Leadership – Influencing Others

A good leader is able to influence others, whether it’s directly or indirectly. Influence is about your ability to have an impact; it’s not about getting exactly what you want. Generally you are participating in a joint effort and you may be delegating actions to others with or without authority. However, influence goes beyond getting a specific task or project done. It’s really about building relationships. If you’re a good influencer you use your influence for good and don’t stoop to manipulation. Most people influence others to some degree all the time whether they know it or not.

As you decide where to focus your networking time you’ll want to factor in both who you need for your success and the success of your projects and who needs your help to be more successful themselves. Have both a long term strategy and short term tactics in mind as you foster your networks and decide who try to influence and what influence you will accept from others.

In order to influence effectively you need to build trust. Be authentic, admit when you are not sure you will be able to help or have other uncertainties, and be willing to open yourself up in return for others’ openness. Once you have given and earned trust you will find it easier to get others to buy in to your goals and make their own contributions. When you keep long-term trust in mind you stay in the “good” arena of influence and are less likely to lower yourself to pure manipulation. This helps build your credibility and image.

A successful influencer is good at understanding and communicating “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) for everyone involved. There may be direct, easily visible, and/or immediately applicable reasons as well as less tangible “good for someone’s career” type motivations. What is an obvious advantage from your viewpoint may not be easily seen by others or may have unseen and/or unintended consequences you haven’t thought of. Verbalizing WIIFM is key.

From a tactical perspective, make sure you engage people before decision making points such as meetings. Have 1:1 conversations and get a feel for who will be supportive. Pay attention to body language and tone of voice. Give credit to others when appropriate and don’t feel you have to get visible credit, no matter how deserved, for every item you contributed. If someone else puts forth an idea that you’ve already expressed don’t assume bad motivations. It could mean the circumstances have led multiple people to the same conclusion or it could be that something you said earlier sank in over time and was well received, whether they consciously remember where they first heard the idea or not. If you feel you really have to point out that you already presented an idea, try phrasing it as “thank you for articulating that so much better than me”.

Make sure you celebrate successes and give praise. Praise should be specific and include the impact, not just the action. For example: “Susie provided a key resource for this project that enabled us to include a highly-requested feature in the program that would have otherwise been cut. This has led to increased sales (of X%) and increased customer satisfaction.” Celebrating success leads to more success.

When you influence others you are practicing a skill that is key to your success. Build your networks, build trust, give credit and rewards when appropriate, and learn to think in terms of WIIFRM. Being a good influencer can have a positive impact on projects, people, and your own career.

Take a look at my other leadership blogs and share your own leadership stories! http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cindygross/archive/tags/leadership/

Influence is a key takeaway for me from my Women Unlimited sessions.

As part of my attempt to grow as a leader I took the StrengthsFinder survey. I got this one from the Go Lead Idaho sessions I am attending. It’s based on a Gallup survey and is all based on self-assessment. It was a quick and painless survey with clear, concise output. It’s based on a series of questions created and vetted over many years by Gallup, the experts in polling and finding out what people are thinking. Some of the questions seemed nonsensical and all were time-limited. If you can’t decide in 20 seconds where you fit on the scale then it’s not a defining question for you. The premise is that there are 34 themes that people are strong or weak in. Based on talking to a couple of career coaches the results are remarkably accurate for most people, no matter how much you resist the names of the themes. You take your top 5 strengths and concentrate on those. Don’t try to “fix” your weaknesses since that would focus your attention in the wrong area. Focus on your strengths instead. In that vein, the output from the survey only tells you your top 5 areas. Not the top 6, not a ranking of them all, not a clue what your “worst” 5 areas are. There’s a worksheet that helps you highlight which aspects of each area resonate with you and you should pick a key point from each to focus on. As an illustration of the themes, my strengths are listed below with the points I feel best describe me included below each item.  

