Executive Podcast #225: How to Become a Person of Influence (Part 2)

Leadership is influence, not your position or title. How do you develop your Influence and raise your leadership lid. The Law of the Lid say, your ability to lead (influence) will determine your effectiveness In everything you do.

In the INFLUENCE acrostic there are nine (9) lessons for developing your personal influence and today we want to look at the first four (4). This week we discuss the remaining five (5).

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president of Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. We are grateful that you are listening to this podcast. We want to encourage you to share this with your team, to use this to take notes, to dive in and really work on how do I apply the content of which we’re sharing to your leadership life. And so with that, if you’ll visit maxwellleadership.com/podcast, Perry has the show notes for today’s lesson and obviously it’s part two, so part one is on there as well. And if you missed last week’s episode, I would encourage you to go back and listen to that. Also, if you have a question or a comment, we love this. Perry really loves this because he takes what we’re hearing and then builds a leadership lesson around it. We would love to be able to answer those questions.

So if you’ll go on there, you can fill out a form, you can leave your question, your thought, you can contact us or download the notes for today. Today’s topic is how to become a person of influence part two. Influence is the centerpiece of everything that we do here at Maxwell Leadership. And Perry really went back to a book, I remember this book, it was sometime ago, brown and black cover.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Goede:

Jim Dornan’s name on there, how to Become a Person of Influence. And so John wrote that book really about how do you define it, how do you increase your influence? And so in part one last week, Perry broke down the first four letters of influence. We’re going to kind of do acrostic with the word, and I stood for integrity, what does that look like? N stood for nurturing. How do you go about doing that to increase your influence? F is faith, the faith and belief in your people. And then L stood for listening and we thought we would just end it with listening well, because well, nevermind. We’re not going to go there. It doesn’t get any harder than that for us. So we thought, let us go work on that for a week. So just as a reminder, go back, listen to that, take some notes and then it can blend into what we’re going to talk about today.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, let’s jump right in. The U, the next letter in the word influence stands for understanding and it’s really about are you able to see things from other people’s point of view? The key for me here, and I find that people that have a lot of influence with me are others oriented. They’re not self oriented. It’s not mainly about them, it’s about others. We’re tempted so much as leaders to focus on maybe not ourselves, but on our business, on what we’re trying to accomplish. What I’ve got most important to me, and it leads to a feeling that others may get of your self-centeredness. But when you see things from other people’s point of view, you can create, you mentioned this last week, you create more empathy and compassion. And I think it’s a great way to increase influence with others to let them know that you definitely have a point of view, but you’re open to understanding where they’re coming from, you’re understanding what they’re going through.

Chris Goede:

I love this and I’m going to give you just a couple thoughts and then I’m going to put it back to you as we transition to the next letter. Talk about a content piece that you’ve developed recently that I think helps with this in some of the organizations and teams that we’ve been working with. It is tough and something we need to develop as leaders and as people to see others and the point of view of where they’re coming from and not to take it personally. And the only way to truly understand is to get in there and to truly understand that and to understand how current circumstances and situations either personally or professionally are affecting them or the team. And as you do this, I would encourage you to have communication and conversations more than maybe you’re comfortable with. You have to check in frequently to truly understand. And leaders, this is one thing that I would challenge you to do.

Don’t allow your team to just give you the fluff answers. We all give fluff. Hey, how you doing? Oh man, I’m doing great. It’s good to see you. All right. We all know that we all like my wife says, you got crazy. I got crazy. You don’t want my crazy, I don’t want your crazy. So we all got some stuff going on and I know that I just recently in the last couple weeks, had a team member. I was like, Hey, what’s going on? How you doing? I’m doing good, but I, man, I could just tell. And so there was something there that either I wasn’t understanding and maybe they don’t want to share and that’s fine, but I couldn’t let it rest. I at least wanted to go back one more time. I wanted to check in frequently with my team. I also wanted to be very aware of the obstacles and challenges that my team may be facing.

One of the things that I say, and if you’re a sales leader, this is something back in the, early on in the sales leadership, I said, no, no, no. My job is yes, I’m going to sell periodically, but my job is to remove obstacles and to get stuff out of your way, challenges that you’re dealing with so that you can continue to sell, you can continue to connect with your people. You can feel your team’s energy and your attitude and just be aware of that. I was talking to my son just yesterday and I sent him a text. They’re going through some things as a team and I said, Hey buddy, listen, there is a lot of stuff going on in your brain right now, things coming up in the next three months and six months, but you’ve got to be present and aware of the situation around you with your teammates. And in a situation like that allows you to understand where they’re at.

