Leaders at Every LevelAn introduction to intentional influence, no

matter what our position or title

Stanley J. Ward, Ph.D.

Version 1.2© 2014

PrefaceThe purpose of this slideshare is to provide readers with a simple, but not simplistic, leadership model. That means two things:

1. The model must be robust enough to work in a variety of settings.2. The model must be straightforward enough to communicate it on a napkin

with a coworker.

If this presentation and “intentional influence” model do those two things for you, then mission accomplished.

CONTENTSIntroduction: What is Intentional Influence?

Question One: What is your Vision?

Question Two: Who are your Allies and Advocates?

Question Three: What is your Strategy?

Summary

Expect Conflict

Final Thoughts

INTRODUCTION:What is Intentional

Influence?Just because a person lacks positional

authority does not mean that person can not be a leader.

IntroductionLeadership does not require positional authority. However, it does require both intention and influence. Let’s consider these two words.

● Intention - To be intentional is to act with purpose, or as Stephen Covey puts it in his leadership classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “begin with the end in mind.” When we take actions without trying to get followers to a certain place, we are not being intentional.

● Influence - However, being intentional is not enough. We also need “influence.” We have influence in someone’s life when our actions affect that person’s beliefs or behaviors.

IntroductionIt’s possible to have intention yet lack influence.

For example, while many Americans are familiar with the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere, few have heard of William Dawes.

William Dawes set out the same night as Paul Revere with a similar mission, yet Revere is remembered and Dawes is not. Both Revere and Dawes shared a similar intention, but Revere has had greater influence in our historical memory.

For more information on Dawes, see http://www.history.com/news/the-midnight-ride-of-william-dawes. Tim Elmore uses the example of William Dawes as part of his “Paul Revere Principle” in Habitudes: The Art of Leading Others.

IntroductionLikewise, it’s possible to have influence yet lack intention.

Leaders who lack well-considered intentions still affect organizations. They do so like a bull in a china shop – leaving broken pieces everywhere. The three questions you want to consider for intentional influence are: 1. What is your vision? 2. Who are your advocates and allies? 3. What is your strategy?

Any organizational member can choose to be both intentional and influential.

QUESTION ONE:What is your vision?

Just like a pair of glasses helps provide clarity and focus, a leader’s vision gives

purpose to activities and events.

What is your vision?When we don't have a vision, then we are left to accomplish other people's objectives and to-do lists.

Put simply, leaders see things that others do not. That unique perspective is their leadership vision.

Perhaps they see a new mission for the organization or they see how someone's skill set might serve a project particularly well. Maybe they recognize opportunities that others would have missed. Or, they simply see how to get something done. Leaders see how the current situation could be different, and because leaders are action-oriented, they pursue that vision.

What is your vision?A leadership “vision” is bigger than a personal “goal.”

Losing 10 pounds is a worthy personal goal, but it is hardly a leadership vision.

According to the Hebrew wisdom book of Proverbs, "Where there is no vision people perish." This verse refers to a revelation from God. Although few leaders would claim to have divine revelations, there is a helpful principle here: Vision comes from something bigger than ourselves. When we can provide meaning for our followers, we inspire them and help them internalize values.

What is your vision?Why does a leader’s vision inspire us? For one reason, a leader’s vision affects multiple people. For another reason, that vision offers a better reality.

● Perhaps the leader envisions removing an obstacle.● Perhaps the leader envisions creating an opportunity.

What separates a leadership vision from a personal goal is how it impacts other people. What we want to accomplish and why we want to accomplish it should be about more than self-improvement. Our leadership vision should improve reality for other people.

A particularly moving example is Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision, expressed in his “I Have a Dream Speech.” You can see the speech on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

What is your vision?Elsewhere, I’ve written about evaluating our lives in terms of what we’ve produced, preserved, and overcome rather than our material wealth. We can ask similar questions when vision-casting.

● What do we want to produce?● What do we want to preserve?● What do we want to overcome?● And, why will this benefit others?

For more on these questions, see “Measuring Life Success at 40.”

What is your vision?A leader's vision also speaks to a leader's ethics.

Here’s an extreme example: If our leadership vision is world domination by any means possible, then there are few actions (good, evil, or otherwise) that we will refuse to take. However, if our vision is to create an organization that values families, then consistency demands that we treat our own families in a certain way while we work to change the organization accordingly.