• Harmony
  • You rely on collective intelligence and wisdom of experts to guide you towards the best solutions or answers
  • You regularly point out what is wrong
  • You zero in on difficulties, glitches, obstacles as early as possible so individuals can deal with them easily
  • Key terms: Logically, unemotionally, practical thinker, consensus
  • My key point: You help others see things as they actually are
• Consistency
  • Set up clear rules and adhere to them
  • You study and examine plans before you leap into action
  • You want everyone including yourself to be happy
  • You go out of your way to treat every person you meet with the same amount of respect, care, concern, and hospitality
  • Key terms: unsentimental, realistic, streamline, overlook no detail, concentrate on facts, practical
  • My key point: Because you check so many things beforehand, the number of misunderstandings and miscommunications between people is likely to decrease dramatically
• Learner
  • You fill your mind with new ideas
  • Process of learning, rather than outcome, excites you
  • Accumulate facts, data, stories, examples, or background information from the people you meet
  • Want to be kept in the information loop
  • You gravitate to people who converse about ideas at a deeper and more thoughtful level than most individuals are capable of doing.
  • Small talk is seen as a waste of time
  • You capitalize on your ability to ask questions and listen to people’s answers
  • Key terms: thirst for knowledge and new ideas, continuously improve
  • My key point: examining the interaction between various parts is as important to you as knowing what each part is designed to do
• Achiever
  • Resist being held back, restrained, or controlled by people or events
  • Prefer to be in charge
  • Need fewer detailed explanations than many people require
  • Prefer people who are trustworthy
  • Key terms: stamina, hard work, busy, productive
  • My key point: outstanding results and demanding standards (on self)
• Analytical
  • Want to understand how one idea or fact links neatly to whatever precedes and follows it
  • Search for causes and reasons, think about all factors that could influence a situation
  • Automatically double-check your work
  • Prefer company of people who carefully listen to what you say
  • You make sure you know as much as possible about a contest before you decide to enter it
  • You revel in gathering data and evidence to get answer before being told answer
  • Key terms: examine, sound reasoning, reader, values information
  • My key point: reduce things to their simplest parts

 Note that many of these things can be described in less flattering terms by those who don’t appreciate these strengths. For instance, pointing out what is or could go wrong is to me a key strength. From my perspective if I don’t point out a weakness no one can address it and make the final output stronger. In my world you create a list of things that don’t seem quite right and things that could go wrong, you look it over and see what’s worth addressing, and if what’s left isn’t insurmountable go ahead with a good sense that things will succeed. But over the years I’ve been told I am trying to make projects fail, that I am too negative, and that I am making things overly complicated. It took me a while to find a job where that was seen as beneficial, and I also have to temper my approach. So take your strengths, own them, and make it clear that they are strengths. Don’t let others define you and your traits.

One trait most people share is that they tend to hire and reward others like themselves. That includes preferring people with similar strengths. Therefore many teams have a lot of people who are good at the same things and big gaps in other areas. That means there are potential strengths that the team has difficulty exploiting. Other teams have a good mix of strengths and team members can rely on other team members to fill in their own gaps. That sounds great, but you have to be able to manage the inevitable conflict. As an Achiever “down in the weeds” implementing something I will be annoyed by the Activator who from my perspective is always starting things and never finishing them. The Activator is annoyed by the Achiever who can’t keep up with their new and inventive ideas. Alone the Achiever works on the unimportant projects and the Activator never gets anything done. But together we can define the strategic, game changing projects and get them implemented to near perfection – as long as we recognize and utilize each other’s strengths. Asking an Activator to slow down and follow through (or from their perspective getting stuck in the weeds) is asking them to work in their weak area and holding them back from doing what they do best. Asking an Achiever to abandon a project (from an Activator perspective move on to something new because they’re done with the last one) is only asking for frustration.

One key point is that you have to satisfy your motivators every day. A great example came from a Learner. She figured out that she was getting sidetracked with meaningless web searches and Wiki reading during critical projects. But when she purposefully looked up a few interesting topics each morning or read a chapter before starting work, she had satisfied her learning motivator and could concentrate on her work. Find a way to satisfy your motivators in a way that moves you forward.

The themes themselves are simple. You can take them at their face value or you can spend hours upon hours diving into the explanations and action plans around them. How you approach it will reflect your individuality and your personal strengths. However you get there, find your own strengths, surround yourself with smart people, and lead from your strengths.

As you may have seen from my other blogs, I’m taking leadership courses and trying to stretch and define myself. It is hard work but I think it is going to be well worth the trouble. I’m getting great input from many sources and writing about it helps me think it through.

One great piece of advice I’ve gotten is to look at feedback as a growth opportunity. Feedback is like gold; take it, mine it, and use the best parts. But all feedback is not equal. If you get a low rating on a survey or what you consider “bad” feedback from an individual it might indicate you don’t do that particular thing well, it might mean you do it well but don’t make yourself visible when you do it, or it might mean that person has some other agenda. Take feedback in context and look for trends, patterns, and situations. If multiple people or people whose opinion you really value (or need) say something, that’s probably more meaningful than an offhand comment from someone you rarely interact with. If the feedback is about something that has nothing to do with improving your leadership skills, do you really need to prioritize it?

