Leaders at Every Level - An introduction to intentional influence

Leaders at Every Level
An introduction to intentional influence, no
matter what our position or title

Stanley J. Ward, Ph.D.
Version 1.2
© 2014

Preface
The purpose of this slideshare is to provide readers with a simple, but not
simplistic, leadership model. That means two things:
1. The model must be robust enough to work in a variety of settings.
2. The model must be straightforward enough to communicate it on a napkin
with a coworker.
If this presentation and “intentional influence” model do those two things for
you, then mission accomplished.

CONTENTS
Introduction: What is Intentional Influence?
Question One: What is your Vision?
Question Two: Who are your Allies and Advocates?
Question Three: What is your Strategy?
Summary
Expect Conflict
Final Thoughts

INTRODUCTION:
What is Intentional
Influence?
Just because a person lacks positional
authority does not mean that person can not
be a leader.

Leaders at Every Level - An introduction to intentional influence

Introduction
Leadership does not require positional authority. However, it does require both
intention and influence. Let’s consider these two words.
● Intention - To be intentional is to act with purpose, or as Stephen Covey
puts it in his leadership classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People, “begin with the end in mind.” When we take actions without trying
to get followers to a certain place, we are not being intentional.
● Influence - However, being intentional is not enough. We also need
“influence.” We have influence in someone’s life when our actions affect
that person’s beliefs or behaviors.

Introduction
It’s possible to have intention yet lack influence.
For example, while many Americans are familiar with the famous midnight ride
of Paul Revere, few have heard of William Dawes.
William Dawes set out the same night as Paul Revere with a similar mission,
yet Revere is remembered and Dawes is not. Both Revere and Dawes shared
a similar intention, but Revere has had greater influence in our historical
memory.
For more information on Dawes, see http://www.history.com/news/the-midnight-ride-of-william-dawes. Tim Elmore uses
the example of William Dawes as part of his “Paul Revere Principle” in Habitudes: The Art of Leading Others.

Introduction
Likewise, it’s possible to have influence yet lack intention.
Leaders who lack well-considered intentions still affect organizations. They do
so like a bull in a china shop – leaving broken pieces everywhere.
The three questions you want to consider for intentional influence are:
1. What is your vision?
2. Who are your advocates and allies?
3. What is your strategy?

Any organizational member can choose to be both
intentional and influential.

QUESTION ONE:
What is your vision?
Just like a pair of glasses helps provide
clarity and focus, a leader’s vision gives
purpose to activities and events.

When we don't have a vision, then we are left to accomplish other people's
objectives and to-do lists.
Put simply, leaders see things that others do not. That unique perspective is
their leadership vision.
Perhaps they see a new mission for the organization or they see how
someone's skill set might serve a project particularly well. Maybe they
recognize opportunities that others would have missed. Or, they simply see
how to get something done. Leaders see how the current situation could be
different, and because leaders are action-oriented, they pursue that vision.

A leadership “vision” is bigger than a personal “goal.”
Losing 10 pounds is a worthy personal goal, but it is hardly a leadership vision.
According to the Hebrew wisdom book of Proverbs, "Where there is no vision
people perish." This verse refers to a revelation from God. Although few
leaders would claim to have divine revelations, there is a helpful principle here:
Vision comes from something bigger than ourselves. When we can provide
meaning for our followers, we inspire them and help them internalize values.

Why does a leader’s vision inspire us? For one reason, a leader’s vision affects
multiple people. For another reason, that vision offers a better reality.
● Perhaps the leader envisions removing an obstacle.
● Perhaps the leader envisions creating an opportunity.
What separates a leadership vision from a personal goal is how it impacts other
people. What we want to accomplish and why we want to accomplish it should
be about more than self-improvement. Our leadership vision should improve
reality for other people.
A particularly moving example is Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision, expressed in his “I Have a Dream Speech.” You can
see the speech on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

Elsewhere, I’ve written about evaluating our lives in terms of what we’ve
produced, preserved, and overcome rather than our material wealth. We can
ask similar questions when vision-casting.
● What do we want to produce?
● What do we want to preserve?
● What do we want to overcome?
● And, why will this benefit others?
For more on these questions, see “Measuring Life Success at 40.”

A leader's vision also speaks to a leader's ethics.
Here’s an extreme example: If our leadership vision is world domination by any
means possible, then there are few actions (good, evil, or otherwise) that we
will refuse to take. However, if our vision is to create an organization that values
families, then consistency demands that we treat our own families in a certain
way while we work to change the organization accordingly.

