Influencing and persuading others is about changing their views, attitudes or actions without having to rely on your position or authority, or coercion. It is a critical skill for leader in dealing with their team, but perhaps more so in their interactions with colleagues, superiors and customers.
Your ability to influence and persuade others is not really a separate set of skills – there are techniques, for sure – but your ability to bring others round to your point of view is determined by a range of factors. For example, you can never hope to influence others unless some basic building blocks are in place:
Credibility: You have to have credibility in the eyes of others, if you hope to exert influence over them.
Trust / integrity: if people do not trust you, or if you lack integrity, then you can forget about influencing others in a positive way.
Passion and enthusiasm: Without these qualities, your ability to influence others is limited.
Empathy: Unless you can put yourself in the shoes of others, you will find it hard to develop arguments that respond to their needs.
Personal skills and attributes: Your ability to influence and persuade others is not something that you turn on and off as required; instead, many of the leadership attributes highlighted elsewhere in LEADERSHIP are relevant here to.
Persuading others specifically relates to your ability to define and deliver compelling arguments that serve to bring others towards your way of thinking, whilst at the same time satisfying some particular need or expectation they may have.
Again, how good you are at doing this depends on your overall effectiveness as a communicator, your level of knowledge and insight into a particular subject and your ability to be assertive.
A basic assumption when seeking to influence and persuade others is that you can devise a strong case that creates a win-win situation for both parties and then that you can make that case to others in a manner appealing to them. Some important considerations when seeking to influence or persuade include:
- Define clearly what you really want to achieve.
- Be clear on who has the power to deliver what you want and indeed who can put obstacles in your way.
- Understand the frames of mind of others and identify what can needs your proposals satisfy for them.
- Build a strong case that bridges the gap between your objective and the current position, while delivering tangible benefits for others.
- Define those key benefits for others in terms that will be meaningful for them – be specific, not vague.
- Deliver your case with passion and enthusiasm.
- Be prepared for objections, listen to them when raised and address those concerns by offering tangible solutions.
- Do not attempt to oversell your proposals.
In a work context, as well as influencing employees, colleagues and customers, you will need to be able to influence and persuade your superiors, particularly on occasions when you are seeking extra resources, or attempting to get support for change. Clearly, this poses additional challenges for you because the authority completely lies with them; as such, you are totally reliant on your talents for persuasion.
Be conscious in these circumstances that your chances of success are increased when you make a strong business, not an emotional, case for what you are seeking. In addition, when communicating up the chain, the nature of, and indeed the language used within, your argument is vital. Below are some examples of good and bad choices of words when seeking to influence up the chain of command.
| Terms to Avoid | Terms to use |
| “We need this”.“Everybody else is spending INR, so we will be left behind”. “It will make a major difference to the business”.“We cloud lose a lot of good people if we don’t do this”. “It will improve the quality of our service”.“Morale will be better if we do this”.“Our customers will be more loyal if we do this”. | “This additional resource will cost us INR but will lead to an increase of sales of INR in six month”. “Since our competitors implemented this approach, they have grown their market share by 5% over us”.“By investing in this project, it will deliver the following benefits immediately…”.“Employee turnover is currently X. By changing this system, we can reduce that to Y in six months, which will yield savings of Z”.“Research undertaken among our customers has indicated that 75% of them would increase their purchases if we offered this product”. |
Given the changing dynamics of work today, as a leader you are called upon to influence and persuade far more often than someone in your position 20 years ago. With growing pressures on resources, financial and otherwise, within organizations, you have to make a much stronger case for what you want than might have been the case previously, so work hard to develop your ability to influence and persuade.
