Posts Tagged with "influence"

#1e: The importance of buy-in.

Gaining buy-in is a key reason for communicating well. As you rise in an organisation, the outcomes expected of you outpace the growth in your capacity as an individual contributor.Read more →

#1e2: Why should you scale your communication?

In some situations, you'll find yourself needing to not only communicate to people but through people. As a front-line manager, you can directly communicate a vision and strategy with your team. Yet it's likely that this strategic direction was communicated with you by someone higher up.Read more →

#9: The definitions of leadership.

Leadership is predicated on people following; no leader is an island. And since leadership is defined through followership, there is no single prescription for it.Read more →

#9a: Leading with and leading without authority.

Compared to leading with authority, leading without authority is a stronger form of leadership. Since there is no explicit social contract or threat of punishment, followers choose freely to follow and hence follow more fervently.Read more →

#9a1: The role of strong connections in building influence.

The more general form of "leading without authority" is "creating change without authority". The ability to create change is enabled by influence. Influence is not a direct function of the count of your connections; rather, it comes from having strong connections.Read more →

#9a2: Your role in shaping positional authority within the organisation.

At higher levels in an organisation, positional authority becomes less important than influence. There are more politics and ego, and fewer concrete answers. Yet this does not mean you can ignore the impact of this type of power in your organisation.Read more →

#9b: Options and constraints inherent in different sources of leadership power.

The source of a leader's power provides different options to achieve the same goal in any given situation. What matter is their leadership type — leading with or without authority — not their style, which is unique.Read more →

Reference #26: What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Implementing a new idea within an organisation requires buy-in. Of the seven phases of a successful project, three of them involve gaining support.Read more →

Reference #178: Peopleware

"Blindly loyal followers" are not allies to change. They are likely to hop onto the next bandwagon as quickly as they joined your cause.Read more →

Reference #195: The First 90 Days

As you rise in an organisation, influence becomes more important than positional authority. This is for two major reasons.Read more →

Reference #198: The First 90 Days

Joining a new company is much harder than being promoted from within.Read more →

Reference #205: The First 90 Days

In the shadow of the formal structure of many organisations exists the "shadow organisation" — an informal set of processes and alliances that strongly influence how work actually gets done.Read more →

Reference #241: The First 90 Days

The best way to lead change depends on the situation. After identifying the most important problem, you need to assess whether the organisation is ready to change — in which case a plan-then-implement approach will work well — or whether you need to engage in collective learning.Read more →

Reference #263: The First 90 Days

The extremes of how a team makes decisions are unilateral decision making — where the leader simply makes a call — and unanimous consent.Read more →

Reference #264: The First 90 Days

Most leaders use the following decision-making processes: "consult and decide" and "build consensus".Read more →

Reference #265: The First 90 Days

Using the right decision-making process for your situation is important.Read more →

Reference #268: The First 90 Days

Don't engage in a charade of consensus building.Read more →

Reference #270: The First 90 Days

Success in your role may require the support of people over whom you have no direct authority. Invest early in building networks. Build relationships with people you anticipate needing to work with later.Read more →

Reference #271: The First 90 Days

Early into a new role, you should focus on building support for early objectives. This is true even if you have strong positional authority.Read more →

Reference #272: The First 90 Days

When building an alliance to support an initiative, it may be unlikely you'll achieve complete unanimity.Read more →

Reference #273: The First 90 Days

To understand the influence landscape in your organisation, consider mapping influence networks. These show who influences whom on issues that concern you.Read more →

Reference #274: The First 90 Days

When looking for support for an initiative, you may be able to find people with whom you can build an alliance of convenience. These are individuals with whom you disagree in many areas, but with whom you align on the specific issue of concern.Read more →