Colin Gautrey

Behaving with Distinction

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By now you should have developed a real sense of the reputation you want to create, the brand you want to establish and the impression you wish to create (if not, see refer back using the links in the reading list). Now it is time to work out how to do this. Before we get into the building greater substance to back up your reputation, I want to focus on the behaviours which you can adjust right now, and which will help you to begin stepping into your new reputation. The exercise which follows will stretch your thinking and will evolve in Read More

Understanding the Bigger Picture

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In the last article (The Structure of Your Leadership Arena), I asked you to map out all the groups that are involved in your arena — that will be essential in helping you to gain the most from this article. Any attempt to understand your arena will falter if you don’t first know its structure. If you didn’t get a chance to do so before, take another look here. Within your arena, decide which group you wish to be more influential within. You don’t necessarily need to be a member of this group, but you do need to have a clear vision of who they are. It is also worth making sure that your decision here tallies with your earlier consideration about what you want to Read More

Building a Healthy Network

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Nothing worthwhile can be influenced unless you have a network. The bigger your goal or purpose, the bigger your network needs to be, or at least, the more powerful its members need to be. And unless you have volume first, you’re not going to find and attract powerful people to be in your network. Since everyone has a network, it is more important to challenge you on the health of your network…
  • How many people are in your network? You need to build quantity before you can achieve quality.
  • How would you define a quality contact? One indicator for me is that  Read More

Failing to Attempt Influence

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There are many common mistakes when it comes to influencing. In the work I do, arguably the most common one I see is that of not knowing what you want to achieve (I covered this in the first article in this series, Exactly What Do You Want?). Another important one to watch out for is failing to attempt to influence once you've decided what you want to make happen. To avoid this danger, you first need to make sure you understand why it might happen. Then you can take steps to minimise the risks. Potential reasons Read More

The Structure of Your Leadership Arena

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Before you go too far establishing a strategy to achieve your leadership purpose, make sure you really understand the arena in which you are about to a successful leader. Arena, as a word, has been used deliberately in the book, Influential Leadership,  to cater for the diverse nature of the environments where leaders need to become more influential. For some, it will apply to companies or organisations while for others it may be more appropriate to think of industries, populations or even social settings. Regardless of the type of arena you are focusing on becoming more influential within, you need to get to grips with its structure. The best way of doing this at first is to Read More

Build Relationships with Powerful People

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This is not about sucking-up or brown-nosing, this involves making shrewd choices about where you invest your time and energy building relationships. Powerful people are always on the lookout for talented people who may be able to help them. Early in your career, these people may be beyond reach, or may appear too intimidating to approach. That is natural and something that you need to work on. This requires assurance, and, as you progress, your Read More

Leaving an Impression

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From the statements you developed in the last article (if you didn't I would strongly advise you do this now, click here), it is now necessary to simplify them so that you can return your focus to getting the work done. These statements will continue to sit behind everything that you do however, you don’t need to keep these at the forefront of your mind — merely review on a regular basis. What is more important now is that you find a way to keep the essence of them in your mind as often as possible. To do this, I want you to:
  1. Reflect on what thoughts you’d like to enter the minds of important people in your organisation when they think of you.
  2. Imagine Read More

Defining Your Distinction

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For a reputation to be really useful it has to be distinctive in the environment where it needs to do its work. This raises a vital question, what do you want your reputation to be? What reputation will precede you and create useful expectations in the minds of your stakeholders? In the last article in this series you were asked to focus on the competition so that you could gain an awareness of what reputations there are around your organisation, and what those people are doing to promote their reputation. Now you need to turn Read More

Analysing Stakeholders

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On the stakeholder map you need to consider each individual and their position on the map relative to two axis… Relationship…
  • Trust. To what extent do they trust you and do you trust them?
  • Openness. How much are they willing to disclose sensitive information?
  • Frequency. How often do you engage with them?
Agreement…
  • Benefit. How much will they gain (or lose) when you succeed?
  • Agreement. The extent to which they agree or disagree with what you aim to achieve.
  • Activity. How much are they doing Read More

Seven Sources of Power

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For my book, Influential Leadership, I have reflected deeply on the subject of power sources and developed a new way of thinking about power. The aim is to make power more readily understood so that it can become more useful to managers and leaders with busy lives.

Credibility: The power derived from your professional standing and expertise.

Credibility is the reliance awarded to someone based on trust and perceived expertise on the topic being considered. When making decisions, most people get input from others and they have to decide how much reliance to place on that input. Information from highly credible sources are more likely to be accepted at face value and not challenged, questioned or verified with another source. If someone doesn't think Read More

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