Now, I say all that to say one of the greatest pieces I know that, well, I speak for myself, that you’ve developed for us lately and other people is this Inclusive Leadership. And going through that, you developed that and all kinds of threads in that content piece about truly, truly understanding people. Talk a little bit about that before you move on to E, just the connection there with understanding people and the power of inclusively leading people and how that connects.

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Perry Holley:

Yeah. I never met a leader, not one who purposely wanted to exclude or make anybody feel unsafe or unwelcome or they don’t belong, but we do. Or it wouldn’t be a thing and we wouldn’t have to talk about it. And so what I’ve learned, and it came mainly from me, was most of us can be very focused on what we’re doing and we don’t mean to exclude others, but for me to really slow down a minute. And John talks about this. Sometimes you have to slow down and walk among the team, walk among the people. That I need to really understand where you are. I need to understand how you are, I need to understand what you’re struggling with. Your comment about obstacles, I had people on my team that were not producing for and I couldn’t figure out why, but I was so busy out in front they didn’t understand what the expectation was.

They couldn’t do it, but they didn’t know how to ask and I didn’t care enough to look into it. Finally, and it came to a head a little unprofessionally I would say, but then I realized if I had just taken the time to understand more where you’re coming from and think outside of my own troubles and challenges where I am, your comments to your son, yeah, it’s so tempting where he is right now to be thinking about how it’s affecting him. But this is one thing you teach really well and I’ve seen, I know your family, so you do this really well is yes, it’s hurting us, but now, but I’m going to worry about others. And so that others’ orientation opens the door for inclusivity to say, I’m,

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Perry Holley:

Even though I’ve got something going on, you’re important and I’m going to show you’re important by making you a priority.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Perry Holley:

I’m going to take the time to ask the questions, to be curious to understand where you are and maybe there is an obstacle I can remove. Maybe there is a barrier. Maybe I just need to enter into that conversation with empathy and compassion to you just so we can sit in it together. But that tells people something too, that you’re for me and you’re not for yourself and for me, that was a big picture.

Chris Goede:

Let me, before you go on, let me just stop for a second. If what you just heard leaders, you go, man, I need that in my culture. I need that in my team. That is straight out of Perry’s heart and why he developed Inclusive Leadership, and it’s a course that we have for teams. I want you to right now go to maxwellleadership.com/podcast and fill out a form and say, I want Perry to come and talk to my team about inclusive leadership and we will do it because it’s a powerful content piece to help you at the root of understanding your people so.

Perry Holley:

If it could be at a beach location, then.

Chris Goede:

Right. Now, listen, we’re not going to get specific. If it’s North Dakota, we’ll send Rick VanDermyden, somebody else like that, but.

Perry Holley:

Gotcha. That will go anywhere.

Chris Goede:

Yes, that’s right.

Perry Holley:

Moving on. The E in influence stands for enlarging, and that means that I help others become bigger. Up until now, Chris, you said well, integrity, got it. Nurturing, I can do it. Faith, I have it. Listening, I’m trying it. Understanding,

Chris Goede:

That’s so good.

Perry Holley:

I’ll do it. Man enlarging, what does that mean? Is that I help people fulfill or find and fulfill their true potential and I’m helping them grow and develop and then become more. I know what their career aspirations are, I might even know what their family aspirations are, their goals, their dreams. I’m helping to navigate the corporate structures. I just, I’m looking for ways to make you more, and I think this is one that many leaders have great intentions on, but it just takes a backseat sometimes.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, I love this and the way to do this is you have to provide feedback to them. I know some of you just took a big old deep breath and you’re like, I don’t like to give feedback. This is both positive and constructive feedback. Think back on all the lessons that you and I have learned in our careers and growing up. It came from things that people spoke up to and said, Hey, I see this in you, but you could have done this a little bit differently. You should have done this right here or next time I want to see the report like this, or whatever it might be. And so here’s what I want to challenge you with leaders. As you think about how do I go about enlarging others? First of all, it starts with yourself. You have to enlarge yourself. You are responsible for yourself and so what are you learning?

What are you growing? Don’t try to keep up with Perry and how many books he’s reading or listening to, but what you do is then you share what’s relevant to where they’re at in their professional, personal life with what you’re learning. Hey, I heard this nugget the other day and I just wanted to pass this along to you. I was reading this book and I saw that. You’re going to give them a thought that’s going to enlarge them. You’re going to enlarge their scope of potentially going through personal growth, which I think is hugely important. So make sure you’re growing yourself because you can’t give what you don’t have. The other thing is, is that I want to encourage you to think about what is it that I’m currently doing as a leader, not to delegate, but to enlarge their responsibility in the organization, enlarge their influence, what we’re talking about, enlarge their footprint, enlarge their exposure.