What is your vision?Three questions to consider -

1. What is a possibility you see for your organization that others do not?2. What change do you want people to make?3. Where do you need to “go”?

Try formulating your leadership vision this way:“I envision [a different reality] and [this] is how it will affect other people.”

For more on developing a leadership vision, see this article by John Ryan (president of the Center for Creative Leadership) on the founder of Teach for America. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/29/personal-success-vision-leadership-managing-ccl.html

What is your vision?Like the lenses in a pair of glasses, your leadership vision will affect how you see your organization and your role in it. When your vision is clear, you will also be clear about your role and your opportunities for leadership.

Your vision is the intentional part of your personal leadership.

QUESTION TWO:Who are your allies and

advocates?Leadership is not just about accomplishing

tasks. Leadership includes building productive relationships.

Who are your allies and advocates?Think about this question as soon as possible. Never miss an opportunity to build these relationships.

Leadership is not just about getting stuff done. It is about getting stuff done through relationships. To quote Barry Posner, author of The Leadership Challenge, "You can make a difference, but you can't do it alone."

See Posner’s TED talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpLFFZsbWY&sns=em

Who are your allies and advocates?For successful intentional influence, we need to know who our allies are and who your advocates are. Also, we need to be continually developing these relationships. Remember the principle of reciprocity - we tend to get back in return what we give to others.

Who are your allies and advocates?Allies - These people work with you toward a common goal. They run alongside you, and sometimes they even push you to finish well. To borrow from Barbara Kellerman’s Followership model, think of allies as fellow participants and activists. Participants provide the energy you need to move your vision forward. Activists feel strongly enough to invest limited resources for the cause.

Advocates - Advocates are those who will not only work with you, but who will also speak up for you. To borrow from Barbara Kellerman’s Followership model, think of advocates as activists and die hards. Die hards are willing to make an even bigger investment in the cause than activists, because die hards are willing to risk reputation - even life and limb.

Kellerman explains types of followers in Followership: How Followers are Creating Change and Changing Leaders.

Who are your allies and advocates?To return to our William Dawes illustration, the poet Longfellow served as an advocate for Paul Revere, making his midnight ride famous by publicly recognizing Revere's contributions through a published poem.

There are a number of ways you can develop allies and advocates both inside and outside of your organization. Many of these actions are simply ways of showing that you value people, actions of kindness that often get lost when organizations emphasize tasks over relationships.

Who are your allies and advocates?To develop allies and advocates inside your organization:● Invite a co-worker to attend a professional conference with you.● Invite a co-worker into your home for dinner. Talk about shared interests

besides work.● Develop mentoring relationships that focus on a specific skill or discipline.● Publicly recognize a job well done.

To develop allies and advocates outside your organization:● Attend a professional conference to meet like-minded individuals.● Join a civic group.● Attend a professional conference.

Who are your allies and advocates?The Golden Rule has been humorously paraphrased as “he who has the gold makes the rules.” And while I’ll admit there is some truth there, that rule is pretty precarious. Why? Because few (perhaps, none) of us will always be the gold maker. That’s certainly the case when you are trying to get things done without positional power.

So try treating others the way you would like to be treated. It’s a great way to make allies and advocates.

Who are your allies and advocates?Try this exercise as well.

Make a list with four columns labeled Allies, Advocates, Obstacles, and Ideas. Think about your peers and co-workers. Place them in one of the three categories regarding their current roles in your vision.

NOTE – This exercise is not to objectify people or label them as enemies. Instead, this is an opportunity for you to evaluate your current relationships and consider what actions you should take as you pursue your vision.

Who are your allies and advocates?Next, review your list.

In the ideas column, write how you can work with your allies and advocates, and write about actions you can take that would encourage obstacles to move into the allies or advocates columns.

Who are your allies and advocates?Because leaders are change agents, and change brings opposition, leaders will naturally face opposition. Sometimes leaders respond to this opposition by quitting. Other times they respond by demonizing those who resist change. This is one of the reasons that allies and advocates are so important. Disciplined leaders continually develop allies and advocates who can help encourage the change process, and they look for opportunities to develop alliances with those who oppose them rather than simply demonize the opposition.

Who are your allies and advocates?As a fitting conclusion for our discussion of allies and advocates, consider this saying from Hebrew Wisdom Literature:

Though one may be overpowered,two can defend themselves.A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

Allies and advocates are necessary for the influence part of your leadership.

