Influence

Influencing is an area that a leader will have to master to be effective when it come to making decisions. Most managers try to influence others but their problem is their personal interest seems to always show through. So how do the greatest leaders influence others? The first step they do is to set a clear task or goal that each person can see value in. If there are people that do not have value in the project they will likely try to read deeper into it and wonder what the underline cause might be. Leaders have an outstanding ability to influence others to think they way they do in order to achieve goals. As a leader is trying to influence others they will need to make sure people understand the entire part of the puzzle. In other words we are trying to do this to improve efficiency, increase profits, drive and increase in sales. If this is clear than influencing will be much easier. Therefore leaders are outstanding communicators.

So how do you practice this to see if you can begin to influence others. Here are a couple of things to try:

• Create a contest that changes a lifestyle change (weight loss, quit smoking, etc)
• Begin using a word associated with success often to see if people will pick it up and use it (fantastic!)

Sure these might seem like little things but leadership is about starting small, building trust and then making changes. Influencing and leadership go hand and hand, however you have to be able to balance influencing as it can quickly become brainwashing.