We’re excited to publish Mary’s next lesson in leadership – about influence! Influential leadership is one of the most important – and difficult to master – leadership skills any of us can hope to use. Mary provides some practical insights into how to become an influential leader. – InPower Editors
I learned the art of influential leadership by participating in projects using Agile software development methodologies. Daily during a planning meeting (i.e., scrum), we would talk about what people were doing each day and what was a block. By openly talking about the blocks, I learned a key lesson: if you personally can’t move a block, you need to find a way to influence someone else how to do that.
This was the third key lesson I learned that got me to significantly change my approach to management. Here is the full set:
- Lesson 1: Mothering isn’t a Management Technique
- Lesson 2: Influence and true leadership is communication – or rather, listening and understanding
- Lesson 3: Influence others to move blocks out of the way
- Lesson 4: Appearance really does mean a lot
Lesson 3: Influence others to move blocks out of the way
To help others get things done, you sometimes have to move blocks out of the way – and this isn’t always something you can do directly yourself. Sometimes all you need to do is understand the underlying problem and suggest alternative approaches.
A team across the globe needed to launch a website and it took months for them to make any progress. About a year after it started, I was being told by my managers to just “make it happen.” I realized that I needed to use influential leadership techniques to complete the project because that team didn’t report directly to me and I had no direct control over getting this site launched.
Rather than getting an order issued by an executive, I decided to work with the team to learn what the blocks were and try to eliminate them. I stood firm asking a lot of questions as to why certain blocks were in the way – and gave different ideas and perspectives for how to remove the blocks and achieve the goal. Rather than accusing the team of not being insightful or creative, I kept asking them why there were blocks, what was missing and if there was a way I could help remove them (e.g., change scope or work goals).
My questions stimulated them to think of their own solutions! When the team saw that there were a number of solutions available to them – and that there was no way around not getting it done – they shortly got a plan together and completed the work.
My lesson: Help teams to find solutions. Stand firm and ask why – maybe the team has a great reason for the delay.
