By Eric Bloom https://officeinfluence.com/
As an executive coach, the study of influence has multiple advantages for your business and for the person you are coaching.
From your perspective, the proper use of influence-based concepts and techniques can help you more effectively win coaching assignments, increase your coaching effectiveness, and enhance your professional reputation.
From the client/coachee’s perspective, sharing your knowledge of influence concepts and techniques with your clients can enhance their influence in the workplace. This in turn, can increase their current job performance, position them for promotion, and accelerate their upward mobility.
Two of these key influence concepts are “Influential Presence” and “Situational Influence.”
Influential Presence is your ability to influence others based on your stature, skills and personal attributes. In my book, “Office Influence: Get What You Want from the Mailroom to the Boardroom”, I divide the components of influence in the workplace into five distinct categories:
- Personal Attributes – Internal: confidence, trustworthiness, loyalty, courage, vision
- Personal Attributes – External: follow-through, leading by example, friends and allies
- Professional Stature: job title, awards, accomplishments, professional experience
- Interpersonal Skills: emotional intelligence, active listening, public speaking
- Business Skills: teambuilding, mentoring, negotiation, goal setting
The combination of these five attribute categories determine your influential presence and how seriously you are taken by your coworkers and clients at all organizational levels.
Situational Influence provides insight into your ability to influence a specific person (or group) on a specific topic at a specific time, based on your relative level of knowledge and organizational/social power over/under person you are trying to influence. Situational knowledge, as the name alludes, is the depth of your knowledge in the topic being discussed as compared to the topical knowledge of the person or group you are trying to influence. Situational Audience refers to your relative organizational power as compared to the person or group you are trying to influence.
In closing, by continually enhancing your Influential Presence through personal introspection, training, and experience, and keeping an ongoing eye on situational influence, you can enhance your coaching profession and help advance the careers of those receiving your thoughts and advice.
