How to Maximize Your Greatest Point of Influence
“Why did you hit your sister?”
“She hit me first!”
The people around you reflect your relationship with them. The stronger the connection, the deeper the reflection.
The people around you are – in part – reflections of you.
4 Points of influence:
#1. Daily practices and rituals.
Choose your repetitions carefully, they represent your influence. What are you repeatedly saying and doing? Repetition increases impact.
- Daily gratitude fuels energy.
- Daily complaining drains energy.
#2. Attitude and tone.
When you are closed or adversarial, the people around you close down or become adversarial.
Does it seem that everyone is resistant? What are you doing to invite resistance?
#3. Response to failure:
If you honor responsible failure, people feel bold. If you punish responsible failure, self-protection rules the day.
Are you seeing boldness or self-protection?
#4. Focus.
Focus is influence.
A focus on faults and failure invites people to feel inadequate. A focus on talent and strength invites people to step up with confidence.
Are the people around you filled with fear or confidence? What about you invites fear or boldness in others?
Identity:
YOU are your greatest point of influence. Francis Hesslebein put it this way, “Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.”
First, identify who you are. This requires both self-reflection and feedback. You need to observe yourself. And, you need input from others to learn who you are.
Others help you discover who you are.
- Explore how you occur to others.
- Paint a picture of your aspirational self.
- Choose to show up in ways that express your aspirational self.
Second, help others become their best selves.
It’s simple to tell people what to do. It’s leadership to teach them how to be. One way is to tell them when you see them at their best.
What shifts in your leadership when the focus includes helping people become their best selves?
Bonus material:
How Identity is Influence (Leadership Freak)
5 Powerful Ways to Become Your Best Self (Entrepreneur)
Leaders empowering people with knowledge, skills and support, in addition, allowing people to be creative, will encourage them to be the best that they can be in that environment.
Thanks Gerry. The question that comes to mind is, “What about us makes creativity in others more likely?”
Thank you, that’s a very important question.
This is why strategy is so central,
An articulation of the “Vision” so practical …
“BE the change you want to SEE.”
Leaders embody and exemplify the Way.
They bridge learning styles and thus facilitate diverse perpectives serving a common purpose …
Trees AND Forest, at once; the measure of next step AND the destination permeates each moment.
Hi, I really liked the post and got a lot from it and am a regular follower. Thanks
I’m not so sure about the message in the intro though.
“Why did you hit your sister, she hit me first.” Being a younger sister as a small child I was put into this situation. Having an older brother who taunts and goades can only result in the younger child lashing out and then the response she hit me first comes into play – the perpetrator being the one claiming injury.
This is a status issue not just a relationship that needs to be managed.
What shifts in your leadership when the focus includes helping people become their best selves? Like giving them a 2nd chance?
If we mentor, teach, lead, share, we have the compassion to make anyone become better, yet they also need to apply themselves as well.
What shifts in your leadership when the focus includes helping people become their best selves?
I used to be a “Debbie-downer” in my younger days, not looking at obstacles or dead ends as a challenge. I just sort of gave up, resulting in daily complaining. But as I spent more time with one of my first mentors, I started to see those “failures” as a stepping stone to becoming better. I didn’t notice this shift for a long time until I started working with those younger than me and pushing that mentality onto them. To this day, I can understand why we would rather focus on the daily complaining, but that doesn’t help me or us. When I see “younger” team members complaining about what could have been or the way it should be, I try to shift their mindset to one of gratitude. “Hey, at least we had the opportunity to…” or ” we should focus on the how we can improve”. One item I suggest to them is a gratitude walk, if not daily, weekly. It forces them to look for the positives and leave the negatives on the side.