Art of Influence

• The art of influence entails handling emotions effectively in other people.

 

Emotions are contagious

We influence each other's moods. The most effective people in organizations know this innately; they naturally use their emotional radar to sense how others are reacting, and they fine-tune their own response to push the interaction in the best direction.

 

Influcense-wielding effective tactics for persuasion

 

People with theis competence

• are skilled at winning people ove
• fine-tune presentations to appeal to the listener
• use complex stategies like indirect influence to build consensus and support
• orchestrate dramatic events to effectively make a point

First, Build Rapport

Empathy is crucial for wielding influence; it is difficult to have a positive impact on others without first sensing how hey feel and understanding their position. People who are poor at reading emotional cues and inept at social interactions are very poor at influence.

 

Communication

Listening Openly and sending convincing messages

People with this competence

• are effective in give-and-take, registering emothinal cues in attuning their message
• Deal with difficult issues straightforwardly
• listen well, seek mutual understanding, and welcome sharing of inromation fully
• foster open communication and stay receptive to bad news as well as good

Listening skills- asking astute questions, being open-minded and understanding, not interrupting, seeking suggestions-account for about a third of people's evaluations of whether someone they work with is an effective communicator.

 

Being in control of our own moods is also essential to good communication. In dealingwith peers and subordinates, calmness and patience were key. Bosses likewise preferred dealing with employees who were not overly aggressive with them.

 

It doesn't matter what mood we're in - the challenge is to stay cool and collected. Aiming for a neutral mood is the best strategy in anticipaton of dealing with someone else, if only because it makes us an emotinal clean slate and allows us to adapt to whatever the situation calls for. It's like putting a car into neutral so that you can more readily shift into reverse, low, or high gear, as the emotional terrain demands. A neutral mood leaves us ready to be more fully involved, present rather than emotionally removed.

 

Keeping cool

Being caught up in a strong consuming mood is a roadblock to smooth interaction. The ability to keep cool helps us to put preoccupations aside for the time being, staying flexible in our own emotional responses. This trait is admired worldwide, even in cultures that prefer agitation over calm in certain situations. People who can stay collected in an emergency or in the face of someone else's panic or distress have a reassuring sens of sel-contral, enter smoothly into a conversation and stay effectively involved. In contrast, people who are burdened by their emotions are mch less available for whatever the present moment demands.

 

Conflict management

Negotiating and resolving disagreements

 

People with this competence

• Handle difficult people and tense situations with diplomacy and tact
• Spot potential conflict, bring disagreements into the open, and help deescalate
• engourage debate and open discussion
• orchestrate win-win solutions

Most "channel relationships" are long-term and symbiotic. And in any long-term relationship, problems simmer and boil to the surface from time to time. When they surface, those involved on either side of manufactuer-retailer disputes typicaly use one of three styles of negotiation: problem solving, in which both parties try to find the solution that works best for each side; compromise, where both parties give in more or less equally regardless of how that serves their needs; and aggression, where one party forces unilateral concessions from the other side. 

 

Leadership

inspiring and guiding individuals and groups

People with this competence

• articulate and arouse entusiasm for a shared vision and mission
• step forward to lead as needed, regardless of position
• guid the performance of others while holding them accoutable
• lead by example

In general, emotional charisma depends on three factors: feeling strong emothins, being able to express those emothins frocefully, and being an emothinal sender rather than a receiver. Highly expressive people communicate trhough their facial expression, their voice, their gestures-their whole body. This ability allows them to move, inspire, and captive others.

 

The ability to convey emotin convincingly, from the heart, requires that a leader be sincere about the message bing delived; truly believing the emotional message is wht separates the charismatic leader from the self-serving, manipulative one. Manipulative leaders may be able to play-act for a time, but they can less readily convince followers of their sincerity. Cynicism undermines conviction; to be a charismatic messenger, the leader must act from authentic belief.

 

THe leader's competence tool kit

Leadership is alomost all emotional intelligence, especially in distinguishing between what managers do and what leaders do - things like taking a stand, knowing what's important to you, pursuing your goals in partnership with others.

 

For the most effective CEOs, there are three main clusters of competence. the first two fall under the emotional intelligence heading; the first includes personal competencies like achievement, sel-confidence, and commitment, while the second consists of social competencies like influence, political awareness, and empathy.

 

The third cluster of competencies in the CEOs was cognitive: they think strategically, seeking out information with a broad scan, and apply strong conceptual thinking. As with the analysis of leaders in fifteen major corporations, what distinguished standouts was the ability to see the big picuture, to recoginize telling patterns amidst the clutter of infomation, and to think far into the future.

 

But great leaders go a step further, integrating emotional realities into what they see, and so instilling strategy with meaning and resonance. Their emotinal intelligence allows the blending of all of these elements into an inspired vision.

 

When to be tough

To be sure, leadership does demand a certain toughness - at times. The art of leadership entials knowing when to be assertive - for example, confronting someone directly about their performance lapses - and when to be collegial and use less direct ways to guid or influence.