Power or Influence: Which One Will You Choose?

Much has been written about various leadership approaches, but one key factor that sets apart the best leaders I’ve had the privilege of working with earlier in my career—and now support and coach —is their ability to create willing followers. After all, if no one is following willingly, you’re not truly leading.

Whether you're already a leader or aspiring to become one, consider these mindsets and approaches to help you grow into an authentic leader—one whom people naturally seek to follow and emulate.

Relationship Versus Position

While some leaders focus on climbing the corporate ladder, relational leaders prioritize building bridges. They understand the value of meaningful connections over titles and positions.

Collaboration Versus Competition

Leaders fixated on winning at all costs risk losing everything. True collaborators prioritize shared success, valuing teamwork over competition and create trust-based cultures.

Alliances Versus Control

The key to building high-powered teams lies in forming alliances—something facilitators and connectors excel at. What you can accomplish alone is far less significant than what you can achieve with a strong, united team.

Consensus Versus Image

Consensus-driven leaders unite their teams, ensuring alignment and collaboration to achieve wins. Corporate climbers, on the other hand, are more focused on managing their image and how they’re perceived.

Connection Versus Separation

The most effective and respected leaders understand that a team collectively holds more knowledge than any single individual, and they see themselves as connectors. While no one person has all the answers, everyone in the room has valuable insights to offer. The leader's role is to harness and integrate—rather than separate—the best ideas from each team member into a shared body of knowledge to achieve a successful outcome for the team and the company.

"The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think ‘team.’ They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but ‘we’ gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”

~ Peter Drucker

My Growth Through Learning Academy is designed to help professionals become top performers in their industries. Click the image below to learn more about the academy and claim your free course!