Leadership involves getting other people to do things you want them to do. In the world of offices, if both of you are in the same space, you can use your physical presence – including body language, voice tonality, etc. to influence people. When you’re not able to use your physical presence – which is increasingly going to happen as we become a distributed workforce, but have a position of authority, you can leverage the powers inherent in the position. If you lack authority you can use other forms of power – such as “expert” power to influence people.
Today, more than ever, people work with others as team members lacking the physical presence, and often being peers without authority. So, using other forms of influence become increasingly important to people who want to achieve process or outcome goals. In Becoming a Person of Influence John Maxwell and Jim Dornan identified nine qualities of influence. The spell out Influence!
- Integrity – Builds relationships based on trust
- Nurturing – Cares about people as individuals
- Faith — Believes in people
- Listening – Values what others have to say
- Understanding – Sees things from others’ point of view
- Enlarging – Helps others become bigger
- Navigating – Assists others through difficulties
- Connecting – Initiates positive relationships
- Empowering – gives them the power to lead.
Which are your strengths? Which can be strengthened? Especially in this Covid-19 era, , now is the time to work on these qualities in order to achieve your team’s process and outcome goals.