to this moment where I was a new early career leader. I had been hired to move from California to Iowa to support a meat processing facility. And I remember walking into the door there on my first day. I knew no one. And I was coming from a different industry altogether. I felt like, boy, it's a giant mountain to climb, trying to really engage it, trying to get to a point to where I might be able to help the team, but they had to want to take some help from me. It was from that type of experience and from others, right? That some of the tactics that I hope to be able to share really came from. That was just, you know, another piece of it and why I felt like influence without authority. There's some things we might be able to share with early leaders to help them in their journey.
SPEAKER_01That's a great example. So you came into this organization with not a lot of direct reports, but you were brought in to bring you know some kind of service and and probably some some change. So, what was the first activity that you remember that was kind of that breakthrough moment for you in that new role?
SPEAKER_03The specifics of it, it's been far too long to probably recall, but I'll tell you that what made the difference was in moments where I showed up, I made it a point to listen first, I was relatable to someone and and just help solve the problem. And it was through moments like that as I continue to show up that you start to build some equity with the team and influence was a natural outcome from those interactions.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's great. One of the things that you said, Alex, or somebody said that I I wanted to clarify because I know that's not necessarily what you meant, or I don't know what you meant, but there was the discussion around.
SPEAKER_03Are you putting words in my mouth, Lou Beck? I don't know.
Why Leading By Title Fails
SPEAKER_02Sorry, I'm not trying to. You said something about like, hey, if you're a so let's say you're part of a supporting organization, you don't have any authority over the a group of people, let's say other departments, and you're trying to get them to support your project or whatever it is that you're trying to get accomplished. And that is very valuable, of course. But I wanted to point out that if you have direct reports that you do have authority over, you you do not want to leverage that authority every chance you get to lead your people, right? You you need to do the same, you need to do the same thing with them and approach it as hey, I don't want to have authority and use that to lead this group. I want to influence them. Yeah. The moment you say something like, Well, I'm the boss, so this is the way it's gonna go. In my opinion, you've failed. Yeah, I mean, like you're as a leader, you you went back to that, well, because I told you so, right? And that's a to me, that's a terrible direction to go. I'm not saying you don't you don't have to sometimes do that. It's rare, but some people do that like all the time. And well, you know, I was destructive.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, Lupa, that's a good call out. And and thanks for bringing that up. In fact, I was thinking about a very situation like that, where in a room with what is a very seasoned leader, air quotes for the listeners, it it was almost verbatim what you shared, right? This is a setting where you know we're supposed to be collaborating. Everyone's input is meaningful, or at least that was the setting that was set up. And then, bottom line, the leader says, Yeah, well, you know, thanks, but I'm the boss and I'm gonna make a different decision. In my mind, and I'm sure it was going in the through the minds of others. It's like, well, then why did we just spend the last hour or so talking about this topic? If you're just gonna go and do whatever you want, anyways.
Four Building Blocks Of Influence
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Steve, what are the top four things you think touch on influence without authority? Like, and then we'll we'll kind of pick that apart, right?
SPEAKER_01In no specific order, but the relationship that we were just talking about, whether you have direct reports or not, you've you've got to establish that relationship with with people. And if you do that, you start to build trust, deep respect, empathy. And that's such an important first stage. Credibility comes next. You say you're gonna do something and and follow through with it. And if you can't get it done, you you need to be transparent and and let the team know, especially when you're a cross-functional partner in one of these spaces. Initiatives Alex had touched on, just stepping in first, encouraged to move through maybe an area that you're not comfortable with. And then the other thing that uh we've all been touching on here is just that service, right? You're there to sometimes make it better first for other people in order to help build on maybe some change in direction that you need to help an organization move towards, right? And so if you can clear some of those obstacles early on, build out credibility, relational capacity with those folks, you know, good things will happen. So, yeah, credibility, relationship, initiative, service, kind of the four that jump out of me.
