Gautrey Unleashed

Trust and Integrity Made Simple

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Trust and integrity are two intertwined concepts that usually crop up when I start talking about influence. Although interconnected, they are different, and a clear understanding of them can help you to build influence more quickly. However, despite the temptation to dive into a philosophical debate, you can simplify these greatly and then get moving again with your influence. Trust is the degree to which you can predict someone or something. When it comes to people, what you are assessing is how well you can predict what they will do or, how they will react, to a given situation. Will they do what they say they will do? Will they keep your secrets? Will they tell you the truth? Read More

Pausing to Influence Faster

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I coined the phrase “pause to go faster” while running workshops several years ago for a particularly fast-paced organisation. There seemed to be no stopping them. They pick up an idea and they're off the starting blocks before you know what has happened. The culture is one which admires those who get to action fast. However, at times, there is also a desperate need to pause and reflect. Then, in all probability, you will move even faster than before. This is definitely the case when it comes to influence. Unless you pause to think about how you are approaching an influence attempt, you'll probably just do what you've always done. That may work; but then again, it might not. Read More

Seven Ways to Become More Powerful

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Being powerful enables you to get things done. It encourages people to do what you want them to do, often without you even asking. Generally, people like to please powerful people because of what they may gain, or because they don’t want to lose something.

Here are seven ways that you can become more powerful:

  1. Build Greater Networks. The more people you know, the more potential resources you have to call on. These can provide you with useful knowledge, resources or friendly help and support. This needs to be a two-way process, so make sure to make yourself available to help people in your network too. Don’t just focus on those nearest to you; get to know people in other parts of your organisation, and those outside of it in related work. Make sure and delicately let others know you have this network.
  2. Acquire Scarce Capabilities. Think about the work that you do and the organisation where you are right now. What does everyone seem to be wanting by way of capability? Perhaps this is financial acumen, process design. Which capabilities are in short supply? Take this into the future and try to predict how the future will change. Try to find ways to build your own capability in things that people want and then let people know you’ve got it.
  3. Focus Your Specialism. Having a clear notion of what makes you special, and being able to articulate it with clarity will help to make you more powerful. With this focus you can then look for opportunities to build greater knowledge and expertise in your area. Irrespective of what you need right now, look to develop further by finding out what the latest theories are. Build your own tool-kit of approaches and techniques which can make you stand out from the crowd.

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  1. Actively Manage Your Brand. Everyone will have built their own impression of what you represent. Some may think you’re a great networker; others could take the view that you’re a hard worker. What would you like them all to think about you? What would your ideal personal brand be like? Once you’ve worked this out, become active in promoting and managing your brand. Corporations spend millions doing this, so why not invest a little time yourself in building a powerful brand consistently?
  2. Make Use of Your Physical Characteristics. We are all of different shapes and sizes, and this can have a powerful effect on others. Depending on your goals, work and personal integrity, think through how you can make best use of what you were given. A naturally serious face can be used to effect as much as a heart-warming smile. Height, weight and good looks are proven to have an influential effect on others. Do the Personal Power Profile and discover the sources of power you use, and the ones you need to develop (complete here).
  3. Focus on Social Dimension. Very few people work in total isolation. The workplace is a social organisation and people will be naturally more inclined to help or cooperate with someone they like. Influence happens at a psychological level, so tune in to the social fabric of your workplace, mind your manners and create friends everywhere.
  4. Study Other Powerful People. You can simplify the building of power by working out what other successful people do around your organisation. Studying what gives them power can provide vital clues and short cuts which you could emulate. There are no golden rules to building power, but many have trodden this path before, so let them become your teachers. You don’t have to do what they do, but your learning can be integrated into the way you go about becoming more powerful.

And remember, power is what makes organisations function. It underlies the informal decision making processes, it affects who gets hired, fired and promoted. Resources are often allocated to the most powerful people and by becoming more powerful yourself — you increase your chances of greater success substantially.

If you found tis useful, you may also like: The Seven Sources of Power

 

Colin Gautrey

Provocative Coach/Mentor | Specialism: Impact and Influence

 

Ready to take the next step? Discover how personalised coaching can ignite your full potential and accelerate your success. When you’re ready, let’s talk about how we can work together to turn your vision into a reality.


 

The Gautrey Unleashed Blog

Ready to unleash your potential? Discover the secrets to achieving impact, influence, and lasting success. Subscribe to Gautrey Unleashed for practical insights that transform how you think, feel, and act.

