To get to the top you have to be good at your job. You also have to be extremely good at influence, especially if you work in a competitive environment where egos, personal agendas and politics are rife.
Over the last 15 years I have helped hundreds of senior people make it to the top in large organisations. They have risen above the norm, moved faster than average, and developed an unusual sense of security.
Here are the nine capabilities that enabled them to distinguish themselves, and become extraordinarily successful – and they are not what you will learn in business school, or on the majority of leadership development programmes.
Capability #1: Gathering Social Intelligence
To become an influential executive, you need to know a lot of things that are not normally part of the day job. This requires an investment of time and effort. At senior levels work pressure gets in the way of the intelligence gathering necessary to make accurate political decisions. To avoid this distraction, you need to fuel your curiosity and focus it on the social dimension of your environment.
Action:
- Focus your interest on what makes people tick, what influences them to do what they do.
- Next time you tune out at a meeting, puzzle on why people are saying what they are saying (etc.).
- Make a habit of asking more questions to uncover why people are making certain decisions or taking a specific action.
“I just started to get fascinated by what was happening and began to ask a lot more questions. On one occasion, someone asked me to do them a favor. Instead of just saying yes or no as I would normally do, I simply asked why? When I probed a little more I found out something that led me to my next big role – simply because of that one question. There is always a story, and knowing them opens up a whole world of opportunity.” PA, Chicago.
Capability #2: Analysing the Context
This involves exploring the environment where you wish to succeed. Developing a deep understanding of your context is a key part of mapping out the territory you will have to navigate. It will also begin to illuminate the opportunities and threats that you will need to work with as you dramatically increase your influence. The context contains the clues to what powerful people will be most concerned with.
Action:
- Begin with your organisational structure chart and map out all the different groups. Include informal groups too as they have a huge influence on what happens.
- For each important group, analyse the challenges and problems they are facing.
- Learn how they are responding to these challenges. Work out how each group makes big decisions.
“Having set my sights on a particular position, I was dismayed to find out that in all probability, that division was going down the tube. Its performance was sub-par and the leadership was shocking. Sure, I could have been the maverick and gone and fixed all the problems, but it was still the pariah of the organization. Time for a change of direction.” LC, London.
Capability #3: Making Clear Decisions
The ability to make firm decisions about your direction of travel is key to minimising the amount of work that needs to go into becoming successful. This informs who you need to impress as well as raising your confidence and being able to ignore those who do not matter. Built on the intelligence you gather, and your own self-awareness, likes, skills, etc. Once the decision is made, tenacity needs to shine through.
Action:
- Where do you want to be in 5 years’ time?
- Write down a clear and detailed description of what that will be like.
- Decide now and get moving
“It’s taken me 3 years of doing nothing to realise that I was sitting on the fence waiting for an opportunity. In 3 weeks of gaining clarity about what I wanted, I now have the chance to pitch for MY golden opportunity. Although I haven’t got it yet, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. Why didn’t I do this years ago?” AB, Glasgow.
Capability #4: Building Political Theories
Developing an intimate understanding of the politics in play in the place you wish to be successful will help you to avoid many wrong turns. In complex environments, you don’t have to work hard to make enemies. In fact, you need to work very hard to avoid making them.
Here you need a keen sense of the personal agendas of the powerful people in the groups you are focusing on. These agendas sit behind their individual decisions and you need to be able to see how they conflict with all the other powerful people, and with you. This capability turns social intelligence into political insight.
Action:
- Identify the groups that are most important to achieving your goal.
- Invest time learning the political agendas of each key player in each of the groups.
- Reflect on how the agendas collaborate or conflict within each group
“The politics have always been a mystery for me. I’m a very straightforward guy although at the time, a very frustrated straightforward guy, always banging my head against the political wall. Six months on and now I get it. In fact, it seems my General Manager has noticed and comes to me to test out his political theories.” RC, New York.
Capability #5: Navigating Power
Power is the capacity to influence, and it sits behind the politics, making things happen. Power is the root cause of the political behaviour, and the decision-making, prevalent in any group.
If you can work out the sources of power and how they are operating, you will begin to be able to predict what will happen in the future. Who will win and who will lose. Equipped with this foresight, you can then lay your plans with greater accuracy and confidence
Action:
- For each key player, in each important group, work out what sources of power they are using, and how they are using them.