Three questions to consider -
1. What is a possibility you see for your organization that others do not?
2. What change do you want people to make?
3. Where do you need to “go”?
Try formulating your leadership vision this way:
“I envision [a different reality] and [this] is how it will affect other people.”
For more on developing a leadership vision, see this article by John Ryan (president of the Center for Creative
Leadership) on the founder of Teach for America. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/29/personal-success-vision-
leadership-managing-ccl.html

Like the lenses in a pair of glasses, your leadership vision will affect how you
see your organization and your role in it. When your vision is clear, you will also
be clear about your role and your opportunities for leadership.

Your vision is the intentional part of your personal
leadership.

QUESTION TWO:
Who are your allies and
advocates?
Leadership is not just about accomplishing
tasks. Leadership includes building
productive relationships.

Who are your allies and advocates?
Think about this question as soon as possible. Never miss an opportunity to
build these relationships.
Leadership is not just about getting stuff done. It is about getting stuff done
through relationships. To quote Barry Posner, author of The Leadership
Challenge, "You can make a difference, but you can't do it alone."
See Posner’s TED talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpLFFZsbWY&sns=em

For successful intentional influence, we need to know who our allies are and
who your advocates are. Also, we need to be continually developing these
relationships. Remember the principle of reciprocity - we tend to get back in
return what we give to others.

Allies - These people work with you toward a common goal. They run
alongside you, and sometimes they even push you to finish well. To borrow
from Barbara Kellerman’s Followership model, think of allies as fellow
participants and activists. Participants provide the energy you need to move
your vision forward. Activists feel strongly enough to invest limited resources for
the cause.
Advocates - Advocates are those who will not only work with you, but who will
also speak up for you. To borrow from Barbara Kellerman’s Followership
model, think of advocates as activists and die hards. Die hards are willing to
make an even bigger investment in the cause than activists, because die hards
are willing to risk reputation - even life and limb.
Kellerman explains types of followers in Followership: How Followers are Creating Change and Changing
Leaders.

To return to our William Dawes illustration, the poet Longfellow served as an
advocate for Paul Revere, making his midnight ride famous by publicly
recognizing Revere's contributions through a published poem.
There are a number of ways you can develop allies and advocates both inside
and outside of your organization. Many of these actions are simply ways of
showing that you value people, actions of kindness that often get lost when
organizations emphasize tasks over relationships.

To develop allies and advocates inside your organization:
● Invite a co-worker to attend a professional conference with you.
● Invite a co-worker into your home for dinner. Talk about shared interests
besides work.
● Develop mentoring relationships that focus on a specific skill or discipline.
● Publicly recognize a job well done.
To develop allies and advocates outside your organization:
● Attend a professional conference to meet like-minded individuals.
● Join a civic group.
● Attend a professional conference.

The Golden Rule has been humorously paraphrased as “he who has the gold
makes the rules.” And while I’ll admit there is some truth there, that rule is
pretty precarious. Why? Because few (perhaps, none) of us will always be the
gold maker. That’s certainly the case when you are trying to get things done
without positional power.
So try treating others the way you would like to be treated. It’s a great way to
make allies and advocates.

Try this exercise as well.
Make a list with four columns labeled Allies, Advocates, Obstacles, and Ideas.
Think about your peers and co-workers. Place them in one of the three
categories regarding their current roles in your vision.
NOTE – This exercise is not to objectify people or label them as enemies.
Instead, this is an opportunity for you to evaluate your current relationships and
consider what actions you should take as you pursue your vision.

Next, review your list.
In the ideas column, write how you can work with your allies and advocates,
and write about actions you can take that would encourage obstacles to move
into the allies or advocates columns.

Because leaders are change agents, and change brings opposition, leaders will
naturally face opposition. Sometimes leaders respond to this opposition by
quitting. Other times they respond by demonizing those who resist change. This
is one of the reasons that allies and advocates are so important. Disciplined
leaders continually develop allies and advocates who can help encourage the
change process, and they look for opportunities to develop alliances with those
who oppose them rather than simply demonize the opposition.

As a fitting conclusion for our discussion of allies and advocates, consider this
saying from Hebrew Wisdom Literature:
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

Allies and advocates are necessary for the influence part
of your leadership.

QUESTION THREE:
What is your strategy?
Without a strategy, a leader’s vision is just
an idea. Strategy helps transform vision into
reality.