All that remember is increasing influence and when you do that, there’ll be an opportunity for you to kind of coach them along the way. We use this principle called the 10 80 10 principle. We learned it from John, which is John will come in and he’ll say, Hey, we have an idea, a thought, an opportunity for the organization or to add value to people and here’s the initial 10%. I want you guys to go run and develop the other 80% of what this could look like and the impact it could have and then allow us to come back and let him speak into that last 10%. I’ve done that so many times with him over the years, that that 80% that he gives us the opportunity to go out and to build and to create and to build up off of his platform man, that enlarges us. Now that back 10% by the way, it’s come with some feedback. Some positive and some constructive, but that is also part of the enlarging others. So just a few ideas around ways for you to practically enlarge your team members.

Perry Holley:

That’s good. That’s good. The N, second N we have, this one stands for navigate. Are you assisting other through difficulties? And everybody struggles from time to time either personally, professionally. There’s a chance for you as a leader. The key here is that you need to know what they’re going through. And so if you’re not staying close enough to people to understand what’s happening, you won’t be able to help them navigate the tough times that they face.

I know again, this is something you do really well. You’re actually, you’re recently staying pretty close to some issues I’m going through with my family and I noticed that you’ve, there’s not a lot you can do about it. Actually, there’s nothing you can do about it, but you have helped me navigate it by simply asking about it, by empathizing, not sympathizing. Sympathizing says, I’m so sorry you’re going through that. Empathizing says, you join me in it and you allow me to express that. You offer your own insights and your own experience. Even I had a chance to sit with you and your wife last weekend at the national championship. Did we mention that? National championship?

Chris Goede:

Yeah. Yeah. We were in rainy San Diego, Southern California. Yeah.

Perry Holley:

But even insights were shared there that were very helpful to me. So asking if there’s anything that I need. There’s ways that we do this as leaders that just say that I’m going to help you navigate whatever the difficulties you’re going through.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

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Chris Goede:

I think John in the 21 laws, the law of navigation, I think as leaders, we all have an incredible mindset and idea and strategy of navigating kind of where we want our department to go, our team, our business. What we’re talking about here is yes that, but also really we’re talking about influence with people and it does start with knowing. Right. So how could we have a conversation last week where my wife who happens to be knowledgeable in certain areas and we’re dealing with some things in our family that could say, Hey, this is what we’ve learned. The only way we could have ever had that conversation and navigate some things that may have helped you or you could help us, is that the fact that we know that,

Perry Holley:

Right.

Chris Goede:

About each other. And so it does start absolutely with knowing. The other thing as leaders, you don’t need to have all the answers. Sometimes it’s okay to just sit in it with people and as you sit in it, as you made a statement to be with, maybe then something’s going to come up and say, Hey, what about this? Maybe you could make a right turn here. I know I did this one time, and whereas from the beginning you look at it from the outside and you go, man, there’s no way that I could help or navigate or give any type of influence or input there, but don’t give up on it. Just go in and kind of sit with them and you don’t have to have all of the answers.

The other thing is, is that oftentimes when you become a sounding board or when people want you to jump in with them and help them navigate something either way, whether it’s a physical or it’s an emotional trait of this navigation, it’s so important for you to truly kind of know what’s going on. And so as you think about helping people navigate, it starts with knowing. And to your point, the only way to really know is to begin to think about some of these others that we talked about with asking questions and being empathetic and whatnot. But definitely make sure to increase your influence, that you help those that are in your inner circle navigate certain things in their life.

Perry Holley:

Well, actually it’s one of these nine things, it’s one of you can kind of test, do I have any influence? You can say, how am I doing is that people aren’t looking for me to navigate or help. They don’t look to me to help them navigate. Then maybe you don’t have any influence.

Chris Goede:

Right.

Perry Holley:

And so you go back to the others. The C stands for connecting. This is where you initiate positive relationships, and the key word here is initiate that if you hope to have influence with others, you really can’t sit around waiting for them to come to you, you initiate the connection with them. Connection to me is about finding common ground. It’s about taking the time to connect and learn about people, what they value, what motivates them. If I know what you value and I know what motivates you, I can add value to your life by meeting you where you are. And this takes me to initiate though, but this whole idea about connecting, it’s a huge piece of level two in the five levels. But give me your thoughts on connecting.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. Another 21 laws that John created the law of connection. I love that you tied it to level two because we often talk about level two being about relationships. It’s really even a little bit deeper than that. It’s about connections and when you connect with people, it looks all kinds of different ways. Right. It doesn’t just have to be, Hey, how was your weekend? Adversity connects. We talk about this, going through things together as a team, as an individual, as a family is going to connect you. Bringing people in just to go through a project, maybe just to sit in on a meeting, not say a word, not have any input, and then afterwards say, Hey, what’d you think about that meeting? Is there anything you learned? Anything I should share with the team that you weren’t aware of? Things like that. When you begin to create, take them with you on some lunch meetings you may have, let them sit in on a call.