Once you have the feedback, make sure you truly examine it. Don’t jump to conclusions. Look at your reaction. If you immediately dismiss it or get defensive, think about why. If you’re constantly repeating it as something unbelievable that someone has said, maybe you’re missing the point. If they say you need to do something you think you already do, maybe you just haven’t made it clear that you already do that. Or maybe you don’t do it as well as you think. Maybe you are using the same terminology to mean different things. Go back and ask, without being defensive, for clarification and more details. Don’t accept “you need to work harder” – ask “what does hard work look like to you?” Ask “how will you and I know when I’m working hard enough?” If you’re told to be friendlier, ask for specific examples of when you appeared to be less than friendly and tips on how a friendly person acts in that person’s eyes. Don’t immediately offer a defense of the situation, ask for more examples. Offer suggestions such as “If I do X instead of Y do you think that would be better?”

If the feedback indicates you need to do something that doesn’t fit with your values, needs, and desires go back and address it. Doesn’t stew about and wonder if the person giving the feedback is clueless or out to get you. If you’ve asked for clarification and still believe it doesn’t fit with you, try to find out how important it is. Do you need to change? Does the person’s expectation need to change? Does their expectation really matter to you? Can you substitute something else that’s close enough for their needs but fits better with the real you? Can you agree to disagree and agree that this one thing isn’t going to be a big obstacle to good assignments, promotions, and raises? Don’t obsess about, do something about it.

Last week at #SQLPASS there were about 14 people attending from Boise! That’s a great showing since sometimes we don’t have many more in our Boise SQL Server Users Group meetings. At the chapter lunch one of the regular user group attendees made an offhand comment that I was always correcting people during chapter meetings. Others at the table agreed. I obsessed about it for a while… ok, it still bothers me. But I think he’s right. Whenever we have a speaker at the user group I always have to add something. And by add something I probably mean correct them. Most of the user group probably doesn’t need each subtle point explained at great depth, but I have trouble controlling myself. Should I change that aspect of myself? I’m still debating if and how to deal with it. But at least now it’s on my radar. I can think about it before I make a comment during a presentation or when talking to a customer. How important is it to really get that subtle distinction (correction?) into the conversation? That was a good piece of feedback and I am trying to treat it as the gem it is instead of reacting with “no I don’t”. Because “no I don’t” is a correction to his feedback. Instead I’ll take the golden nugget and use it to improve my own interactions. And that’s what feedback is about.

What is a leader? Are you a leader? Do you have to be a people manager to be a leader? Do you care about leadership?

These are all questions I’ve faced recently. I’m attending some leadership training and I’m doing a lot of introspection. When I got to the first Women Unlimited session I actually started my answer to the ubiquitous “why are you here” question with “my manager made me come.” And I sort of meant it. But really that was a cover for my reluctance to face the hard questions about myself, my career, and my life. I knew that once I started digging I would find things I didn’t want to know or address. I knew it meant a lot of time and hard work. But as my friend Suzanne Jackowski said at the #SQLPASS #PASSWIT lunch, “What would you do for a Klondike bar?” That’s the first time I’d heard it related to getting ahead at work, but it’s a perfect fit. Does it really take “too much time and effort” to figure out your true desires and goals? To take that knowledge and search for a job that lets you use your strengths and doesn’t force you to constantly work on your worst weaknesses? To figure out what you want to be known for? What exactly am I willing to do for an even better job and career? And if I’m not willing to do it, who’s to blame when I wish my career were going in a different direction?

So now I’m commencing a round of trying to define my brand, interviewing respected leaders, analyzing the difference between managers and leaders, learning to play to my strengths, taking surveys, and thinking all the time about how everything I do or don’t do looks to those who matter – whoever that may be. Because letting leaders know what you’re doing is key to your success. I signed up for a series of four sessions with Go Lead Idaho, attended a talk at work given by people one level above myself, and am thinking hard about what else I need to do to gain control of my future.

Back to the questions I started with. A leader is someone who gets people to follow. It’s that simple. Sometimes I’m a leader, oftentimes I’m a follower. Managers might be leaders, and leaders might be managers. But there’s no true relationship between them. We like to think managers are chosen for leadership skills, but quite often they’re chosen for doing their last job well. And when someone is chosen for leadership rather than knowing the job well, we all complain that they don’t understand us and our jobs. I work for a company that highly values leaders and gives them the option of a non-management track to advance very far up the chain, so I don’t have to be a manager to be a leader. As for the question of do you care about leadership, that’s up to you. Do you want to be in control of your life and your career, or are you comfortable following? For most of us the desire and need to be a leader will change over time, perhaps even over the course of a day. Be a leader when you can and follow when it makes sense. The hard part is knowing when each is appropriate.