Strategy speaks to how we get from point A to point B.
The first step is to identify what resources you have. For example, when trying
to determine how to safely return Apollo 13’s astronauts to earth, Senior Flight
Director Gene Kranz asked, “What do you think we’ve got in the spacecraft that’
s good?”
See Michael Useem’s The Leadership Moment for his analysis of Gene Kranz’s leadership during the crisis.

To create a strategy, ask some additional questions to drill down into the
details:
● Identify the resources you need to make things happen. What materials do
you need? What relationships do you need to build?
● Identify the obstacles that will get in your way. How will you overcome
them?
● Who will your changes impact? How can you communicate with them?
How might you make change less painful for these people?

Appreciate the power of the “small win.”
When you lack positional power, expecting a major change is unrealistic.
Instead, look for “small wins” that help move your vision forward. Try out new
programs and processes as an “experiment” rather than proposing a
permanent or costly change.
See this Harvard Business Review article and video on the power of small wins: http://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-
small-wins/ar/1

If your effort succeeds,
● Then look for ways to make the experiment into something permanent.
● Explain how the experiment was part of your larger vision.
If you effort fails,
● Admit that it didn’t work.
● Look for the next opportunity for a small win.

Have a plan for communicating your strategy as well as your vision.
Storytelling can help you communicate your strategy in a way that followers,
advocates, and allies can internalize. According to Howard Gardner's book,
Leading Minds, leaders tell stories that help followers understand:
● who they are,
● where they want to take people,
● the obstacles that they will face,
● and how to overcome those obstacles.
For more on storytelling, see Stephen Denning's work, including Squirrel, Inc., and The Secret Language of
Leadership.

Here’s a practical way you can begin your strategy:
1. On a sheet of paper, draw three columns: productivity, projects, and
people.
2. In the appropriate column, make a list of (a) one-time activities you need to
do in order to pursue your vision, (b) larger projects that will required
multiple components to complete in order to accomplish your vision, and
(c) a list of the people you need to work with as allies and advocates.
3. Once you have this list, set target dates for the various items in your
columns – actions to complete, projects to supervise, and people to have
conversations with.

Strategy brings together intention and influence.

Summary
The three factors of intentional influence
include the who, what, when, where, why,
and how of your leadership.

Summary
1. Vision is the intentional part of leadership, and includes the what and the
why.
2. Allies and Advocates are critical for the influence part of leadership and
include the who.
3. Strategy combines intention and influence, including the where, when, and
how.

Summary
When you try to apply all this, keep these points in mind:
● Be clear about the what.
● Make sure the why is about benefiting other people. Communicate the
what and the why together as much as possible.
● Stay connected with the who’s.
● Be flexible with the where, when, and how.

Expect Conflict
If change is hard, then a lot of change is a lot
of hard.

Expect conflict
One last point - expect conflict. That’s why your intentional influence must stay
both connected with people and flexible in implementation.
I’m convinced that our lives are like stories, and conflict is at the heart of any
good story. Therefore, we should expect conflict in our lives. After all, it's hard
for us to change ourselves, why would we think changing an organization would
be easy?

Expect conflict
In her TED talk, “Six Keys to Positive Change,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter says
that the fifth key for positive change is to never give up. Her illustration: after 27
years in prison, Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically
elected president.
See Kanter’s talk on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owU5aTNPJbs

How to share this with others
As I mentioned in the preface, my goal for this eBook is to provide a leadership
model that is simple, but not simplistic. That means:
1. The model must be robust enough to work in a variety of settings.
2. The model must be simple enough to communicate with a colleague.

So, here is how you can share this
with a coworker.
(See the next slide.)

Final Thoughts
When developing other leaders, there are
two simple questions you can ask both
yourself and those you are developing.

Final Thoughts
Let's boil this down to two additional questions for application.
● First, "Who am I influencing?"
● Second, "How am I influencing them?"
The who question keeps you thinking about allies, advocates, and followers.
The how makes you think not only about how you are implementing your
strategy, but also about your original vision. How are you doing at making that
vision a reality? How is it impacting the people you are trying to influence?

THANK YOU FOR
VIEWING
If you would like more resources for developing your
intentional influence, please contact me.
www.stanleyjward.com

Leaders at Every Level - An introduction to intentional influence

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Leaders at Every Level - An introduction to intentional influence (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Leaders at Every Level - An introduction to intentional influence