Researchers have found that most people use influencing styles that are a combination of logical, emotional and cooperative appeals. Nice what of wrapping words around my manager friend and my answers to the question – describe how you influence others?

Influencing Styles:

• Logical influencing is about appealing to the person’s reason and intellect. Clearly and logically explaining what one is trying to achieve and the why. Providing examples of how one’s goal is realistic and achievable. Going back to setting the proper expectations in a very logical manner.
• Emotional influencing is about linking the message to an emotional motivator. Demonstrate the trust that you have in the person’s capabilities.  Everyone wants to be successful, so tie you message around the success that will come from doing the work (visibility in the organization, learning new skills and the all important advancement).
• Cooperative influencing is about building a connection between the two parties. Working together to set expectations, making decisions or just getting the necessary results. In the end, the relationship becomes stronger and easier with cooperative influencing.

To drive home this with an example – I want to use my adult children. When raising kids – you get to practice almost everyone of these everyday. I remember trying to use logic at times, just to see the deer in the headlights look or the disgust look of your wasting my time. But, you march through – because they will grow up and need to be able to do the right things. Emotional seemed to really work! Never really got much pushback on any reward system. Cooperative on the other hand, difficult to practice on the wee little ones. When you can include them, it definitely makes for some solid shaping of the young adults that they could become. I think this example also translates to influencing at work as well. I think I learned the honed the skills in the workplace - than applied them when my children were born. For me, I don’t think I can ever stop learning how to do this better, the situation and the people are changing every time.

There are many ways to educate, learn and practice concepts. If you have kids you probably use this technique – show what is the wrong in the situation with potential  consequences – in hopes of teaching what should be done.  Well, below I have taken 9 practices that I have witnessed over the past 25+ years (here at current employer, my military experience and outside activities – coaching). Why 9? Nine is my favorite number – there are probably more, many more… 

1. Never value your journey as a success.

People who consider the achievement of the ultimate goal as the only possible way to achieve success are perfect prospects to never be good leaders. A successful leader is one that is driven to accomplish their vision. Those small wins along the way – are not a true measure of success. It truly is the journey. 

2. Never delegate.

Successful leaders know how to delegate. Want to suck at leadership – don’t delegate anything.   If you try to do everything by yourself, you’ll end up with so much unimportant details that you won’t have any time or energy to dedicate to the really significant stuff such as…being a leader instead of a task administrator. When I first was promoted to leader of a team – I struggled a bit with this one. Letting go can be a scary thought, especially when the responsibility is yours.  

3. Never point out anything positive about the people who surround you.

It is far easier to point out the negative than the positives, especially within our Intel culture . Fact is, a faster way to destroying relationships is to not only withhold compliments, but express negative comments about those who surround you. When I sit with other leaders, and hear them talk about their team members – and they express the negatives, it sheds some light on some of the problems that maybe causing that team to perform well.

4. Never consider leadership as a means.

Those who most frequently fail at leadership are those who see it as a material object to be attained, instead of a means to attain something that is meaningful to society or a part of it. Successful leaders, on the other hand, get to practice leadership because they want to express themselves and their vision. They aren’t leaders just for the sake of being leaders. In my experience, when I am discussing career planning with an employee, they want to be a manager, leader (or that promotion). When I ask why they want to become one – the majority of the time it is money and fame driven. Yes, that helps pay the bills, but there has to be a better reason. 

5. Never think of leadership as a way to serve others.

This is a very important message to those who want to fail as leaders: just serve yourself. Become a leader out of mere self-interest and you’ll be well on your way to being a perfect failure as a leader. Great leaders have a purpose that is greater than themselves. It is always easier to think and worry about # 1, but what about the other 10+ folks.

6. Leave a trail of broken bodies on the way to the top.

This is another great way to destroy your chances of failure. When you get to the “top”, just start taking those “beneath” you for granted. When you come crashing down in the future, nobody will be there to help you up, since you destroyed all those meaningful relationships with people who are now on “top” of you. We all have seen a few folks that have left a trail of broken bodies on their way to the top – they will fall – eventually.

