How to Be an Influencer

One of the earliest leadership books I recall reading was John Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. In the book, he devotes an entire chapter to the concept of influence. He says “The true measure of leadership is influence — nothing more, nothing less.” A couple of decades later, I still agree this is a sound principle.

What Exactly is Influence?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines influence as the power to “cause someone to change a behavior, belief, opinion or cause something to be changed.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines influence as the “power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.” Interestingly, the word first referred to a “celestial fluid that was believed to flow from the stars.” The word influenza has the same origin because it originally was believed that epidemics were caused by a misalignment of the planets.

In the past few years, the word has been expanded to take on the pop culture reference of being an “influencer.” Last year, the Oxford English Dictionary added influencer to their word listing, defining it as “a well­ known or prominent person who uses the internet or social media to promote or generate interest in products, often for payment.” Others have expanded it to include individuals who are “able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting it on social media.”

How We Can Become Better Influencers

Let’s talk about a few ways we can each be better influencers. At its core, whether leading a team or group, or on social media, influence is all about building buy-in and support to move individuals to certain actions.

With this in mind, I will focus on three topics: mapping your sphere of influence, maximizing your influence and multiplying your influence.

Mapping Your Sphere of Influence

Any discussion about influencing others must start with a self-evaluation of your leadership attitude, approach and actions. Think of this as an audit of the quality of how you are leading. Nobody else needs to do this for you, although you can test your analysis by asking some trusted advisors for their thoughts. It is a time to consider who you are influencing, how you are influencing, when are you influencing and why you are influencing.

You know the short answer is that each of us is influencing everyone we encounter with every word, every action and every attitude, all the time. I know how very daunting this is. In fact, it is one of the hardest things about leadership is everything you say and do matters. But let's unpack a couple of areas.

Who You Influence

During your self-examination, think about who you influence. Given your leadership role, you probably impact everyone. Everyone looks to you for their cadence, actions and buy-in. Your influence extends to people in your group, people in your office, people on your team, people you collaborate with, clients, and people in the community.

Leadership carries with it a very heavy responsibility. And it is a big burden to always “be on.” This is one of the reasons we talk a lot about self-care and taking time for yourself and with trusted friends away from the title and position.

How You Influence

The second part of our self-audit on our leadership influence is considering how we show up each day and how we go about influencing others. I regularly go back to a very simple analogy about buckets of water and gasoline.

Every leader carries two buckets every day — one is filled with water and one with gasoline. Whenever you, as a leader, come across a concern, a controversy or an issue, you have the choice to listen, correct any misunderstandings or tell the person you will look into the situation and get back to them. In that way, you are pouring water on the spark of a problem.

Alternatively, you can pour gasoline on the situation by continuing the dialogue, spreading gossip, throwing other leaders under the bus or expressing exasperation about the situation. When you do this, you cause a fire to grow and it often gets out of control.

This is all about you, as a leader and influencer, and how you react and act in the heat of the moment. It is not always easy.  As an example, I can remember a time over about ten days that I ended up with at least three different “brush fires” in different places around the firm where leaders became involved in gossip, disputes or issues and, to be honest, petrol was poured on the issue. In one instance, it was even more like throwing a firebomb in the middle of a group of shareholders. We spent a lot of time backing everything off the ledge so we could have a healthy dialogue about the underlying issue and we could provide facts, reasons and rationales about the specific issues.

I am not talking about “drinking the Kool-Aid” and supporting whatever comes down the pike. Rather, using your position and your influence for good in listening to the issue, discussing the issue and gathering information and facts. You should also show a willingness to listen and change direction or correct mistakes when appropriate. But it all starts with you using your influence to help defuse the situation at the point of spark.

You must set an example for those in your group and everyone around you. That is the heightened cost and responsibility of leading and influencing from the top. You influence everyone, everywhere, every day. How you influence is to carry buckets of water to help solve rather than exacerbate issues. As you consider the map of your influence, choose to influence for the good. And choose water.

Maximizing Your Influence

Once you map out your influence, then it is time to consider how you can maximize your influence. Two important things to consider are strategic communication and what researchers call “warmth” in relationships.

Strategic Communication

You’ve probably heard the saying “It's not what you say, it’s how you say it that is most important.” There is growing research suggesting this approach is incorrect. Really, what you say is just as important as how you say it.  And this is strategic communication.

We can best influence others when we communicate with purpose while underscoring the value the subject has in achieving our goal or the desired outcome. It is not just about telling people we need them to take a particular action. We must show them that taking these steps (or stop taking detrimental steps) will create a mutually beneficial situation where everyone achieves their goal. 