SPEAKER_02For service, you you're you're sort of I think you're kind of touching on servant leadership. Is that would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's again, whether you have direct reports or not, you can be a servant leader to an organization or a group of individuals that uh you're helping advance a cause. And I I think that's just something that you know is is important for any leader. And and uh, you know, this topic specifically, authority without influence, uh, implies that you have no influence whatsoever. But I think the one thing that we've all recognized, you have presence, right? And if you intentionally put your presence in a space where you can be part of those conversations, you can start to get integrated into the organization. I think Alex, the meat packing uh facility is a great example. Anytime we've all entered a new organization, you have to go through that that learning curve and put putting stuff out there, right? Getting in into those organizations quickly. I think it's really important.
SPEAKER_03And to that point, I feel like when you're the person trying to build the influence, you have to be willing to take that first step. You know, I always think about this, this requires generosity, right? Being being willing to give a little bit at the front end. And what you do with that is you allow to start building some equity in people with groups. And oftentimes I see new leaders go, and this is where they can get stuck, is their their first thing out of their mouth is, hey, I need you to do this for me. Yeah. But if the reason that you're there is to, hey, let me help you with this, that dynamic starts to change.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it sets a tone in a very different way, right?
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02The first tone, hey, you're here for me. The other approach, hey, I'm here for you. You're already kind of laying the foundation of what the relationship will look like.
Questions That Build Real Trust
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and Lupe, I mean, in that in that same kind of space, things that uh you do well in your approach is leveraging questions, right? As you seek to understand, maybe kind of walk through that a little bit. What's types of questions, what's important about maybe starting with questions before you know, maybe making assumptions.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna connect the two or connect that behavior approach to both credibility and relationships. You mentioned the four credibility, relationships, initiative, and service. It actually maybe even touches on service too, because there's a servant leader aspect to it. I love to have one-on-ones with teams. And I I love to have group, like I like to speak to groups when I first meet the team. So I'll speak to the group of leaders separately, and then I'll speak to everybody on the teams that I'm newly part of, and then I'll speak to every single person one-on-one. And the the whole intention there for me is obviously to get to know people, understand them, get to know about them more than just, hey, they work for the team and they're a number, if you will, right? They're more than a lot more than that. And the way I can demonstrate that is to take the time to get to know them. I will talk to them, but I think it touches on credibility, which normally you wouldn't think that, but it touches on credibility and the credibility of my intention behind the way I'm gonna lead people. And if I'm listening to you, and you know, I have some prepared questions that I like to at least at a minimum, we we talk about more. But one of them is what would you like to change if you could change one thing about the the team or the work environment, et cetera? And that leads to a lot of really great opportunities for improvement, especially if I start to see a theme across several team members. Then I'm like, that's the thing I need to go after, because if I can do that, then I will demonstrate my credibility as a leader because my intention is being shown that I really want to make things better for the team, along obviously with the bit for the business, but I I can't get to the business piece until I can really sort of, I guess, win the minds and hearts of the team. And it starts with the sort of that exercise for me. And then I have to do what Alex said is when they say, hey, this is an opportunity. And if I open my mouth and say, you know what, I'm gonna, we're gonna go after that, then I really, really have to be able to go after that and demonstrate that I went after it because otherwise it's it works actually against you to commit to something and not and not be able to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I think that's a great point, Lupe. And I I know it also helps when you get to to know people in that space before you start your common practice of group hugs, where you don't have that relationship with people.
SPEAKER_02Hey, hey, we laugh, but you laugh, but it's a it's a real thing, right? And it's amazing. But no, so let me explain. Let's explain to everybody. Like Lupe's just join the team and start hugging everybody. You know, you get to a really good place in work relationships. And you know, there might be some HR people cringing about this, but to me, that's that's a skeptic view of the world. But it truly, truly teams that form that bond.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like they grown men, grown men, mechanics, technicians, leaders, supervisors, different teams giving themselves that I'm going to describe as manly hug, right? The the handshake and one one arm behind each other, giving each other hugs. That demonstrates exactly the type of relationship that that group has with each other and the amount of respect and commitment that they have to that team. So if you're if you're thinking of like I belong to a group, right? That's the kind of belonging that people yearn for, I think, in in the in the in the world in general, but just as much at work at work as as anywhere else.