- Determine which sources of power are available to you, which you need to develop, and how to fill the gaps.
- What action can you take today to link your agenda to the powerful people?
“My restructure plan was very compelling. We’d save several million and align more closely with our clients. In a $3bn turnover business, the opportunity was significant. Except, that would mean dismantling the power base of the most powerful sales executive. It wasn’t going to happen no matter how much we could make.” CG, London
The Gautrey Unleashed Blog
Looking to impact, influence and success? Subscribe to Gautrey Unleashed for practical insights that transform how you think, feel, and act—straight to your inbox.
Capability #6: Unlocking Relationships
To build the necessary insights, you must be extremely good at building relationships across the whole of your arena. These relationships need to yield accurate information about what people are really thinking and feeling, and what they are shooting for. To gain this, you’ll need to be exceptional at building trust and intimacy with powerful people
Action:
- Think of someone you trust completely. Why?
- Think of someone you can’t trust at all. Why?
- What action can you take to increase the level of trust in your most critical relationships
“My flawed (as I now realise) approach had been to ask a stakeholder what they were hoping to achieve, and then tell them what I wanted them to do. Since my proposal was a “no brainer” it seemed the right way to go. Then I stopped, started asking questions and showing a genuine interest in the stakeholder. The level of disclosure was incredible. Then I was able to pitch in a way that was immediately accepted.” JK, London.
Capability #7: Developing Vision
Here, the key is to develop a work-based vision of the future, that will enable you to maximise attention and traction toward your goal or big decision. This will be the base for your stand-out strategy, and your platform for building greater impact.
Your big bold vision of the future must be context sensitive. There is little point in spending time developing a vision that will be quashed by the powers that be. Instead, learn what is really needed, how it will fit with the powerful people, and then develop a vision that will help to address the problems they face, while also accelerating your career
Action:
- Pull together your intelligence (on the environment, the power and the politics), viewed from the perspective of your work and decide what needs to change.
- Write down your vision and work with marketeers to finesse the prose.
- Gradually socialise your vision with powerful people, fine tune and spread the word wider.
“If you don’t have a strong opinion about what the future should look like, someone else will. This is really a question of who is driving the dialogue that others then compete with. It took me tens of thousands of airmiles to finalise, but now it is uniting the entire division.” AS, Frankfurt.
Capability #8: Building Reputation
As the goals and results start to accumulate and your impact in the organisation grows, you need to leverage them for maximum effect. This is not about bragging, spinning or exaggerating. Instead, the point of this critical capability is to find your own way of ensuring you get the credit you deserve and use that consistently to reinforce your brand and reputation.
Action:
- Define exactly what you want to gain a reputation for, that aligns to your goals and is context sensitive.
- Arrive at a list of key things you need to change (start, stop or do more of).
- Develop a campaign of action to build your reputation further.
“If what you want [by way of reputation] doesn’t fit with where you are, something has to change. Personally, I had to adjust my goal a little to make the most of where I was working. It was expedient because I didn’t need to change organisations. That saved a lot of time. Also, once I had clarity about the impact I wanted to have, things just started to happen so much faster.” PA, Hong Kong.
Capability #9: Cultivating Healthy Obsession
Increasing your influence as an executive needs to become almost obsessional in your life. Being able to keep focus on your goal in a tenacious way is the final vital capability. There is little to be gained from investing in building your plans, only for them to be forgotten next month.
Driving towards your desired goal needs to become a daily habit. Considering what each act contributes towards your progress, and the impact you wish to create. This solid base gives consistency and a continual stream of activities aligned to what you are seeking to achieve.
Action:
- Write down a clear statement of your vision or goal and refer to it every day.
- Score yourself on each day, and at each meeting, based on the extent you were able to maintain focus on your end goal.
- Challenge yourself, what could you have improved upon – then do it next time.
“Drive and determination have always been present in my life. If I’m honest though, I’ve been a chaotic over the years and keeping focused is important. You need to get someone who can keep reminding you of what you are shooting for, and what you are doing about it. I was able to engage my mentor in my plans and she helped me to make faster progress.” BE, New York.
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.
.