QUESTION THREE:What is your strategy?

Without a strategy, a leader’s vision is just an idea. Strategy helps transform vision into

reality.

What is your strategy?Strategy speaks to how we get from point A to point B. The first step is to identify what resources you have. For example, when trying to determine how to safely return Apollo 13’s astronauts to earth, Senior Flight Director Gene Kranz asked, “What do you think we’ve got in the spacecraft that’s good?”

See Michael Useem’s The Leadership Moment for his analysis of Gene Kranz’s leadership during the crisis.

What is your strategy?To create a strategy, ask some additional questions to drill down into the details:● Identify the resources you need to make things happen. What materials do

you need? What relationships do you need to build? ● Identify the obstacles that will get in your way. How will you overcome

them?● Who will your changes impact? How can you communicate with them?

How might you make change less painful for these people?

What is your strategy?Appreciate the power of the “small win.”

When you lack positional power, expecting a major change is unrealistic. Instead, look for “small wins” that help move your vision forward. Try out new programs and processes as an “experiment” rather than proposing a permanent or costly change.

See this Harvard Business Review article and video on the power of small wins: http://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins/ar/1

What is your strategy?If your effort succeeds,● Then look for ways to make the experiment into something permanent.● Explain how the experiment was part of your larger vision.

If you effort fails, ● Admit that it didn’t work.● Look for the next opportunity for a small win.

What is your strategy?Have a plan for communicating your strategy as well as your vision. Storytelling can help you communicate your strategy in a way that followers, advocates, and allies can internalize. According to Howard Gardner's book, Leading Minds, leaders tell stories that help followers understand:● who they are, ● where they want to take people, ● the obstacles that they will face, ● and how to overcome those obstacles.

For more on storytelling, see Stephen Denning's work, including Squirrel, Inc., and The Secret Language of Leadership.

What is your strategy?Here’s a practical way you can begin your strategy:

1. On a sheet of paper, draw three columns: productivity, projects, and people.

2. In the appropriate column, make a list of (a) one-time activities you need to do in order to pursue your vision, (b) larger projects that will required multiple components to complete in order to accomplish your vision, and (c) a list of the people you need to work with as allies and advocates.

3. Once you have this list, set target dates for the various items in your columns – actions to complete, projects to supervise, and people to have conversations with.

Strategy brings together intention and influence.

SummaryThe three factors of intentional influence

include the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your leadership.

Summary1. Vision is the intentional part of leadership, and includes the what and the

why.

2. Allies and Advocates are critical for the influence part of leadership and include the who.

3. Strategy combines intention and influence, including the where, when, and how.

SummaryWhen you try to apply all this, keep these points in mind:● Be clear about the what.● Make sure the why is about benefiting other people. Communicate the

what and the why together as much as possible.● Stay connected with the who’s. ● Be flexible with the where, when, and how.

Expect ConflictIf change is hard, then a lot of change is a lot

of hard.

Expect conflictOne last point - expect conflict. That’s why your intentional influence must stay both connected with people and flexible in implementation.

I’m convinced that our lives are like stories, and conflict is at the heart of any good story. Therefore, we should expect conflict in our lives. After all, it's hard for us to change ourselves, why would we think changing an organization would be easy?

Expect conflictIn her TED talk, “Six Keys to Positive Change,” Rosabeth Moss Kanter says that the fifth key for positive change is to never give up. Her illustration: after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president.

See Kanter’s talk on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owU5aTNPJbs

How to share this with othersAs I mentioned in the preface, my goal for this eBook is to provide a leadership model that is simple, but not simplistic. That means:

1. The model must be robust enough to work in a variety of settings.2. The model must be simple enough to communicate with a colleague.

So, here is how you can share this with a coworker.

(See the next slide.)

Final ThoughtsWhen developing other leaders, there are

two simple questions you can ask both yourself and those you are developing.

Final ThoughtsLet's boil this down to two additional questions for application.

● First, "Who am I influencing?" ● Second, "How am I influencing them?"

The who question keeps you thinking about allies, advocates, and followers. The how makes you think not only about how you are implementing your strategy, but also about your original vision. How are you doing at making that vision a reality? How is it impacting the people you are trying to influence?

THANK YOU FOR VIEWING

If you would like more resources for developing your intentional influence, please contact me.

www.stanleyjward.com