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Developing Tact and Diplomacy

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At its heart, tact and diplomacy is the skill of being sensitive to the feelings and opinions of other people. Those who possess it in great quantity are naturally able to sense what is really going on in the minds of others, and then respond with a certain delicacy of feeling that influences many people extremely well. The downside is that too much tact and diplomacy can irritate rather than influence other people. Two of my most popular articles on tact and diplomacy illustrate the problem well. Decoding and Resolving Personality Conflicts explains how personality clashes occur and what to do about them.This can go much further, and in Are You a Bully? Are You Sure You Aren't? I cite 21 common behaviours that may land you in trouble, deep trouble. Putting all of this into context, tact and diplomacy is one of four dimensions of influence we identified when creating the Gautrey Influence Profile back in 2005. Each of these is important to overall influencing capability. When we are using the profile to coach individuals to become more effective, we aim to help them to be able to balance the dimensions and to flex their style according to the situation. The decision you make about the level of tact and diplomacy to use should be based on the person you are seeking to influence. Your capability to respond accordingly requires not only awareness, but also the skill to be able to adapt your behaviour. Read More

Challenging Formidable Characters

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Some senior people have a reputation for demolishing people in big meetings. Not only do they have strong opinions about the task in hand, they also exercise considerable skill in destroying any challenges to their opinions. Or so it seems. This approach is often accompanied by a brusque style, blunt to the point of rudeness, and they have very high levels of determination. If you operate at middle to senior levels in any large organisation, you know who I’m talking about! Challenging these people can be Read More

What If — So What: The Continuum of Confidence

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Our thoughts so often conspire to defeat us, even before we’ve given it a go. Over the last few months I’ve been speaking with many people who have doubts about their performance — particularly when new to their role. The confidence which characterised their old job seems to have been left behind when they moved to the new desk. Sound familiar? When we dig a little deeper, it usually emerges that they based their confidence heavily on their technical capability in the old job and with relationships which had grown over a number of years. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that at some point change is going to occur. When you have confidence it usually means Read More

Wrongfully Accused of Bullying

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Bullying is a growing problem facing organisations and the lawsuits flying about are attracting fee-hungry lawyers. It occurs to me that there is a rapidly rising risk that ambitious and well-meaning individuals could be falsely accused of bullying in their drive for results. If you are a particularly determined character, you need to take this risk seriously and do something about it before you end up with a blot on your otherwise glittering career record. Curiously, the Gautrey Influence Profile can provide clues about who is most at risk of this accusation. As a psychometric instrument, it determines preferred behaviour when seeking to influence. The two dimensions relevant here are Tact and Diplomacy and Determination. If you score Read More

Adjusting Political Temperature in Your Team

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We use the term ‘political temperature’ to describe the degree to which team members compete with each other or collaborate as a team. Temperatures can range from absolute zero to boiling point — and beyond! Certain temperatures are more suited to a particular organisational setting than others — and getting it wrong can be disastrous. High temperatures exist when individuals are pushing forward their ideas and trying to beat others in the team. Higher temperatures are great when there is an imperative to innovate and change quickly. But watch out, at the extreme this turns into bitter rivalry and unscrupulous behaviour, which may significantly damage organizations and individuals alike. Read More

Bullying and the Politics of Power and Influence

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This guest article by Keryl Egan first appeared in Training Australia Magazine,.

Bullying behaviours include not only observable and explicit humiliating abuse but also hidden, insidious attacks upon a person and their capacity to do their job, their enjoyment of productive working relationships and the advancement of their career. These bullying behaviours include...
  • Blocking access to training and promotion
  • Withholding information essential to do the job properly
  • Spreading malicious rumours, lies, professional slurs
  • Unfair use of disciplinary and assessment procedures
  • Persistent undue criticism and scrutiny, inaccurate accusations about quality of work
  • Setting workers up to fail by setting impossible deadlines and targets
  • Undermining responsibility
  • Isolation and coercion
  • Creating a climate of fear via emotional abuse or public humiliation
To date, advice to those suffering psychological injury from this kind of bullying has centred around following a recommended grievance process or counselling for stress management. As a clinical psychologist, I have seen many people in my practice who take one to two years, sometimes more, to recover from a sustained bullying campaign in the workplace. Some never recover and withdraw from their profession or are permanently unable to perform at previous levels of competence and confidence. Others cannot adjust to the humiliating loss of status and career, nor can they accept that they are shells of their former selves. They become anxious and depressed, but they are also angry, not only at the bully but at the system which failed to protect them. Such post-traumatic stress results from the shattering of their assumptions about the basic goodness of human beings and about their own basic self-worth. Those who encountered a psychopathic type of bully have glimpsed an evil they had not thought possible in their ordinary working life in a "safe" Australian society. Read More

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