I met with a new client the other day and he mentioned that he wanted to work on influence. I asked him to share more about what influence meant for him. He said, “I see influence as one of the more important things that you can do as a leader. I should use it with my team, my management, clients, and peers, but I don’t.” When I pressed him to share why, he said “I think it is fear. What can I talk about with them that they don’t already know? I don’t think that they want to spend their valuable time talking to me.”
This is fairly common. The visibility of working with influencers is huge and helps the leader get so much done. What can sometimes happen is that a leader will put one of these influencers up on a pedestal and talk themselves out of meeting with them because of fear. The fear feels very real and so the meeting never happens. It may also be a new experience that they haven’t done before and they put a lot of pressure on themselves to do it perfectly. That also allows delays to happen because perfection is unattainable!
Focus on keeping things simple.
Come into an influencing conversation from a place of curiosity. Ask them questions about their challenges, how things are going with their team and projects. Look for opportunities to add value or support them somehow. This is just a conversation with another human being. Give yourself the spotlight too. Share what you are doing and how your team is doing if you have one.
Influencing is about building relationships and leveraging them to get things done.
You never know what can come out of a good conversation that helps you build a strong relationship. It is better to build it now when you are just offering your help to them. When you need to ask for their help later, it will be just a simple ask of a colleague, not a stranger.