Who has influence?

Larry Janesky: Think Daily

“Leadership is influence”. -John Maxwell

Who would follow you and look to you for leadership even if you had no title?

Who has influence in your organization or part of it, even though they do not have a title?

They should be your next leaders.

Daniel Kniseley

Was just re-reading some of my highlighted portions of Maxwell’s ‘The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership’ yesterday while I was getting my truck worked on – figured it was good ‘dead time’ to continue recharging for the coming year.

The one chapter I always go back to if I only have time for a quick refresher is chapter 2, ‘The Law of Influence’. Of all of his great teaching that I’ve read over the years, that one, simple, boiled-down understanding of what leadership REALLY is has stuck with me more than any other.
It’s fundamental! If you can’t INFLUENCE, you CAN’T lead – no one will follow you, forced or otherwise, to your desired future state; you have to spark within them a ‘felt need’ to go WITH you and be on the Team, not just be following along with the crowd.

If you want to lead people to where they NEED to be (which isn’t always where they want to be if they haven’t captured the vision – but that’s another topic), then you have to INFLUENCE them to go there. And you may need to find and develop as many means of influence as there are folks you’re trying to lead – everyone responds differently and it’s up to you to learn your Team and understand how to reach them corporately AND individually.

So much on this topic… The other thing we must always keep in mind is that the core of influence is trust, which is built on too many attributes to discuss here.
Thanks as always for the great reminder and helping me collect my thoughts, Larry.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 🙂

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