Gautrey Unleashed

Protecting the Short-Term

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influentialleadership2This text is taken from the original draft manuscript of Influential Leadership: A Leader's Guide to Getting Things Done and is provided here to enrich your learning on the Strategic Influencer Programme.   Before you get too carried away by your purpose, remember that Influential Leadership needs to balance longer term progress with short term results. The chief risk that you face is not being able to devote enough time to working on your purpose because of the demands you face right now. Losing your position because of poor performance is unlikely to help you progress towards your purpose – unless you are heading into a completely different arena. Assuming that you are already working in the arena you want to Read More

Exploring Your Leadership Purpose

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influentialleadership2This text is taken from the original draft manuscript of Influential Leadership: A Leader's Guide to Getting Things Done and is provided here to enrich your learning on the Strategic Influencer Programme.   You need to define your purpose in a manner which is appropriate for you. What is right for you will depend on many factors including your experience, age, values, position, responsibilities, capability and ambition. To make the most of the contents of this book, your purpose needs to be sufficiently stretching to mean that you will be stepping out of your comfort zone. It will need to be something which will force you to think differently either about your current role, or take you into uncharted waters entirely. You will need to take a sensible view on Read More

Influential Leadership: Chapter One

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influentialleadership2This text is taken from the original draft manuscript of Influential Leadership: A Leader's Guide to Getting Things Done and is provided here to enrich your learning on the Influential Leadership Programme.

Chapter One: Building Your Purpose and Passion

You can only be an Influential Leader if you have an ambitious purpose, and get moving.

To become an Influential Leader you need to develop a clear long-term vision and also be realistic about how you are going to free up time to begin making progress. That means you have to also focus on your short term objectives and make sure you don’t miss anything critical. The grander your purpose, the more influential you will become – provided you are also making progress at the same time. Read More

A Graduate Lesson in Influence

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My work gets me talking to all sorts of people, facing all manner of challenges. One of my recent mini-consultations got me talking to Jessica, a graduate in her first job. Personally, I believe that many people twice her age need to pay heed to the simple ideas I shared with her. Do you?

Dear Jessica,

It was great chatting to you the other day. Rarely do I have the opportunity to talk with someone so new into the workplace. Nor, if I may say so, one so forward thinking to be Read More

Mapping Your Stakeholders

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Having a list of stakeholders is a good start; but to get a sense of the priorities, you need to understand their position relative to your Influencing Goal and to each other. That way you can begin to see the bigger picture and develop a clear strategy to accelerate towards your goal. Using the Stakeholder Influence Map (below), the general idea is that you plot the name of each (impactful) stakeholder based on where you think they are in terms of Read More

What’s Missing from Your Relationships at Work?

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During a closing coaching call with a senior project manager the other day we were reviewing how he had transformed his performance. He had made substantial progress on all of the traits of a professional influencer, but still something was missing. His SVP had congratulated him on the change, especially on his political awareness and analysis, but he thought my client should do something to improve his relationships with other senior executives. He couldn’t be specific, he just said vaguely that they needed to be better. As we discussed the problem it was clear that he had built levels of trust with his stakeholders (well, all bar one, but that's another story). He was adding significant value, engaging frequently and cultivating two-way problem-solving. In fact, many of his stakeholder were now beating a path to his door to seek his input. So, what was the SVP talking about? Finally, we hit upon the Read More

Nine Traits of a Professional Influencer

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What proportion of your job is about influencing others? Probably quite a bit. What proportion of your time is spent influencing others? Probably not enough. If influence is a major part of your job and you are not doing enough of it, why is that? Chances are quite high that is due to one of the following:
  • You don't have the time.
  • You forget you need to do it.
  • You cannot reach the people you need to influence.
  • You're not very good at it.
All bar one of these are excuses as far as I am concerned. Once you know the value influence can bring, you will find the time, remember to do it, and discover ways to reach those you need to reach. As with so many challenging activities, motivation is key. The last one can still trip you up though, so you have to work hard to get really good at influencing people. As part of the transformation I take clients through, I like to get them to explore what success looks and feels like. In addition to asking them to describe role-model influencers, I share with them the traits I have noticed in those who have attained an exceptional level of influencing skill. While you are reading these, give yourself an honest score Read More

Colin Gautrey on Influential Leadership

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skillsoft Colin Gautrey has now joined an elite group of experts on influence featured in the Skillsoft range of corporate training videos. These experts include Dr. Robert Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion), Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer (Managing with Power) and Dr. Allan R. Cohen (Influence without Authority). The short video below contains highlights of Colin talking about Influential Leadership.
Read More

I’m Right, You’re Wrong: Influence Undercurrents

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There is a particularly unhelpful undercurrent flowing beneath the surface of many influencing attempts. Over the last few weeks I have spoken to many people. It is part of my research into the challenges that are holding people back from success. In many of them, I am getting the feeling that they hold the opinion that the person they wish to influence is wrong. For example, Jane. She wanted to know how to influence her boss, Lukas. She wanted him to support a particular project she was desperate to get off the ground. Jane took me through the rational argument. It was a no-brainer, "Why doesn't he get it? It's obvious we should do it!" As we talked I could feel Read More

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