7. Never read or learn, just think you now everything.

Great leaders don’t stop learning. They read every type of book they can get their hands on, and take a critical point of view toward them, which will help them when analyzing real-world situations. With the many blogs and forums – the learning can take on a new method, rather than books. It is amazing how much you can learn. Add, micro-blogging, the contacts you can touch base with have increased significantly. 

8. Never mold your own environment.

If you want to do everything in your power to suck at leadership, let circumstances and your environment mold you . Truly successful leaders are those who see something they don’t like and strive to change it. They aren’t bogged down by petty day-to-day events. They go out and create their own set of favorable circumstances instead of letting the likes and wants of others destroy their visions.

9. Never fail.

This may be the most important principle to follow in your quest to leadership insignificance. True leaders come to see failures and mistakes as learning vehicles. If you want to stay stuck at where you are right now, then don’t do anything differently. Don’t risk failing, since it will only bring you unlimited opportunities, and someone who would never want to be a leader would never want that. Early on in my career, one of my managers, stressed to me that there is success in failure. If you will learn much more from your failures than your successes.

Have you seen some or all of these?

Over the years, this question sometimes comes up – does coaching a sports team and managing a work team the same? I have coached for well over 18 years in both ice hockey and softball. I have been a supervisor/management for well over 27+ years. My simplest answer is yes; I see many similarities in both.

The management task cycle that I like to use is very simple (nothing to far out there):

• Making goals clear and important
• Planning and problem solving
• Facilitating the work of others
• Obtaining and providing feedback
• Exercising positive control
• Reinforcing positive control 

Making goals clear and important – The first step in managing is to be sure that everyone understands what you are trying to accomplish. At the beginning of every season, I sit down with the players (and parents for youth sports) and we go over our goals and key important factors for the upcoming season. Within a work setting, I will get a new team or program and I also attempt to work out what our goals and key important factors are. This is the foundation to getting the team to focus on a common goal.

Planning and problem solving – once we have goals that are clear and important – we must develop plans to achieve them. With my sports teams this comes down to our schedule of practices, games, practices plans and having guest specialty coaches attend when necessary. With my work teams – we use tools and processes that are given to use – and focus on what is really important and plan it out to completion. With regular reviews of how we are doing each month. A bit extreme compared to my sports teams – but then again – work is not like a game. Sometimes you just can not lose a little bit of focus.

Facilitating the work of others - once the plan is in place, as a manager/coach I have to then support my team so that they can get their work done and achieve their goals. From my sports teams perspective, I have them learn a skill or set play and we practice it over and over until we can do it in our sleep. Within the work environment – you don’t get to drill it into each team member till it becomes a force of habit, but close.

Obtaining and providing feedback – this is key to insuring that the plan and actions are going accordingly to the goals we have set forth. Feedback is critical. From a sports team standpoint, we have the immediate feedback of a win or a lose. Each player gets feedback on what they did in the game from a results standpoint. As a coach on the bench, we provide feedback to players and team – during timeouts, change of personal or from the bench – as needed. With the work team we have 1:1′s, project reviews, staff meetings, email and many other avenues to provide feedback (it all comes down to using the right method for the right result).

Exercising positive control - this skill is centered around keeping the work efforts in the team moving toward the established goals. Exercising this control gets into establishing and meeting deadlines (timeliness), control of the details, goal pressure and delegation. Within my sports teams, I have had to learn to break away from what I grew up watching – extremely negative coaches pushing players to the brink of being pissed off to perform well. Today, I use much of what I do at work to help me with my hockey team. I make sure that the control of details are shared, the pressure to perform does not outweigh the having fun factor but remaining firm and positive at the same time. We all know that many managers that do not perform well within this skill are those that we can identify quickly. This skill is something that is learned over time with trial and error (and depends on the maturity level of the team).

Lastly – Reinforcing good performance - when the task is completed appreciation must be expressed. Recognize the good work that has been done. With any sports team – after the game is a good way to recognize the performance of the team, individuals and improvements made. Of course after a loss, there may not be as much of a celebration but in every game there are positives to build on. With my work teams, the immediate results don’t really happen, but we do use our project reviews as a way to reinforce good performance.

Since this is my first real post, please provide me any feedback!