Leadership - Influence - Position
Influence - Position
Position versus leadership
It is natural to believe that a person in a particular position or has been conferred with a title is there due to leadership qualities.
Many inherited titles e.g. Lord or Prince may have associated power but the individual concerned may not have leadership abilities.
The position itself may have great influence irrespective of the person attached to it.
Some people see leadership as the ability to reach a particular position. It is not.
General traits
Being the boss or manager may give you a little power but may not be enough to get people to truly follow you.
Some of the differences of bosses and leaders are:
- A boss may ‘tell’ but a leader will ‘coach’.
- A boss tries to rule by force and fear but a leader will encourage, motivate and gain trust.
- The boss focuses on his or her own needs saying ‘I’. The leader considers others and uses ‘we’.
- A boss cultivates a blame culture whilst the leader looks for solutions and expects mistakes.
- The boss can tell you what should be done and how to do it but offers no help. The leader tends to show a person how to do it.
Security
Many people are looking for job security. Many feel this comes from reaching a particular position.
However, without the influencing skills of the leader their position becomes weaker as time goes by.
There will be few followers and team performance will drop.
A good leader using their skills will develop the team, maintain morale and secure their position much more readily in the longer term.
Followers
Many positions are by appointment. With little leadership skills positional leaders will find it hard to get their people to go that extra mile.
A good leader can expect followers to rise above direct authority and perform at a higher level.
This can be a particular problem when working with volunteers. Because you will have no direct authority over them they will only perform at their best by using suitable influencing skills.
Relations
Get to know people
The trouble with trying to lead by position alone is that the boss kicks the guy down one level, he or she in turn kicks the next guy and so on.
Everyone feels the pressure of possible failure and that fear engenders a dislike of the boss and a vicious circle materialises.
Before you know it the team performs badly.
If you wish to gain trust and hence influence you must firstly get people to like you.
Good relations should come ahead of rules and regulations. Once these are established your power to influence will rise.
Think of ways to meet the people.
Walk around and just discuss what they are doing and get to know them on a personal level.
Try to return any communications rapidly.
Read the job application forms of individuals to get an idea of their background, or why not just ask.
Why not meet, on a regular basis, with a group of individuals that differ each time?
Build momentum
Once you recognise that a leader requires followers you will begin to acquire the skills to become a better one.
In addition, developing your 2-way communication skills to improve relations will get you to the next important stage.
Here you will begin to gather and maintain leadership momentum as individuals will start to want to take on tasks.
Once people wish to follow you they will tend to become more results orientated and in turn gather their own support to complete activities.
You will find that individuals that may not be academically the best will start to perform to higher levels.
Develop people
When two apparently equal teams perform at different levels it is usually down to the leadership.
The motivated team that is prepared to follow will always out perform a team of individuals.
It is not enough as a leader to gain followers you must keep them.
In order to be able to delegate well you will need to develop your team to accept delegation.
At this stage people will already admire you and respect you as a leader but developing your team will engender loyalty.
This is because people will see that you have a vested interest in their development and will be eager to help.
Develop yourself
Every time you change position you will have to start again in getting to know the key people around you, particularly if you swap companies.
As you move up it doesn’t get easier. The level of responsibility and commitment is higher all the time. If you can’t maintain this level of commitment then your own level of trust and influence will drop.
As you move up people will move from liking you to liking what you can do for them.
In order to maintain your current level you must make sure you don’t forget all of the techniques you learnt on the way up.
If you remain as a position manager people will follow because they have to but many will be unhappy and leave.
Get to know people and they will like you and follow because they trust you and want to.
Eventually, they will appreciate what you do for the organisation and for them which will keep their interest in following you.
Ultimately, you will become a figurehead and people will follow on the basis of what you represent.
Make sure that you keep moving forward.
Be wary if key influencers are not in your favour.
At the lowest level you will need to be aware of:
- Job descriptions.
- The background of the organisation and how your department fits in.
- Consider ideas for change.
- Do your best.
Then improve:
- Your relationships.
- Let people know you care.
Then:
- Begin to become results orientated.
- Focus on the areas that maximise results.
- Begin to make key and tricky decisions.
- Start to develop potential leaders.
- Start to cast your vision and consider change.
Then:
- Focus on people using the Pareto 80/20 rule.
- Look for helpers that reflect your own weaknesses.
- Develop leaders further and pass on your skills.