How to Improve Your Influence Skills at Work
Influence is about setting an example that inspires others to do the same as you. The key word here is, inspire. Influencing others is not about pressuring people to comply with your requests. It's not about manipulation.
Influence is a powerful force. It doesn't matter who you are, or what your professional goals are, achieving more influence at work is critical to success. Gaining influence within a team can help you work together more effectively. Gaining influence in a supervisory position can earn you more respect and appreciation. In a meeting, the power of influence can make your voice more likely to be heard and acknowledged. Influence has many benefits, but increasing it, like learning a skill, takes time and effort.
Ways to Improve Your Influencing Skills
If you are ambitious in your career, and want to earn a reputation as someone who can get things done easily, which is difficult for others, but can bring the different parts of an organization together. Hence you need to improve your influencing skills. It can be taught and also captured, here are some ideas to get you started
1. Make Strong Connections With Others
It all boils down to the relationship. So, building a strong network is very important, also getting to know people personally. It's easier to relate to and understand others when you have an idea of what's important to them, what their personality traits are, and what's going on in their life. Allow people to be heard and seen as individuals and who they are.
The ability to collaborate with other people helps build your influence, as it strengthens relationships. There is a kind of influence that you build through collaboration, where you work with people, where you share common interests. You can combine your influences together to create something greater than you can do on your own.
2. Listen before you try to persuade
The best way to get coworkers to support you and your agenda is: to make them feel heard. Start by giving them your full attention in person. Most of you are probably walking around with a to-do list in your head, and it shows. I'm nervous, busy, or ready to reach for my phone.
On the other hand, you must practice the discipline of focus. To do this, turn your body toward the other person, stay still and listen. Most of the hate in the workplace is that people feel unappreciated and their voices not heard. So, ask their peers for their views and advice.
3. Build Your Credibility
Try to remember the last time you chose to listen to a speaker. Maybe it's a motivational speaker, or you signed up for a seminar like "how to make money from flipping houses".
One of the main reasons why you may choose to invest your time attending a speech or seminar is because you believe the speaker is highly knowledgeable in whatever field they are talking about.
The same concept applies at work. Your co-workers are much more likely to be influenced by you if you are viewed as an expert in your field. With that mindset, make sure you are constantly working to improve your knowledge, and to become better and better.
By showing others that you are an expert in a certain area, you will build your credibility which will help you "influence" when needed.
4. Be Transparent
In order to increase your influence, you must remain open and honest. This is key to enabling others to voice their questions and concerns, and to answer them transparently. Honesty is easy when there's good news to share, but staying 100% honest when there's bad news can be tough.
The best leaders will be transparent in all things. If a question is asked, and you are not prepared to answer it, say, “I want to make sure I have all the correct information before I answer it. Let me check the facts, and contact you at the end of the day." Make sure to follow up as soon as you can answer their question. Respond with positivity and openness, and you'll achieve a team that's committed to you and your goals.
5. Develop expertise
The way to raise your influence at work is to be seen as a recognized expert in your field.
This won't happen overnight, but you can find ways to develop business-critical skills and find out how to improve your skills in your topic area by attending regular industry conferences, enrolling in classes, or special certification programs, or take leadership in a relevant professional organization. It is a publicly visible sign that you are staying up-to-date and informed.
Don’t keep your knowledge under wraps. Blog writing about your subject on LinkedIn or your company newsletter is another way to show what you know.
6. Be Assertive, Not Aggressive.
Being assertive is the only way to get your idea noticed, especially when you're competing with others for visibility, such as in meetings. There's a difference between being aggressive. and being assertive You should present your thoughts and ideas with a high degree of confidence, which demonstrates your confidence, but an excessive level of trust can be misinterpreted as unnecessary arrogance, which will jeopardize your perceived authority.
Do so with caution, especially when you are unfamiliar with the audience, or if you are presenting your thoughts in a field outside your expertise.
This assertiveness should extend as a common quality to all of your interactions, regardless of whether you are speaking to employees above, below, or at your level, and whatever the format of the conversation. Being assertive, as long as you truly believe in what you say, is a way to cultivate a reputation for authority and gain the ability to influence your coworkers and employees.
7. Don't be afraid to smile.
This is standard advice in marketing and sales, but don't underestimate its importance in daily life at work. Smiling is important, because they subconsciously communicate that you will be easy to work with. What's more, they also encourage you to feel better, which will open your channels of communication and make you more receptive. This unconscious tendency to imitate the expressions we see on other people's faces will often trigger your new acquaintances to mirror your smile, creating a great context for problem solving in the workplace.
8. Be a problem-solver.
Be interested in the challenges faced by other teams in the organization. Share your skills, and experience to help others find solutions to their problems..
9. Identify your gaps
As you build your level of influence in the workplace, you will realize that more responsibility will be assigned to you. You will be facing more organizational and people challenges. You should develop more self-awareness. You are preparing for leadership; As such, you must learn to influence decisions and opinions without compromising ethics and standards of excellence. Don't please people too much.
10. Stay positive
We're a bit suspicious of people who are always happy. Negative emotions have their place, and some very good cultural processes or changes can come from difficult conversations. It's important to find ways to incorporate positive experiences into your team interactions to create a clean, positive workplace.
Why? Because it really is a competitive advantage to have happy employees. Studies show that happiness increases business productivity by 31% and sales by 37 percent.
It turns out that positivity and happiness play a bigger role in the success of your work than you ever thought possible.
Summary
Why are we obsessed with “influence”? People have their own way to make something. Some have been more successful than others; some are effective in specific settings. However, while at work, it is important for all of us to know how to influence the people around us. The key to leadership success today is influence, not authority
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