Influence: 4 Keys to Open Doors

Think you need to be in a position of power to have influence?

Think again.

While true that executives have influence, don’t assume you need to work your way into a C-suite position before you can be influential. No matter what your position, you can have a powerful effect on those around you, if not the whole organization.

Influence is one of twelve Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competencies in the model I developed with Richard Boyatzis. Influence as a competency refers to the ability to have a positive impact on others, to persuade or convince them, or to gain their support. With the Influence competency, you build buy-in from key people.

It’s important to note that influence is not about getting people to do what you want because you hold the moral high ground. If your ideas are bad or would be detrimental to people, then ultimately your efforts will be less convincing. But if your ideas are strong, could be beneficial, or have the potential to get agreement, then influence will help you mobilize the resources necessary to make things happen.

What Does It Take to Have Influence?

Like many EI competencies, influence requires skillful use of other competencies. Emotional Self-Awareness and Emotional Self-Control help you avoid leaping in prematurely and pushing for your objective without fully understanding the viewpoint of those who would be impacted by your decisions. With such awareness and control, you know how your feelings impact your actions and can choose better how to further your goals. Empathy and Organizational Awareness are also key to developing influence. Each are forms of social awareness, one at the individual level, the other at the organizational level. Empathy starts with good listening, to better understand the other person’s concerns. As for organizational awareness, to be influential in any group or organization you need to know it well. That takes not just listening, but active observation, a systems awareness, and openness to differing perspectives.

What Influence Looks Like in Action

In Influence: A Primer, the new publication I co-authored with Dr. Boyatzis, Peter Senge, and other colleagues, I shared the story of someone who was adept at using the Influence competency to achieve his goal. Here’s that story:

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A water engineer from an African country worked for a global energy company. He remembered his own native town where there were repeated droughts. There was always a water crisis throughout his country. They didn’t drill wells deep enough and many villages didn’t even have them. He thought his employer could set up a division that would help countries like his own with water management, but such an idea was not likely to gain traction within the company unless there was a way for it to yield significant revenue.

The engineer spent time thinking deeply about how he could present this to the leaders of his organization in a way that would be appealing to them. First, he went from person to person in his company, explaining his vision and how to make it work. In each conversation, his task was influence—to persuade that person that his creative vision was both helpful to the company and the right thing to do.

He asked his peers for their thoughts on how to present this idea to company leadership and got valuable feedback. Next, he spent time speaking to members of the community who would most benefit from better well engineering in that area. He learned that economic gain could be had because farmers would increase their crop yields, the local economy would thrive, and the energy company would be positioned in a good light for helping to make this happen.

Finally, the engineer incorporated all of the feedback and ideas into a well-crafted presentation for higher ranked company leaders. He proposed a way that the company could recoup their investment and have some great PR to boot, making both shareholders and small-scale farmers happy. He anticipated all the potential questions they might have and prepared responses in advance, even drawing up some engineering blueprints. He was patient, driven, and thoughtful, and most importantly, he listened to all the stakeholders in such a way as to make everyone believe that his idea was a win-win for all. As a result, the company decided to start a division just like he had envisioned.

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The engineer exhibited a high level of the Influence competency in action. He didn’t simply share his idea as soon as he thought of it, when it would come off as half-baked, with little research or support. He took the time to consider the perspectives of stakeholders and decision makers to present the idea in a way that considered each party’s objectives and so, eventually, brought everyone on board.

Influence lets us get enough buy-in to make our dreams real.

What idea would you bring to light - with the right dose of Influence?

For more in-depth information about this topic, see Influence: A Primer. 

This Primer was written with Peter Senge, Richard Boyatzis, and several respected colleagues in the fields of Emotional Intelligence, research, and leadership development. It offers a concise overview of the Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competency Model, and goes on to define how to develop influence regardless of your formal role.