The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.
― Kenneth H. Blanchard
In your never-endin
g quest to become the best leader you can be, you need to relentlessly seek new ways to ascend to the next level. But how you influence others along the way has an enormous impact on your ability to climb the ladder of success. How can you use your power and influence to create a level of support
around you that will further both your success… and the organizations?
Throughout history leadership has been critical to performance, to success… and to the greater good. Power in the workplace has traditionally been defined as force, dominance, aggression, strength, and authority. Observations could lead you to conclude that only the most powerful make it to the top and that in order to that level you must bring into play perceived force, dominance, aggression, and strength. Not true…
Today, it is far more critical to understand and leverage the dynamics of influence within power. Learning the art of influence as a tool for positively impacting your surroundings and facilitating the achievement of goals will take you far. Influence is about getting things done in the real world – where politics and personalities often seem to hinder rather than help you. Influence makes things happen, despite the obstacles that might stand in your way. Your implicit theories and feelings about power and influence have a profound impact on how you perceive problems and opportunities, and subsequently, how you decide upon a particular course of action. To develop a realistic point of view, you must become aware of and test your assumptions about power and influence. Here are three resources to help you: Continue Reading…
We go to business school to learn all the right skills, but are we actually taught the right skills? Are young people coming to us from University adequately equipped to work in our world? Of course we all need to know the fundamentals of basic business management, but what about those critical, but less obvious, competencies that leaders (formal and informal) must know in order to succeed? What are those essential skills not taught in business school that often cause high potential leaders to derail and never achieve their potential?
