Formal Leadership is all about getting results through others. So if you aspire to develop as a leader, you need to address your ability to influence the thoughts and actions of your prospective and current followers.
Imagine if you could illustrate your current personal sphere-of-influence as an actual sphere. How would your sphere’s diameter compare to other highly influential leaders that you know and admire? If you truly admire them and you’re honest with yourself, your imaginary sphere is smaller by comparison. So now you can envision the gap you’ll want to close.
You increase your sphere of influence as you improve both the quantity and quality of your relationships. As you evaluate the quality of both your business and personal relationships, consider these words from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
In the working world, it is not always practical or appropriate to regularly go out drinking or otherwise socialize with colleagues or important contacts. As you evaluate your business relationship quality assurance, consider your most important working relationships. To what extent do these VIPs believe they can count on you in their times of need? Are you assuming they hold this belief? Or do you know it for a fact?
In accounting, we keep ledger sheets to keep score of debits and credits. In his 7 Habits book, Stephen Covey discussed how we all keep a mental ledger on the people we know and what they have and haven’t done for us. So, they thereby have an ongoing idea of your account balance: positive or negative. So he recommends developing the habit of pursuing Win-Win scenarios.
Most of us already know the people we need to influence. And, most of us lack the awareness and/or the time to invest in quality building activities that would…
These sphere of influence growing acts are critical to enhancing your personal power as a leader.
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One Response
Met you at a seminar last year Tom and I’m very glad I did. These articles are great.