The One Tool That Can Help Leaders Influence With Or Without A Fancy Title
By Jayson Krause, Managing Director of Level 52 & Author of The Science Behind Success
Any leader can tell you it’s difficult to influence others even when you do have authority. Humans are emotion driven creatures and that emotion can lead to wavering wants and needs and oscillating levels of buy-in and enthusiasm.
Too many senior leaders experienced this firsthand as they watched waves of employees leave during the great resignation of the past year. All those people you were supposed to be able to control, or at least influence, have left in search of finding something better. The limitations of offering more money and a better title were simply not enough.
Professionals are getting smarter and more intentional, shattering the archaic model of freedom 55 because they want and can now achieve a level of freedom. Many professionals are waking up to the fact that they CAN have more balance, work on their passions, and generate fulfillment rather than kick it a few decades down the road at the cost of their physical and mental health.
So, if you can’t use your executive authority to influence people, what can you do?
In our Accelerated Leader Training programs, we tell our participants that little things make the biggest difference. While most people seek a magic bullet to fix their issues, it’s the professionals who focus on the simple things that make a meaningful difference.
So, how might you influence people with or without a fancy title?
The answer is empathy.
I know, I know. Empathy seems to be the latest buzzword in executive and leadership development. But the fact is, empathy has influenced people for years, and it will continue to be the pathway towards maximum influence.
When it comes to empathy, most people don’t understand it, nor do they know how to make the concept of empathy into a real nuts and bolts activity of influence.
It helps to break it down into practical elements you can use to lead and influence others, whether or not you have that lofty management title.
Why is empathy the pathway to influence?
Businesses have been using empathy for years to influence your consumer habits. Through ethnographic research, they listen and observe the little things that determine your thoughts, actions, and buying behaviors.
Based on the quality of those observations, they respond by giving you all the products and services you want and need. They even get you to buy the things you never knew you wanted and needed (and probably don’t). All this while having you think you did it yourself. Some might call this manipulation; I call that influence.
Even if you aren’t in a sales role, you are always selling something. You are selling a vision, execution plan, organizational values, change initiatives, accountability, and maybe even your kids’ latest fundraiser. But unless you know how to capture your audience in the right way, the only leverage you tend to have is through the authority that comes with your title. Even then, you’ll get reluctant buyers.
There is ample opportunity for you to grow your impact and career trajectory by learning the right approach. We live in a world where organizations are becoming flatter, people are becoming smarter, and collaboration is key to an organization's success. As a result, your ability to influence in any direction is not only a necessity, but really, a superpower.
How do you exercise empathy into a superpower of leadership influence?
The answer: Develop your cartography skills and get great at empathy mapping.
Empathy maps are used in design thinking, innovation, ideation, and product development to better understand the object of your attention or end user. In your case, it might be a peer, direct report, your boss, a client, or a vendor. Regardless of who it is, your ability to influence will rest on your savvy and empathetic understanding of who they are and how you can best serve them.
Download a free empathy map template here.
A simple empathy map explores the following:
What the person says
What the person thinks
What the person feels
The actions the person takes.
A great empathy-mapping process will also help you develop an intimate understanding of what the person's biggest pains and greatest fears are. Once you know this, your job is to find ways to minimize or eliminate them.
During the empathy-mapping process, you will also identify their biggest wants and dreams. What is in it for them? What do they truly want? Once you mine for this, your job is to help them see how you can deliver this.
I have used the empathy-mapping process with leaders during our executive coaching sessions to support them in a variety of influence-seeking situations. For example, when selling their business, pitching to investors, presenting to the board or peer groups, or activating engagement at an all-hands meeting. Through our collaborative discovery, we are able to transform the message from “here’s what I want you to know” into “here’s what’s important to you, and here’s how we can help you get there.”
The more you know your audience, the more you can tailor your message to accelerate what they want and minimize their fears. This sets you up to not only influence desired action, but also to be a trusted advisor. . . if you follow through.
Leaders and managers can often get lost in the way they communicate and message important initiatives if working off an old mental map that no longer accurately describes their business’s territory and the people in it.
Done right, empathy mapping gives you the ability to communicate in a way that engages people into inspired action rather than getting frustrated as you hope and wait for them to do what you want. When you take responsibility for identifying those little things that make a big difference, you understand that you have to alter your approach. Instead of firehosing them with information that matters to you, the focus becomes understanding them, which enables you to communicate in a way that will have them buy what you’re selling.
Your ability to transform empathy from a word into a meaningful action is the pathway to building trust and inspired action inside your business. Below are six steps you can take to activate empathy and enhance your influence whether you’ve got classic authority or not.
Six steps to activating empathy:
Download a free empathy map template here.
What does this person say to me or others? What do they complain about, what do they get excited about?… etc.
What are some of the things they think about? These are often the things that consume them. Whether related to the business or not, it tells you a lot about what’s important to them.
What do they feel? What impact do the activities in the business have on them? What do they feel before, during, or after a certain process or initiative?
What actions do they take as a result of the business’s structures, meetings, and processes? Do they avoid certain things and engage directly with others? The actions or inactions are important to note.
Capture both their pains and gains. This will give you bookends to understand what they want to avoid and what they want to move towards. Knowing this means you can shield them from their pains and nudge them to what matters most faster.
After you’ve observed and mined this information, intentionally craft your communication and alter your actions based on what you find. Use the information responsibly and influence them to ‘buy in’ to the mission, vision, and performance of your organization.
