Last time we began looking at who and what a leader is. We saw the fact that leadership has a whole lot to do with influence.
“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” Kevin Kruse
A leader is an influential person. He wields tremendous influence over the people he leads. Divorce influence from leadership and all that will be left is an empty shell. Position, status and power do not always translate to leadership influence.
Influence is affecting people’s beliefs and actions. A leader must affect the beliefs of his followers. He must be an opinion molder. He must be able to shape the opinions of his followers so everyone in the team is on the same page. This is a critical assignment in leadership and it is a very difficult job. You cannot shape people’s opinion and mindsets successfully if you don’t do certain things.
“You don’t change mindsets by being right, you do it by showing you care. Logic and reason have their place, but they rarely will overcome a strong emotional or philosophical position. Trying to cram your positional logic down the throat of others will simply leave a very bad taste in their mouths. This is a very tough lesson for many to learn, but a critical one if you take your duties, obligations and responsibilities as a leader seriously. The best leaders are capable of aligning and unifying opposing interests for a greater good. You won’t ever become a truly successful leader until you understand a person’s need to be heard and understood is much more important than satisfying your need to impart wisdom I’m going to make this as simple as I can…leadership is all about relationships. It’s the people – nothing more & nothing less.” Mike Myatt
Affecting the beliefs of people will lead them to believe in the leader and have conviction in their ability to help execute his agenda. There can be no allegiance to the leader and the team if the leader does not affect the beliefs of the team. To successfully get people to do the right things will demand first affecting their beliefs.
The essence of affecting the beliefs of the followers is to create a platform to affect their actions. The leader’s aim is to influence his followers to achieve set goals, aims and objectives – to facilitate the followers to achieve the corporate vision. When the followers do the wrong things the whole team suffers and if they do the right things the wrong way the team will be impeded in their successes. The leader must be able to affect the actions of his followers. Affecting the follower’s action means affecting their pursuits. The leader must affect what things his followers are out to pursue. They must be influenced to pursue things that will not only lead to the achievement of the corporate goals but also their individual goals. Influencing the followers to solely achieve corporate goals without cognizance to the individual goals of the followers will result in having disgruntled, discouraged and unfulfilled followers. They will feel used and not trust the leader and the organization. Influence and trust are inseparable twins the leader must always have.
“Among all the attributes of the greatest leaders of our time, one stands above the rest: They are all highly trusted. You can have a compelling vision, rock-solid strategy, excellent communication skills, innovative insight, and a skilled team, but if people don’t trust you, you will never get the results you want.
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