Skip to main content

The 4 Stages of Influence

Influence is an easy to understand but hard to implement strategy in interpersonal relationships.  The opposite is ‘resistance’, and a close cousin is ‘change’.  The confusing thing is that the meaning of influence sometimes gets mixed up with ‘manipulation’, a less than desirable behavior.

Influence is generally regarded as the ability to change something or someone because you’ve built the trust needed to make it happen.  Influence just ‘doesn’t’ happen, so how does it occur?

The 4 Stages of Influence 

Those that influence the best are those that have the most humility.  

Letting yourself be influenced by others.  When you open yourself to learning, listening and replying, you have begun the process of influencing another.  Going where someone is communicates their importance to you.
Engaging in trusting actions.  It’s hard to influence others without being trustworthy yourself.  This step takes patience and time.  If you’re rushing this, then you’re likely engaging in subtle manipulation.
Having a valued skill or behavior. A component to influencing another, is having knowledge, skill, or behavior that others legitimately value in some way.  Using this in ways that help others is often the glue that builds your ability to build influence and build confidence in your actions.
Showing humility.  Those that influence the best are those that have the most humility.  A person that makes a lot of noise around themselves, creates a shallow outcome of manipulation.  Influencing others is a humble and respectful enterprise.  One meant to build others up, rather than build one’s ego.
Which steps may you be using? Which ones are absent as you work with others?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When Helping is not Helping

Having the desire to help others is the calling that brings many into the “helping professions.” For others, it is the day to day service that we do for our families, children and others we work for/or/with. There is a fine line however when helping is not really helping, but rather a barrier that leads to stagnation or worse yet, fosters an unhealthy dependence. Indicators of when helping is NOT helping: 1. When the help we provide is not accepted by others The term I’ve used for years is when helping leads to “help rejecting complainers.” When our helping leads others to excuse themselves of embracing the help, then rejecting it, or avoiding it. This is not a judgment of our help or our intent, but of others’ readiness to change. They may simply not see the same way as you do. They may not value the same things. 2. When the help leads others to make the same poor decisions Any change effort has to be embraced as well as given. It is hard to un...
Post a Comment
Read more

WHERE SHALL WE GO?

When we can no longer differentiate a church from a social gathering, and all what we do in church is to just have fun. When we can’t differentiate a choir from a harlot, and an usher is not different from a waiter. When the church is no more conducive where shall we go? When worship session in a church is just like a disco night and we cant differentiate a pastor from a comedian. When salvation message is no longer the order of the day but prosperity and entertainment message is now the core course. When the church is no more conducive where shall we go? When prayer warrior now have to go to tongue- speaking school for utterances, and deliverance and healing session is now like MTH 201 to be taught and learned. When pastor have to pause for members to clap and shout during sermon in enthusiasm, and all what we now gain from preaching is now new vocabulary and word usage. When the church is no more conducive where shall we go? When the church of God is now...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Most complex problem

Many hundreds of years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the merchant’s beautiful daughter so he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the merchant’s debt if he could marry the daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would then have to pick one pebble from the bag.If she picked the black pebble, she would become the moneylender’s wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail. They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the merchant’s garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up ...
Post a Comment
Read more