Vulnerability And The Name Drop Trap
SPEAKER_01Speaks to that relationship piece, Luke. And kind of where we started that conversation is getting to know people, asking those open-ended questions, I think really helps. I mean, it my experience has been that you can learn so much about another person, kind of that adage, you know, walk in somebody else's shoes, you know, really makes a difference to know where other people are coming from and starts to build that relationship because now you've got a little bit more insight on the individual. I think in the other side of that though, is you gotta be willing to share in your own story, right? And and that's another thing is you're building influence, you gotta be vulnerable, you gotta open up uh a little bit to gain gain that trust, the empathy uh that you'll need from others at times as they see you're struggling to to work through something. I, you know, the nice thing working with you too is that you know we're able to share openly a lot of times in that space, and really helped us when we've been bogged down. And so I just think in that relationship piece that you were talking about, LeBay, is also just you know building that framework, that network of trust amongst some peers as well, so that if Alex isn't there, she should feel that I'm gonna ask the same questions that she would, and and vice versa. So I I think it just really kind of tying all those uh together and and understanding that the relationship building credibility, nothing's more powerful when a team hears another leader speaking very similar in terms of you know where we're going as an organization. And again, that that influence comes a lot of times without authority, but it's being present, having the courage to kind of step in and and lead and you know make any corrections as well.
SPEAKER_03And to that point, one thing, and I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but I'm I share this because I've I've heard it, and I think you know, maybe you two have heard it at times through your career is the watch out is when you do have certain relationships, resist the temptation to name drop or to say, like, hey, well, I talked to this person and they love this idea, like they're they support it. Because then that now by title, that person may not have like the weight, but when you're bringing in a third person who maybe does come with certain authority in an organization to say, all right, well, they're on board, you're not gonna get influence. You're basically getting the okay, the compliance of like, all right, well, I think you already laid it out that this is what is gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're leveraging somebody else's, you're you're leveraging somebody else's authority, really what you're doing by name dropping. There you go.
SPEAKER_03There you go. But but I've heard that.
Credibility Beyond Job Knowledge
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I hate it. I hate it, it it really annoys me when somebody drops name drops like that. It's just kind of like makes my left eye twitch and like, but uh, you're right. I mean, it's it's not I I would love for one of you to, if you can, expand a little bit on credibility. Because initially, when I heard credibility, but I knew it wasn't the case because Steve's pretty good about this stuff, but I was like, wait, credibility, are you talking about like doing your job? Like, like if I'm a if I'm a retail sales leader, is credibility around my knowledge of retail sales, or if I'm an engineer uh leading engineers, is my credibility around the best, I'm the best engineer on the team? What exactly credibility could mean a lot of different things? So, from what perspective? I I'd love for us to talk about from what perspective, because I did talk a little bit about the perspective of credibility as a leader and my intentions behind what I'm trying to accomplish, but I think there's other dimensions to that.
SPEAKER_03That's uh the actions, right? The words and the actions. But but you're right, Lupe. I think it it starts with the competence, right? We all have a technical knowledge, but it it goes beyond that. And I think, you know, what you just touched on is the consistency between like our words and actions. We're gonna do what we say we're going to do. But but I think there's another piece, and and that other piece is just showing up where the work happens, right? You can't be one of those leaders that is wanting to build influence from the comfort of a desk and in your office. Being present wherever the work is happening. I think you need those three elements to really build credibility.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like that. Yeah, and I I think the the competence piece too, Alex, and how you demonstrate competence is really important because you could be a know-it-all show-off, very competent person, which is really going to turn people off. So kind of knowing that, you know, how that that piece is important to understand is I think really key in in how you demonstrate your competence. And then the other side of that is you know, willingness to share that knowledge, right? So a lot of times people that sometimes will have that high level of competency in a super technical field, you know, maybe you aren't going to want to share that because then somebody else knows it, right? And you start to kill the credibility piece, Lupe, I think that you were talking about as well. If you're you're just not going to be open to share some of that that knowledge that you do have as subject matter expert or whatever it is that you are expert at. So I I think you know that builds credibility as well. Uh so not only are you able to demonstrate, but you're able to share, you're able to build other team members' knowledge in that space.
