Influence is a crucial leadership skill.
Successful Leaders communicate, motivate and energize,
as well as understand organizational politics.
- Why is it so hard to get people to agree to a good idea?
- Why are some leaders constantly faced with challenges and objections?
>> No Time for Reading? Download the PDF.
Reaching agreement as a leader
does not mean you should manipulate or force people
to accept your ideas and accomplish your objectives;
there are ethical ways for leaders to successfully build influence.
Leaders attempting to influence and persuade others
are faced with the challenges of navigating through organizational politics.
An effective leader recognizes that organizational politics can provide positive ways to influence others in order to accomplish goals.
In this Mini-Series on Leadership Skills,
you will be guided through a few techniques for effectively influencing
a team to accept your ideas.
You’ll be introduced to the importance of political awareness
and the essential skills involved in using positive politics
and avoiding negative politics when persuading others.
Techniques for Influencing and Persuading Others
Effective use of influence and persuasion will help you build trusting and respectful relationships.
Using Influence
As a leader, your job is to achieve organizational goals,
but you can’t do this by yourself.
You need the help of others in your organization.
You may have good ideas, but you can’t force people to embrace them.
Effective use of influence and persuasion will help you build trusting and respectful relationships.
And in turn, you’ll be better able to secure support for your ideas
and lead successfully through change.
Neither influence nor persuasion involves:
- Overpowering
- Bullying
- Pushing
- Coercing to get what you want.
Together with exchanges, they’re used to:
- Inspire
- Motivate
- Resolve conflicts
- Sell ideas
- Change values
- Establish vision
- Educate and empower others.
Techniques for Influencing and Persuading Others – Take Away
- Influence is the ability to move people toward the achievement of specific outcomes.
Your ability to influence others will impact your capabilities as a leader. - Successful leaders are great communicators, have built relationships on respect, and derive the power to influence from the credibility they’ve established based on example and experience.
- Six techniques can help you influence others and gain their support
(1) Asking for what you want
(2)Customizing the message
(3) Using questions
(4) Acknowledging opposing perspectives but moving on
(5) Using logic and evidence
(6) Providing options that people can agree to without compromising their position or dignity
Download the entire PDF on Leadership Skills.
This article is written by FLMLEAN.
Here I have found a video that could be interesting about influencing skills.