Here is a framework to consider honing your leadership influence in strategic communications:

• First, identify the goal. That is what we are driving towards together.
• Next, you must understand the audience. Each person in your group is an individual, with varying dreams, aspirations and ambitions. You must talk to, listen and understand your specific audience.
• Third, you must communicate the value. You must show the direct connection between the individual's goals and taking certain steps and actions will directly help them accomplish it.
• Finally, we must express the need; explain clearly why your audience — those whom you are influencing — should buy into your direction and suggestions and how it will benefit both them personally and your organization as a whole.

Warmth

Behavioral scientists tell us that when people judge their leaders, and therefore how they are influenced by them, they tend to look at two primary traits.

The first some refer to “how lovable they are,” which is a measure of warmth, trustworthiness and communion. The other is called strength, which is comprised of things like competency, confidence and the ability to help them. People may disagree on which is more important, but they both are critical because they answer two fundamental questions everyone has about you and me: 1. What are this person's intentions towards me? and 2. Are they capable of acting on those intentions?

I think we grasp a little more easily the “strength” side of the equation since it focuses on competencies. But the “warmth” aspect may be more difficult, so I just want to point out a few steps we can take to use “warmth” as a part of our leadership toolkit. When we take these steps, we will facilitate increased trust among our followers and become a greater conduit of influence.

A key aspect of warmth is to demonstrate we are listening to our followers.  Listening to their ambitions, their ideas, and their challenges. I talk about this so much because it is hard to do. People deeply desire to be heard and seen. This includes verbal and nonverbal signals, such as nods, smiles and even open gestures when engaging with them. This does not mean that we always agree with them or that we promise to do what they want. But, when our group members feel our empathy and see we are approaching things with common sense and understanding, they feel they are being heard.

We also demonstrate warmth when we create an environment where the individuals feel included and have a sense of belonging in the group. When they feel part of a larger group, they are willing to take steps they wouldn't take for their own interests. As we focus on group community and action, we are building on this need for a shared sense of purpose. We must give our colleagues a reason to pay attention, including evidence that as leaders we are brought in and executing our company’s vision. This will cement others’ commitments and actions as well and build upon itself with group momentum.

We can maximize our influence through more strategic communication and evincing calm and confident leadership by being warm, open and appreciative.

Multiplying Your Influence

Finally, let's talk for a minute about multiplying our influence.

First, consider how you prioritize your influencing time. As it relates to long-term strategic planning and everything you are trying to accomplish in your group, you will generally find three types of people: Endorsers, resisters and fence-sitters.

You already know the endorsers. These are people in your group who are bought in and executing your company’s mission and vision. When it comes to prioritizing your influencing time, they require the smallest investment. With endorses, you simply keep encouraging them, empowering them, supporting them, highlighting them as models and thanking them during group meetings.

AT The other end of the spectrum are the resisters. These are individuals who will never buy into your company’s vision. You should not spend a lot of your time with them beyond consistently demonstrating they are not undermining you or the company’s efforts. If they are, other action will need to be taken.

To multiply your influence, you should dedicate the most time to the fence-sitters. They may be ambivalent or take a “wait and see” attitude. They likely see some potential benefit in what you are talking about but may still have some skepticism. This is the group to focus your leadership time and energy to influence. By being personally close to them, you can use your influence to tip their attitude and approach in favor of your collective goals. You can do this by identifying and cultivating ways they can work your vision-aligned action steps into their practice and ambitions. We can then celebrate small wins and outcomes directly linking their efforts to the strategy.

The second area to think about in multiplying your influence is to focus and engage with people about the “how” of your company’s vision and not the “what” of it. It is not so much about emphasizing the words and the priorities as it is helping the individual see how they can execute where they are situated and how it will benefit them.

Try to figure out what is holding them back from adopting these principles. Is it an obstacle you can help remove? Is it a misunderstanding of an approach? Is it a lack of confidence or skills that training or coaching can help with? Build a regular cadence of communication and dialogue with the fence sitters in your groups, monitor their progress and help alleviate obstacles they are facing. Ask them what you can do as their leader to help them keep driving faster and making more progress in their efforts. As you do, they will begin to see some momentum in their owning your company’s vision in their, or their team’s, practice.

Conclusion

Remember, you carry the weight of outsized influence in your organization. Whether you’re trying to boost revenue, increase brand reputation or achieve industry-leading engagement of your people depends largely on you. I hope you identified one or two active steps to take in mapping your influence, maximizing your influence or multiplying your influence.

It may be conducting an influence audit of your leadership or re-committing to the principles of carrying buckets of water with you every day. Perhaps it is thinking about how to be more strategic in your communication, whether more clearly articulating the goal, better understanding the specific individual’s goals and ambitions, communicating the value of your company’s vision on them or expressing the client and industry demand for these skills. Or you could consider ways to increase your warmth in leading your group. This may include refocusing your efforts on the fence sitters in your group and showing them how to make your company’s principles work for them.