SPEAKER_02The other thing to keep in mind, like there are exceptions to this, right? If I'm a if I'm leading a team of NASA engineers, there's probably some engineering background, I technical science background, I probably need to have for that team to maybe respect me and see that I have credibility in in that area. If I'm uh leading a surgical team, probably, right? If I'm leading a team for the CDC, so a lot of those types of situations, I'm sure there are. But but one of the things that a mistake that commonly happens is oh, this person is from another manufacturing industry. They can't possibly lead a team on our manufacturing industry. Or and so that that mindset that, well, if you didn't learn from our particular industry, then you couldn't possibly lead people. And I don't agree with that because if I was given opportunities for jobs that only I knew, I wouldn't be where I'm at now. When I first became um a maintenance manager, a maintenance and engineering manager, I'd never led maintenance teams. I was never a mechanic per se. The key to me is you got to be the type of leader that can join a team, not be the know-it-all, like Alex says, like you can't go in there being the know it all. Be humble, learn, because you can learn most things. Not all everything, unless you have like eight years to put into like being a doctor, right? But for the most part, you can learn what a business is doing and an industry, but in the meantime, you you rely on the people around you, right? They're the technical experts, the ones that do the work. If you're that type of leader that wants to tell and micromanage people, yeah, you're gonna fail because you don't have that knowledge. I it frustrates me because people get into that mindset, well, they're not a good candidate for this leadership role because they they've not been in manufacturing or they've not been in this industry or that industry. And I'm like, hey, the the industry that we are in as leaders is people.
Practical Ways To Practice Influence
SPEAKER_01Reminds me of uh a story when I was working in defense contracting and I was asked to uh go help out in a um a repair center where they were taking some uh bad damaged vehicles and having to uh get those back into operational condition. And you know, my first week there, one of the senior mechanics comes up and he wants to know why I got this assignment, right? Like what why am I there to lead this effort and explain to him, well, I'm I'm not really here to lead the effort, I'm I'm here to and understand what's going on and see if I might be able to help. And his first question was Have you ever rebuilt a Humvee before? No. Have you ever driven the Humvee before? No, I haven't. And so we went down this list, so my credibility with him continued to drop because I wasn't that uh subject matter expert. But within short months, I cleared obstacles that were preventing him and his team from being able to do what they were really skilled at doing, things changed, right? A relationship immediately changed, and he didn't report to me. I didn't have any direct authority over him, I just had to influence him and that team that you know I I could make a difference and and you know, I could help. And and in another setting, I would say I recognized I was not the right person. I was not going to be able to help this team advance. And you know, I think I I recognize I I was not gonna have that competency that they needed for the leader to overcome. And it was a very highly technical uh area. And so I I think understanding that there may be those times too, and and your uh influence without authority sometimes is to find that SME that they are gonna need, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03One of the things that I was I was thinking about here is what advice would we have for those leaders that feel like okay, they want to get started in this in building their influence, right? Is it is it a skill that can be built to you? Is it a personality thing? Is it a charisma thing? As oftentimes we've heard that, like, oh, you either are born a leader or you just aren't. So what are your thoughts in that area?
SPEAKER_02I gotta stay true to to what I learned in our last episode, Alex. I I no longer give people advice because as Christy Pretzinger on our our previous episode told me, she's like, yeah. So so I would tell you this though. What are the experiences that we have had that tell us that doing this really helped? And doing this did not help. So from that perspective, I'd say finding something common to connect with that person, to be able to relate to them, right? I I told a story in in many episodes ago, I think it was season one, of my army days when I was an officer that had to rely on this civilian government employee to help me in something that I needed to get done. And and the first time I visited them, I did not talk about anything but them and golf because I found out that they were really into golf. I kind of like golf. I was interested in it, and so I said, hey, that'd be a really good common thing to share with them. And so the first thing I did when I showed up to their desk, I could tell, oh, here comes this guy. He's gonna ask me, he's gonna want something. And this person was very difficult to work with, according to other people. But I didn't even ask him for what I needed until like I want to say two, three meetings after. I only touched base and and I asked him about golf. He was very passionate about golf. He, you you could tell he loved it. And that was my way of just connecting with him and being able to relate with something that he really liked. And I think from a relationship building, if you can do that and find that one thing with people, you know, sometimes it's talking about their family, sometimes it's talking about their son that's in college, right? And how proud they are. Or maybe they're they're part of a group that does fun things, sport things, public service things. Who knows? There's a lot of different things people can do.