There are all kinds of ways to do that. When you do that, you absolutely are touching that leader, their heart first, right? Because you’re including them. You’re connecting with them before you’re even asking for anything for them to do for the organization. We talk about discretionary effort a lot. That’s a phrase we use around here at level two. When you understand the power of connecting with people and truly knowing them and caring for them, that you’re not trying to manipulate them, not trying to just get them to give you an answer or do a project because it benefits you, but because it benefits the collective. There’s all kinds of ways to do that. So open your mind as you think about how can I increase my influence by connecting with people? We just gave you a couple of ways to be able to do that.

Perry Holley:

Good, really good. Finally, the last letter is E and it stands for empowering and it really is about giving power to those you lead. I love, I’ll just go back to the 21 laws again, John, I love the way he phrased the law of empowerment says that secure leaders give power to others and question I ask in coaching a lot is do you want to see things work without you or do you want to see things work because of you? And the insecure leader will have trouble letting go of their power and doing things necessary to see it work without them, but a secure leader wants others to lead, to be empowered, to be able to make decisions, to run the business and that they don’t, the leader, they don’t have to be present for the success of the what’s happening around there. So I love this empowerment. How do you see that one?

Chris Goede:

Yeah, I’ll tackle this and then throw it back to you and I’ll wrap us up and you can close out on the podcast, but as I think about this, man, we talk about the five levels of leadership early on. This is a perfect fit for level four. We talk about the fact that we want to influence people by developing them personally and professionally. And when you empower people, man, so many leaders get this confused or do it the wrong way or don’t even know how to do it. Right. They walk in and they go, Hey, Chris, man, go run the sales team today.

Perry Holley:

You’re empowered.

Chris Goede:

And then two weeks later, Chris, we’re giving you your separation notice as a sales leader, right? Because they come in and they just delegate it. They don’t develop or empower.

Perry Holley:

Actually dump it. They don’t delegate it.

Chris Goede:

There you go. I love that. Love that where they just kind of dump it on you. And so you need to go about it a little bit differently. You got to have a process in place. We talk about it as kind of modeling, equipping and developing. As a leader, are you modeling it first, and what does that look like? Because that’s contagious. Are you equipping them? Are you resourcing them? When you do that, you’re empowering them. Are you developing them? Are you speaking into what it looks like the first 10% and then maybe check-ins along the way so that people go, man, I feel empowered to do this and to lead this project or this assignment, or whatever it might be.

And by doing that, you will increase your influence and what we call will be at level four influence. And I love your statement. You said, is it happening? Would you prefer to see happen without you or because of you? Like that’s a, man I challenge leaders to write that statement down and then really think about where you are at in regards to that statement. Well, as we wrap up, I said this the last session in our podcast, and I’ll say it again, man, make sure your motive is pure in regards to why you are trying to increase your influence. Everyone, as we talk about at Maxwell Leadership, everyone deserves to be led well. And in order for you to have powerful positive change with people and with teams and your family and your organization, you got to have the right motive around influence.

And so as we wrap up, the last five that we talked about today that you laid out for us was the U stood for understanding, make sure we understand other people. See it from their point of view. Lead inclusively. The E was for enlarging. How do we help others become bigger than they already are? N was for navigating. How do you help and assist others through some of their difficulties? C, how do you connect with people? How do you initiate that connection to increase your positive relationship with them? And then finally, E was for empowering, and how do we do that the proper way, not just as you said, dump it on them? How do we empower them to lead? And when you do that, your influence will increase.

Perry Holley:

It’s a great opportunity for you to increase your influence, but also you should be teaching this to the people on your team. Everyone’s a leader because leadership is influenced. They don’t have to have a title to be a leader. They’re leading where they are. If they’re not, then they’re probably stuck in the old paradigm of leadership as a title. Everybody can lead from wherever they are in the organization, but these nine things I think will help not only you, but it’s something you could be teaching. As Chris said, do a week by week, go through how are we developing our influence in these areas. If you’d like to know more about our offerings that Chris mentioned, or if you’d like to leave a question or a comment for us, you can do all that at maxwellleadership.com/podcast. We’d love hearing from you and we’re always grateful you would spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.