Gain insight into how individuals can enhance team performance and dynamics through leadership by influence, regardless of their official title. It outlines key characteristics and behaviors that build trust, inspire others, and foster a collaborative and effective team environment.
Key Insights
- Influential leadership begins with trust, integrity, and emotional intelligence, forming the foundation for motivating and guiding others in a team setting.
- Leaders—both designated and informal—should prioritize serving others, maintaining humility, and showing genuine competence and enthusiasm to positively impact their teams.
- Effective influence involves encouraging others to reach beyond perceived limits, balancing autonomy with appropriate authority, and thoughtfully selecting strategies based on team needs and goals.
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Welcome back. If you are totally satisfied with where your team is, that's great news. If, on the other hand, you're thinking, Oh, I think my team could use a bit more help from the leader and pretending you're the leader, your question might be, well, how can I influence my team to move forward and do better? And that's the question that we are going to begin answering.
So think about leading by influence. Now, that's a word we used back when we were talking about conflict resolution. How can we influence our team? How can we influence the conversation? And I think as leaders, we are expected to be an influence, a positive influence on those around us.
So you can lead by influence by impacting the opinions, let's say, or the attitudes, or the choices, or the behaviors of your team members. And remember, you don't have to be designated team leader to be able to influence because influencing and persuading others in a positive way really focuses on empowering, developing, and serving the people who work for you or with you. And again, as a team member, you can help other team members achieve their goals.
As another team member, you can bring out the best in them. And these are all hallmarks of an influential leader. So if you are a designated leader, then by all means, you want to consider how you can influence your team.
But don't stop there. Even if you aren't the designated leader, you can be a positive influence by your mere presence in that team. So key ways.
Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust. Isn't that in, with, and through every single thing that we've talked about in this course? Well, absolutely. Because trust is the foundation of great leadership.
That's where it begins. That's where it ends. And it means that through your actions, you make team members feel comfortable relying on you.
You feel confident in your abilities and your intentions. And others feel confident in you as well as you being confident in yourself. And others are motivated by working around you.
And so one of the best ways to build trust is to trust those team members that you're working with. Influence with character. I focus on this so much.
I mean, you can be humble, serve others, show confidence, and all that. But if I don't see integrity in your character, chances are, these other things are going to fall flat. And so as a leader, you're the person who does right, no matter how difficult it may be.
And your team members are more likely to trust you if you are exhibiting that integrity and you're taking personal responsibility for your actions. Emotional intelligence. And then, as an influential leader, you should be able to tolerate uncertainty, challenges, delays, and unexpected obstacles.
And again, isn't that a quality of emotional intelligence? Stay humble. When you stay humble, first of all, it's appreciated. But it also gives you the perspective to see that you're valuable as others are watching you, but watching you make mistakes as well as successes.
Staying humble means that people recognize that you consider the needs of others as important as your own. And it is about treating people with respect and treating people as equals. Serve others first.
You know what? Helping others grow is a core responsibility of any leader. And so that focusing on their development, that servant leadership, which prioritizes others' needs above your own, especially as a leader. You know what? It's creating that work environment where employees at all levels feel that they're appreciated, valued, and respected.
And so again, as we look at that employee's needs above your own, serving others first, that falls again in line with what we know about relational leadership. You know, it helps to be competent. So we focus so much on the soft skills, but let's remember, you still have to know what you're doing.
And people have to know that you know what you're doing. You have to exhibit it. And so we are not saying forget about your technical competence.
We're saying, in addition to your technical competence, here are some of the things that we have to keep in mind. You know, passion produces energy and gets other people enthusiastic. And if you aren't showing a certain level of positivity, enthusiasm, energy for what's in front of you, boy, if you're not showing that, that sort of more apathetic, laissez-faire, or maybe even resistant approach, it just speeds like wildfire through the group.
And so your ability to be the encourager helps people stay focused, helps people stay productive. And again, you can do this from wherever you sit. But if you don't care, chances are nobody else is going to care.
Number seven says, think big for others. You know, I think having very high aspirations for the people around you, I think that's really, really important. And I know that I have been the recipient of that.
I have had leaders who saw in me and insisted that I cultivate skills and abilities that I never even knew I had, never even knew, and wasn't even willing to kind of think outside of the box and give it a go. And, you know, quite a few years ago, I had a really significant manager, and I've had some really great managers, but this one in particular, I was always rewarded for my teaching skills. Debbie is a really good teacher, you know, on most days.
Some days, not so much, but most days. This particular manager said, I need you to do some course development for a specific situation. I don't do course development.
Well, Debbie, I think you can. And it's easier for me to go to you because you're the subject matter expert than to go in this other direction. So I'd like you to give it a go.
And I can remember, I say, did you hear me say I don't do course development because I don't have the design skills? I don't have the deck. I said, Develop the course. Somebody will take care of the logistics or the technical side of the design.
Oh, OK. This same person came to me and said, I need you to teach internationally. I said, I don't teach internationally.
I stay right here in the States. And she said, No, you're going to go to graduate school in Japan, and you're going to teach internationally. We need two people to go there and open up a graduate school in Japan.
And I said, Well, why me? I don't do that. Well, you can do that. And I'm asking you to do that.
And you can say no, of course, but I think you should go. And then it was, and I need you to do work in the studio and produce courses for certain agents. I don't work in the studio.
I don't do that. Yes, you do. Well, this woman, in her ability to convince me that I could do these things, changed the whole trajectory of what I could offer in the training world.
And I can promise you, I would have probably never taken on any of those things by myself. And boy, did work get much more exciting by doing all these different things. But I have to really credit one individual who could see potential where I underestimated anything that I could do.
Eight, balance autonomy and authority. You know what? I let people work when they can work. And when you have to use authority from your position, it will be respected.
So you want to be regularly instilling confidence in the people around you. You want to let them know that you trust the quality of the work, how they manage their time, how they use their resources. And I encourage your team to work individually as a work group, but also when they come together as a team to be more creative.
And yeah, so a lot of autonomy with a little bit of authority. Support networks. You know what? Networking, networking, networking, module one.
And you know what? Again, building commitment between yourself and your team members. Are you a person that they can rely on? I hope so. I hope so.
So if you are really going to make a difference as you influence your team, you have to lead, don't you? It's a small word, but it has really big implications. And especially for us who are emerging leaders. So to lead means that we're going to coach, guide, influence, decide, delegate, model, plan, implement, discipline, develop, and direct.
And these are just a few of the things we do as leaders. But the strategies that we're going to be picking depend on the nature of the team and how we are defining what the team is and what its purpose is. So, of course, we have exercise 5-3.
And you saw those 10 influencing strategies that I took some time to talk about. In your manual, you're going to see each of those 10 influencing strategies listed. And you're going to rate yourself with an I'm okay, I need to improve, or I'm not sure how I'm doing.
And as you take a look at those strategies, as a team member or as a team leader, what does your team need you to do more of, less of, or differently? Take a few minutes to self-evaluate.