SPEAKER_03Influence is a skill that we can develop, right? It's not one of these things that you know you either have or don't have. It's it's it's an absolutely learnable skill, but it takes practice. I think that is important for a new leader to hear is is one of these things that with a little bit of self-awareness around what areas the leader wants to improve in, it can be learned and as a skill developed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well said, Alex, that I think to our listener audience, that is part of what they look for out of our conversations is you know, what can they do? What can they try next? And I I think you nailed it. Starting next week on Monday, you can go out there and just try to find something new about somebody that you have to work with, and maybe that's been a difficult work relationship, or maybe it's just a new work relationship, right? Maybe it hasn't been difficult at all. Bringing those intentional soft skills to the table, listen, listen, listen, right? I think is the other one. Just really kind of understand where they're they're coming from. Um, yeah, those are great points. Any other ones, Lupe? You would recommend ask questions.
Recap And How To Reach Us
SPEAKER_02I know we touched on it, but just to you know put a sharp point on it, ask questions versus tell people. If you're the telling type and you're telling people, oh, you should do this, you should do that, you really probably want to reconsider how to approach it. And and not all the time, but by asking questions, then that provides you the opportunity to demonstrate that listening skill Alex is talking about. But if you're always giving direction, right, what are you going to listen to? People say okay.
SPEAKER_01And although we're talking about for someone maybe new into a leadership role or a role where they have to influence without authority, you know, one of the things that uh Alex and I had a chance to do was a conference a while back where, you know, we presented on this topic, and we had an audience that was so interested that there wasn't enough room for everybody to sit, and they had to actually unfortunately turn a couple folks away. But the one theme that as people came up afterwards and that they kept talking to us about was the fact that they hadn't really ever been told about this approach you can take, and their jobs all demanded that they had an influence without direct authority. And so there was just really a lot of good information we able to share, a lot of it touched on in this podcast around building those relationships, your credibility, uh, which is more than just cops, and it's it's the consistency, the integrity to finish things, the initiative to step in and and or to listen. And then, you know, service. We talked about how important it is to before you ask for something, give something, right? And what that can really do to those relationships as you're trying to help influence an area that uh you know is important. Alex, it's been great. Lupe uh really enjoyed the opportunity here this morning to talk with you both. And Alex, you know, to help me keep Lupe in check is always greatly appreciated. So thank you.
SPEAKER_03I got your back, Steve. You know this.
SPEAKER_02You know, he needs help. He he can't he cannot he cannot handle it. Come on, Steve. I do.
SPEAKER_03So this has been great. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it'll it'll it's gonna be it's been great. It's a great kickoff to our new format with the three of us. Alex, as expected, you are already adding a lot of great context and perspective to the conversation. And of course, as Steve pointed out, you're helping him keep me in check. So good job with that.
SPEAKER_01A lot of work, Alex. I'm just gonna tell you.
SPEAKER_02Don't scare her off, Steve. But, anyways, for so for all hey, for all our listeners, thanks for listening. We we hope you're enjoying the new format. We're excited to continue to try and help just give a different perspective on things, or maybe a perspective that you've had in the past, but maybe it kind of went back in the memory banks. Regardless, we intend to try and add value to our listeners. So if you have any ideas, please reach out to us on Instagram, on Threads. You can contact us and even also directly through messaging on our podcast website, which we use BuzzSprout for. Any of those avenues of reaching out to us. Until the next time, this is Luca Munoz. I'm Steve McKay and I'm Alex Duranta. And this is the leadership exchange everyone has a great day.