5 Steps to Influence

Many people want to become a person of influence in their workplace, but many people do not know how to gain the influence they seek.  While some people gain influence simply through seniority, it is unnecessary to wait years for power and influence to develop when there are step you can take to become more influential.  Power and influence are closely related topics and many people who do not feel they have influence also suffer from a feeling that they have no power.  If this is you, please read another article I wrote on power first, which can be found here.  Leadership can be defined as the ability to influence people to follow you, so for a leader or someone who aspires to be a leader, influence is an important asset.  What follows will be five steps to increasing your influence in your current position while preparing for your future.

1)  Step 1 is simply to work harder than anyone else does.  In high school, people that work harder than anyone else are labeled, “try-hards” or “teachers pets”, but in the business world, these people are often referred to as boss or manager.  Never be afraid to work harder than anyone else is, even if others you work with do not view this as admirable at first.  The person who is the last to quit and does not quit until the job is done is a person that people trust and nothing leads to influence more than people trusting you.  The great thing about hard work is it takes no talent to work hard.  Someone on your team might have more talent or skills than you, but there is no excuse for anyone to work harder than you.  One of my favorite quotes to tell players I coach is attributed to former Notre Dame Football coach Knute Rockne.  He said, “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.” This is motivating as employee because even if someone is smarter or more talented than you can gain influence by outworking them. 

2)  Step 2 is to build trust in your working relationships.  Working hard is a great start toward this, as it builds dependability, but hard work alone is typically not enough to build a trusting relationship.  The best way to accomplish this is to do what you say you are going to do.  Some leadership teachers urge you to under promise and over deliver, but that does not establish trust in a relationship.  If you always under promise and over deliver, eventually people will notice what you are doing and this does not help you build trust.  If you do what you say you will and build on the previous step of working hard, you soon will be a person that people can depend on.  Dependability leads to trust and trust leads to influence.

3)  Step 3 is to be open and honest in your communication.  This might be more important for managers, but the idea is to become a person of influence, who could be a leader in your company.  The best time to start being open and honest in your communication is now.  This means having tough conversations in a mature manner and keeping emotions out of your communication, because emotions are rarely, if ever, honest.  Having tough conversations when issues arise and not kicking the can down the road is a sign of maturity.  Sugar coating a problem today makes the conversation that much tougher tomorrow.  Being able to have these conversations makes a person ready to take the next step into a leadership position, because this is often the hardest part of being a manager for a young person.    Building trust through honest communication will grow your influence with the people you work with.

4)  Step 4 is to do one more thing today than you did yesterday.  This simply means that after completing all the tasks you have on a daily basis, make time to do one more thing.  If you do this every day for a week, you will have done five more things on Friday than you did on Friday the week before.  This might seem crazy and unsustainable, but after making time for one more thing you become more efficient at your previous tasks.  One concern that arises here is the thought that if I get a week’s worth of work done in four days what am I to do for the fifth day.  This is not a problem, but an opportunity.  An opportunity to get training, work on a pet project, study your industry, or even help a coworker.  By working hard and striving to do, more every day you can quickly gain influence in your role and this mixture usually propels a person to a leadership role.  The more you can do the more valuable you are and in times where times are tough, the person who can do more is very rarely the person who finds themselves unemployed.

5)  Step 5 is an extension of step 4, and is doing at least one thing for someone every week.  When doing one more thing every day try to make one of those things in your week something that will help someone else.  When trying to build influence it can be easy to focus on what you are doing.  To maximize your influence you must spend time focusing on how helping yourself can help others.  This is not doing someone else’s job this is doing someone a favor.  Helping someone else can be rewarding for you and again the more you are capable of doing the more valuable you are.

When trying to conquer this 5-step list it might be beneficial to take it one step at a time.  Trying to implement this all at one time can be overwhelming and lead to unnecessary failure.  Most psychologists say it takes 21 days for a habit to form and be set.  Taking three to four weeks per step should provide you with the greatest chance for success.  As I stated in my article the No Power Problem, you have power, and if you follow these steps you can have influence in your current role.  When paired together power and influence pave the way for leadership and you will be well prepared for your jump from an entry-level position to a leadership position.

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